Brazil seeks to fight police violence with body cams & More News Here

Issued on: 11/05/2022 – 19:56

Brazil has one of many worst police violence issues on the planet: final 12 months, greater than 6,100 civilians died in police operations and 183 officers have been killed, in accordance to figures from watchdog group The Violence Monitor.

In a rustic the place shootouts involving legislation enforcement and closely armed drug gangs are common occurrences within the favelas, or slums, police additionally face frequent accusations of abuses and indiscriminate violence.

But officers are hardly ever held to account over the usage of power, in accordance to Cesar Munoz, senior researcher for Brazil at Human Rights Watch.

“Whenever the police are involved in a shootout and someone dies, the standard line is, ‘We were on patrol, they attacked us, we responded and the attackers died,’” he instructed AFP.

“Body cams could be a useful way to both document the police’s actions and protect them from unfounded accusations.”

Typically round eight by six centimeters (three by two-and-a-half inches), the digital cameras are hooked up to the entrance of officers’ uniforms.

They have delivered encouraging leads to states the place they’re already in use in Brazil, equivalent to Sao Paulo within the southeast and Santa Catarina within the south.

According to official figures, violent incidents fell by 87 p.c amongst models utilizing body cams in Sao Paulo, which carried out the measure final 12 months, alongside with different adjustments, equivalent to the usage of non-lethal weapons.

In Santa Catarina, educational analysis discovered the cameras have been accountable for decreasing the usage of power by police by greater than 60 p.c since 2019.

The cameras are additionally credited with serving to police present extra correct accounts of incidents equivalent to home violence.

‘Piecing collectively a puzzle’

Rio plans to begin rolling out round 8,000 of the cameras on patrols in areas starting from upscale seashore neighborhood Copacabana to the favelas of Mare and Jacarezinho, state police mentioned.

Jacarezinho was the scene of the bloodiest police shootout within the metropolis’s historical past in May final 12 months when a large anti-drug trafficking operation ended with 27 alleged suspects and one policeman lifeless.

Body cams “would have helped determine what happened” in quite a few deaths that day, prosecutor Andre Cardoso, the lead investigator on the case, instructed information website G1.

As issues stand, a lot of the killings stay unresolved. Just 4 police and two alleged drug traffickers face costs.

“When you search for evidence, you’re trying to piece together a puzzle, reconstruct the situation. With video footage, you don’t need anything else,” Cardoso mentioned, calling the cameras “indispensable.”

Body cams might additionally assist maintain police to account over different accusations they face in Jacarezinho, equivalent to invading individuals’s houses and stealing from them — as one resident documented with a hidden digicam.

But “cameras aren’t a panacea,” warned Munoz.

“They have to be part of a broader policy” that features extra coaching, psychological assist for officers and actually unbiased investigations, he mentioned.

Unanswered questions

Body cams are already extensively used within the Americas, together with in Canada, many components of the United States, Mexico and Chile.

Their success in Brazil will depend upon how they’re used, mentioned Melina Risso, analysis director on the Igarape Institute, a public safety suppose tank.

“Will the camera automatically film 24 hours a day, or does it have to be turned on? Who supervises the recording? How long are the images stored? What is the chain of custody? How will officers’ privacy and that of others be protected?” she mentioned.

In Sao Paulo, a low-quality recording with no sound is taken all through officers’ shifts; they’re instructed to activate a second, higher-quality recording at any time when they reply to an incident.

Rio state police instructed AFP their cameras would report robotically, with the pictures archived for round 90 days.

They mentioned protocols on the cameras could be adjusted as mandatory over time.

© 2022 AFP

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