The Eric Garner Case Is Not an Argument Against Police Body Cameras

​Eric Garner got choked by a New York City police officer in broad daylight and died. The officer walked free. We know this, because there's video of it.

Some are now using the fact that the officer walked free as evidence that police body cameras don't work, and that President Obama's request for $263 million in funding for police body cameras and training is potentially wasted money.

"The Eric Garner Case Weakens the Argument for Police Body Cameras," Businessweek argues; over at the Atlantic, Uri Friedman piles on the evidence that body cameras are an unproven technology and not a cure-all; The Washington Post suggests that "With Eric Garner, Obama's Body Camera Argument Just Took a Big Hit."

The lack of indictment in the Garner case doesn't fundamentally change the police body camera argument, and shouldn't be used as an argument for or against body cameras one way or another.

Yes, Garner was killed by a cop and it's there on tape. Yes, the cop walked free. Garner's case is an absolute tragedy and it's horrifying and it's another data point in the sad state of racial and cop-civilian relations in America.

Friedman is right: Body cameras are not a cure-all, and they don't treat the underlying problem of police brutality or power tripping. But, well, they're better than nothing, and they're a good first step toward creating a culture where cops think before they act.

The main thrust of the argument behind police body cameras has never been the idea that video evidence can be used to convict a cop of murder in court or even that they can be used as evidence at all. Instead, body cameras create an environment where police intrinsically know they are being watched, that there's at least the possibility that they'll be held accountable for their actions.

"We anticipated that the videotaped interactions will experience fewer incidents of use of force, because of the fundamental tendency of rational-beings to exhibit more desirable behaviors when they know under surveillance, particularly in scenarios that require them to follow rules," a Police Foundation study into the use of body cameras in Rialto, California suggested. "When we become aware that a video-camera is recording our actions, we also become self-conscious that unacceptable behaviors are likely to be captured on film, and the perceived certainty of punishment is at its highest."

That study was called "Self-awareness to being watched and socially-desirable behavior." At no point in the study did it suggest that the explicit reason for body cameras was to use them to convict police officers. Instead, it was to slowly change their behavior altogether.

Watching the video of Garner's death, it'd be hard to suggest that Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who killed him, didn't know he was being filmed by a witness's cell phone. But, well, maybe he didn't.

And, for police behavior to actually change, the full implications of what it means to be filmed needs to be hammered home. A third-party throwing a camera into a situation as it's happening isn't the same as having, say, a training session where cops are told what's at stake.

With body cameras, police know there's at least the facade that they're being held accountable. It's always in the back of their minds that their video files can be pulled up by their supervisors. The tech is standardized, and it's on, all of the time.

The main argument for police body cameras comes from Rialto, where the use of force by police officers declined 60 percent in the first year after they had to start wearing them and citizen complaints against police fell 88 percent.

There are arguments against body cameras, sure—privacy not least among them. But one case does not make or break a technology.

Holding cops accountable when they beat up on citizens or are otherwise acting above the law isn't the only goal here. We're also trying to stop them from beating up on and killing people in the first place (and it goes both ways—cameras can also be used to verify cops' good behavior if someone falsely claims harassment). In trying to accomplish that, it seems like a $263 million federal government gamble is worth at least a shot in a country where we give police departments $18 million helicopters, landmine-resistant tanks, and $2.4 million fridges.