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Tag: police body cameras

  • Report shows rocky body camera rollout for Denver deputies

    Report shows rocky body camera rollout for Denver deputies

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    DENVER — A new report shows Denver Sheriff Department (DSD) deputies ran into big problems amid their body camera rollout last year.

    While many law enforcement agencies were required under state law to issue body cameras to their officers, as part of a state law passed in 2020, DSD wasn’t required to.

    The state law exempted jail deputies if they worked in a facility already equipped with video cameras.

    But Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins said his department voluntarily issued body cameras to its deputies as a way to increase transparency.

    “We voluntarily wanted to implement body-worn cameras,” said Diggins. “I personally believe that it is the best technology that has been introduced to law enforcement in the 30 years that I have been with the Sheriff’s Department.”

    As head of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board, Julia Richman’s job is to help hold the city’s law enforcement agencies accountable.

    She says body cameras are one way to do that.

    “Body cams don’t change the behavior of deputies or officers, but they do provide a tool for the public to get firsthand insight with their own eyes into the behavior of commissioned officers in a city,” said Richman.

    But a report from the Office of the Independent Monitor, the city’s civilian oversight agency, shows DSD deputies didn’t follow department policy when it came to their body cams.

    “Unfortunately, the expectations, the training clarity around sort of the process for rolling these out was not particularly good,” said Richman.

    The independent monitor says there was a 268 percent increase in internal complaints at DSD from 2022 to 2023.

    The report said this was largely driven by deputies reporting other deputies for violating the department’s body camera policy.

    “So maybe a manager or a leader of a group had asked a deputy to turn on the camera or noticed that a deputy didn’t have a camera on their body,” Richman explained.

    Denver7 asked Diggins why his department had so many problems.

    “There was a period of time where deputies had to get used to wearing this brand-new technology in our environment,” Diggins said. “I call it the learning curve that comes with introducing something like this.”

    Report shows rocky body camera rollout for Denver deputies

    Diggins said his jail deputies must turn on their body cameras more often than officers patrolling the streets.

    “Activating their body-worn camera is higher than a police officer or a sheriff’s deputy on the street. Meaning they have a lot more interactions with people that require the launching of the body-worn camera,” said Diggins.

    Despite the hiccups with the rollout, he says things have improved in recent months as deputies became more familiar with the rules.

    “Deputies are now used to wearing their body-worn cameras,” said Diggins. “I believe that they believe that it is a technology that helps them to explain what happens to them on a daily basis.”

    Richman agrees things have improved at DSD.

    She hopes things will keep moving in the right direction.

    “It remains to be seen how well that will go this year,” said Richman. “We’ll keep our eye out for that.”

     

    The Follow Up

    What do you want Denver7 to follow up on? Is there a story, topic or issue you want us to revisit? Let us know with the contact form below.

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    Brandon Richard

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  • Police Hold Black Family At Gunpoint After Typo Misidentifies Their Car As Stolen

    Police Hold Black Family At Gunpoint After Typo Misidentifies Their Car As Stolen

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    A police department in a suburb north of Dallas pulled over a Black family visiting from Little Rock, Arkansas, incorrectly believing that they were in a stolen car, according to harrowing body camera footage released Saturday.

    On July 23, a Frisco police officer identified as V. McQueen in the body camera footage incorrectly entered the license plate of the family’s black Dodge Charger, which police began tracking as it left a hotel parking lot.

    The car drew their attention, the Frisco Police Department said, because it had out-of-state plates and because Chargers were high-theft vehicles, according to WFAA-TV in Dallas. That led to what the police described as a “high-risk traffic stop” on the Dallas North Tollway.

    Though no one was physically hurt, the bodycam footage captured emotional moments as the family faced a life-threatening, “traumatizing” confrontation.

    With guns drawn, the police first ordered the driver, a 28-year-old woman who identified herself as a nurse, to get out of the vehicle.

    “What did I do?” she asked Officer McQueen while crying. “I’ve never been in trouble a day in my life. This is scaring the hell out of me.”

    There were three other people in the car: her husband, her son and her nephew. Their names were not publicly released. The two boys were 12 and 13 years old, NBC News reported.

    The family also had a registered concealed handgun locked in the glove compartment, the woman and her husband told police.

    After ordering the driver out of the car, police ordered her son out next. The officers had their guns pointed at the car as well as at the woman and one of the children as they were forced to get out of the car and walk toward the police and face backward with their hands in the air.

    Soon after, they placed the son in handcuffs and into one of the police vehicles while the woman talked to McQueen.

    “Is he in cuffs? Please don’t let them do nothing to my baby. This is very traumatizing,” the driver pleaded.

    From inside the car, the man was heard pleading with police officers.

    “Listen, bro, we just here for a basketball tournament,” he said. “Don’t do this to my son, bro.”

    He identified himself as a basketball coach for a team his nephew and son played on.

    Partially through the stop, McQueen realized she made an error, accidentally running the license plate of the car as one from Arizona (AZ) rather than Arkansas (AR). At that point, the officers stopped aiming their guns at the family. McQueen then admitted the error to the family while the other police officers were gathered around. McQueen and some of the officers can be heard apologizing.

    “This is all my fault. I apologize for this. I know it was very traumatic for you and your nephew and your son. And like I said, it’s on me. There are consequences that come with that,” McQueen told the woman.

    One officer is even seen trying to comfort one of the boys — putting his arm around him after the incident.

    “No one ever gets hurt when they cooperate,” another officer said in the video.

    The husband then became emotional.

    “It could’ve went all wrong for us, though,” he can be heard saying. “If I would’ve went to reach for my phone, we could’ve all got killed.”

    In a July 28 press release, the police department acknowledged the mistake and said they’d investigate the incident.

    “We made a mistake,” Frisco Police Chief David Shilson said in the news release. “Our department will not hide from its mistakes. Instead, we will learn from them.”

    “I empathize with them and completely understand why they’re upset. I apologized on behalf of our department and assured them that we will hold ourselves accountable and provide transparency through the process. This incident does not reflect the high standard of service that our officers provide on a daily basis to our residents, businesses and visitors,” Shilson said.

    The Frisco Police Department declined HuffPost’s request for comment.

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