Chicago police have been sabotaging their own dashcams for years, apparently so as not to capture evidence of official criminality. Case in point: five police cars were on the scene when Laquan McDonald was gunned down by Officer Jason Van Dyke, but only two had functioning dashcams. None of the five captured audio, which must be easier to disable. If it’s that easy to disable these monitoring devices designed to provide accountability, how easily will it be for a cop to “disable” a bodycam during an altercation that the officer would rather leave no damning evidence? “Body cameras for every cop!” was the declaration from on high after the Ferguson protests, but it now sounds more and more that “police accountability” is going to turn into another cash cow for some lucky contractor. Just look at the Taser industry. Oh, Taser International nabbed the lucrative bodycam contract for 22,000 London officers in November of last year.
