Chicago police intentionally breaking cruiser dash cams

[tencats]

Thursday 28 January

Maintenance records reveal that Chicago police officers have been involved in routine destruction and sabotage of dashboard cameras and microphones

The microphone equipment for the dashboard camera in the cruiser in which Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was riding on the night he fatally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald had been “intentionally destroyed”, according to maintenance documents first acquired by DNAinfo.

The records, which include service requests on hundreds of Chicago police vehicles, show that officers have routinely been involved in the intentional destruction and sabotage of body-worn microphones that sync with dashboard camera video.

After the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting was released in November, it was discovered that as much as 80% of the department’s dash cam footage was missing audio. This was determined to be due to technical failure, human error or in some cases, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, “intentional destruction”.

William Calloway, a Chicago activist who was instrumental in obtaining the release of the Laquan McDonald footage, said the logs proved a premeditated effort by officers to avoid transparency.

“They are intentionally sabotaging this audio equipment because in their mind, they’re going to do something wrong or reckless when they’re outside on the beat,” Calloway said.

He added that he was “absolutely not shocked or surprised about it at all”.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/28/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-jason-van-dyke-dashcam-mic-destroyed-chicago-police

[randys1]

1. Anyone caught doing this should be fired immediately.

[tencats]

4. Almost impossible to fire a cop thanks to FOP police union contract

Good article here to read about the problem with Chicago's police contract and why a cop can't be fired for anything but the most egregious conduct.

Chicago Police Contract Protections

The Fraternal Order of Police contract with the city shapes how Chicago handles police misconduct allegations, disciplines rank-and-file officers, as well as when the city pays legal costs for police officers accused of wrongdoing. While activists have long called for changes to the contract, many people in local government have not been eager to take on that fight—until now.

With cries of reform ringing louder than before and a federal investigation of the police department, aldermen are demanding changes to a union contract that breezed through the City Council in 2014.

"We have to be able to get rid of bad police officers," Brookins said. "Maybe that's something we shouldn't have to bargain for."

The union contends that changes to the contract would discourage people from becoming cops.

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q=chicago+cops+"can't+be+fired"

[Octafish]

2. Isn't that criminal?

Destruction of property.

[lostnfound]

5. Destruction of government property. Yep. Nt

[nichomachus]

3. Couldn't see that coming. No, siree, not at all. nt