In the mid-2010s, police body cameras began to become mainstream in the US, with nearly half of police departments adopting them in 2016. But the technology came with a steep learning curve for the officers involved. The police started getting caught planting drugs through their own cameras. And it all happened because they didn’t understand how body cams work.

The frenzy of police being caught on camera while planting drugs was relatively short-lived, with a series of cases from 2016 to 2018. But it may be worth revisiting this unique period in recent American history as we discuss whether federal agents should be wearing body cams as they terrorize Minnesota communities.

This feels particularly important because the US Department of Homeland Security has often gone unpunished regarding incidents where its officers shoot and kill people, even though the incidents have been caught on video from sometimes half a dozen angles.

Why were the police arrested in 2017?

The most frequent reason police officers were caught on their own body cameras in the mid-2010s was that the police did not understand when the camera would start recording.

The cameras work by constantly recording even before the “record” button is pressed, periodically deleting any footage that was accidentally recorded. When the “record” button is pressed by the official, it takes 30 seconds HISTORY the button is pressed, thanks to this method of constant standby.

But it is difficult to understand the concept of the police. They were not properly trained in the fact that their own cameras did not start recording the moment they pressed recording. Hitting that button also saved 30 seconds before, a neat feature that bit them in the ass.

Police plant drugs in Baltimore (Jan. 2017)

That Nov. 2017, footage was released showing a Baltimore Police Department officer searching through trash in a backyard and finding a bag of heroin hidden in a soup can. The footage is from January 24 of that year, and just thirty seconds before the officer found it, the video from the same body camera shows the police planting the drugs.

The officer, identified as Richard Pinheiro, returned after a while as if he had just caught him. And all this was caught on his own camera. But not fast enough. Man wrongly hit on heroin-related charges spends six months in jail.

According to a NBC reports Since then, the Baltimore Police Department has one of the largest body cam programs in the country. They were billed as a way to increase transparency after the death of Freddie Gray in 2015 after which he continued. fatal wounds from the Baltimore police while being driven into a police van.

Richard Pinheiro was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of tampering with evidence in 2018 and received a three-year suspended sentence and two years of supervised probation, according to Baltimore Sun.

Pinheiro’s 2017 drug planting incident and subsequent media publicity prompted a review of more than 100 cases in Baltimore. And that review showed another incident in clear daylight from a police officer’s own body camera. Surprisingly, the incident is even older.

Cops plant drugs in Baltimore. Again. (Nov. 2016)

An initial review of the footage brought to light an incident from November 2016 in which several different officers from Baltimore planted drugs in a vehicle.

An initial search of the vehicle did not turn up any drugs. But the officers turned off their body cams, and when one of them turned the camera back on, the crouching drug-planting officer didn’t know they were being filmed.

CBS Morning reported that it was about 30 seconds before they “found” the drugs, another indication that the officer did not know when to save the recorded footage.

Police plant drugs in Los Angeles (April 2017)

In Los Angeles, another incident happened in April 2017, where a police officer was seen planting drugs.

CBS 2 in LA reported that the officer took cocaine and placed it in a suspect’s wallet. The news outlet explained: “After allegedly placing the drugs in the purse, the LAPD officer appears to have activated his camera’s recording. But the last 30 seconds were automatically saved.”

Again, it appears that the police in 2017 just don’t understand how their technology works.

The Florida cop who tried to trick his camera (2017-18)

Not all cops who plant drugs these days don’t know how their cameras work. Some of them tried to trick their own cameras and still got caught.

Florida sheriff’s deputy Zachary Wester was sentenced 12 years imprisonment in 2021 after being convicted of planting drugs by suspects in 2017 and 2018. Wester used many tactics to hide the fact that he was planting drugs, including twisting his body in ways that obscured the camera, such as one time when he pushed his chest on the car seat to cover it while he was planting drugs.

In one of the most revealing videos showing how he planted drugs, Wester can be seen with a baggie of meth in his palm, however quicklywhile looking for a woman’s truck. Wester pulled over Teresa Odom for a defective brake light in February 2018, and Odom agreed to search her vehicle. The bodycam pointed to when he actually released the drugs, and Odom flatly denied the drugs were his when confronted with the “evidence.”

Odom ended up pleading no contest to the drug charge and received four years of probation. It is common for innocent defendants to plead guilty or no contest out of fear that they will receive harsher sentences if they maintain their innocence.

Wester, who is accused of planting drugs in at least a dozen cars, would turn off his body cam to hide his crimes. And that seems to be becoming more common in the coming years.

Growing marijuana in New York? (March 2018)

In 2018, it seems that cases where officers are accused of planting drugs are more difficult to prosecute because the police often turn off their cameras in the middle of a search.

An officer in Staten Island, New York, was accused of planting drugs in incidents from 2018, as the Intercept reported in 2020. The New York Times described the video as “not conclusive” because one of the officers, Kyle Erickson, turned off his camera in the middle of the stop.

And that comes down to one of the main criticisms of body cameras and their use here in the 2020s. The police all know that pushing the button means their previous actions from at least 30 seconds earlier will be recorded. And if they want to just turn off the camera or hide it somehow, that’s always an option too.

Democrats want ICE to wear body cams

Democratic leadership in Congress is now trying to negotiate a deal with Republicans for DHS funding. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer has presents a list That includes requests that ICE and other federal agents not wear masks (except in special circumstances) and wear body cameras.

But DHS preemptively said it is deploying body cams in Minnesota as it continues to annex the state and terrorize its residents in the name of “immigration enforcement.” And it’s probably a bad sign if DHS goes ahead and does the thing Democrats are asking for without real pressure.

DHS will be more than happy to wear cameras because they know that video will never do justice to the victims of this evil agency. The agent who shot Renee Good in Minneapolis last month recorded the killing with his own cameraphone and leaked the footage to a right wing outlet. And the killing of Alex Pretti, shortly after Good’s death, was captured from many angles.

There is reportedly body camera footage from the officers involved in Pretti’s death. The catch? DHS has not released that video, and there is no requirement for the agency to do so. It really doesn’t matter if you get the cops to wear body cams if they have the power over what’s being released. Obviously, the Trump regime will distribute any potentially exculpatory footage and withhold any potentially damaging footage. That’s a problem that a few small policy changes won’t solve.