“What are you doing in my f?!@#g house?”—a behind-the-lens look at body cameras

SAN LEANDRO, Calif.—All I knew was that somebody called in a local disturbance—a local barbecue had apparently gotten a little too loud. I tapped twice to activate my body-worn camera, which hung from the middle of my chest. I listened for the beep to indicate that it was recording and started walking.

A moment later, I was face-to-face with a man who seemingly would not shut up.

"Hello, how are you sir?" I said, trying to be authoritative, friendly, and cop-like.

"I'm OK, my neighbors are down the street, and they're barbecuing all the time, and the smoke is coming over my house and stuff. Isn't that like an EPA violation or something like that? It's really weird."

"Which neighbors are we talking about sir?" I asked.

"A couple doors down. They're always barbecuing and partying and they got a lot of loud music and their dogs are barking. And there's people parking their cars. And they park in front of my house. And that's my spot in front of my house. That's my spot. I pay my taxes here."

"I understand that," I replied.

"And the smoke comes over my house and I think it affects my health, and I don't know, I might need a paramedic or something, because I think I inhaled some of their barbecue smoke or something. Those things for charcoal briquettes, oh my god, those things you can smell them for blocks away. Especially when they're barbecuing tri-tip and hot dogs and steaks and everything. And I just don't know. I called you because I don't know what else to do."

The man wasn’t menacing. Frankly, I didn’t know what to do with him. Wearing a paintball-style helmet, a Kevlar police vest, a Simunition sidearm (loaded with paintball-style "bullets"), and a Taser Axon body-worn camera in the center of my chest, I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted me to do for him either...

Obviously, I am not a trained officer—though in this situation, I was outfitted like one. In light of all the high-profile policing incidents from Ferguson to Charleston, interactions like the (dramatized) one above have gained an increased foothold in our collective consciousness. In response, nearly every day another police department somewhere in America is exploring, deploying, or expanding its use of body-worn cameras. Recently, federal dollars went to agencies both big (Los Angeles) and small (Village of Spring Valley, New York), and agencies ranging from Grand Forks to Boston have been rapidly implementing these new technologies and data.

"I think what we are witnessing is a change in the paradigm of policing," Russell Covey, a law professor at Georgia State University, told Ars. "[It's] similar to what we saw in the '50s when police moved from foot patrols to squad car. We’re now seeing the advent of the big data era. This is the future of policing."

In short, 2015 quickly became the year of the body camera. And within the next couple of years, body-worn cameras are likely to be as commonplace as radios and sidearms. To better understand this new reality, we decided to experience it firsthand.

Out of my element

As an aside, I knew I'd be OK. My San Leandro Police (SLPD) handler told me up front that I wouldn't be shot at during this demo we arranged. My handler, a sergeant, simply gave me the gear and instructed me to take whatever action I felt was appropriate.

Back to the demonstration, something unexpected happened as soon as I stopped chatting with the barbecue neighbor. Suddenly a man leapt out from behind a board a few feet away. He shouted something at me and bolted to the door about three steps to his right, gone in a flash. My instinct was to tear off after him, but before I’d taken two steps, I felt an arm across my chest.

"Simulation’s over, cease fire," the sergeant said.

I stopped. The running man came back inside, too, and smiled. Everyone took off their helmets inside the abandoned office lobby where my demo took place. Just a few steps away was an inexplicably large collection of Country Time powdered lemonade; a handful of scattered boxes were strewn about.

"What’d you see? What’d you do?" the sergeant asked. (The sergeant and the officer who played the part of the runner were part of the San Leandro Police Department’s plainclothes squad. Both asked to be kept anonymous to protect their day jobs.)

My debrief began immediately in the same spot where the training exercise ended. The chatty character, whom they dubbed "Jibber Jabber," was played by the department’s spokesman, Lt. Robert McManus. (While the department would allow me to view the footage as many times as needed and describe it, policy prevents the SLPD from releasing it to the public.)

I explained the situation the best I could. I was sent to respond to a possible dispute over a barbecue, and then I met a man who talked to me for a few minutes. The guy seemed to be overly concerned with smoke.

"Then what?"

After that conversation, a dude popped up out of nowhere and ran straight out the door. My gut reaction was to reach for my sidearm and chase. The sergeant began peppering me with questions: "What did he look like? What race was he? What color were his pants? His shirt?"

I didn’t know anything beyond a high-visibility vest the man was wearing.

"Was he carrying anything?"

I thought so but wasn’t sure.

"What hand?"

Left hand, but again, I couldn’t be certain.

This was the entire point. A suspicious activity—someone suddenly running down the street—can happen in a flash. But luckily what I couldn’t remember with my own gray matter was captured by the camera clipped to my flak jacket. When we reviewed the body-camera footage later, I could clearly see that he wore a blue shirt, black pants, and black shoes with red shoelaces. The sergeant noted that while criminal suspects often shed clothing as they try to flee, it’s extremely rare that they shed their footwear. Sometimes a suspect can be located nearby if another detail-oriented officer can spot the same shoes.

When the sergeant and I sat at his computer to further review the footage later on, I could see exactly what the bodycam's fish-eye 12mm lens captures. Some have likened it to "looking through a straw," but the camera does a decent job of capturing what the officer sees. In fact, it also captures audio for several feet nearby. In a tense situation where adrenaline kicks in and tunnel vision occurs—"ocular occlusion," as my SLPD contacts told me—the camera can easily help an officer discover what he or she missed in the moment. (Though after reviewing my tape, naturally this rookie cop let Jibber Jabber block his view. I couldn't clearly see the man's head even upon repeated frame-by-frame viewings.)

Lt. McManus explained that normal incidents are kept for 90 days, while "critical incidents" involving use of force are kept for a year or longer if an investigation or legal case is ongoing. In the latter case, an officer’s camera is taken from him or her, then the officer gives a statement to a supervisor. The supervisor reviews the footage and allows the officer to revise the statement if needed. So if I was a police officer, for example, my footage would be extremely valuable to not only explain my actions but to be used as part of a further investigation. A still image from the footage could quickly become part of a "Wanted" poster or be matched up with other crimes.

In this case, lesson learned: the body-worn camera significantly helped an untrained would-be cop who couldn’t have given a terribly useful description of a fleeing suspect otherwise.