80 Percent of Chicago PD Dashcams Suffering From 'Accidental' Sabotage

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? When it comes to police and their dashcams, the answer appears to be “nobody, due to suspicious technical problems.”

Last Friday, the Washington Post released a scathing indictment of the Chicago Police Department and its officers’ intentional sabotage of their dashcam equipment.

The same department is already under siege from all quarters. Homicides are soaring by 75 percent year-over-year in 2016, senior officials are leaving in droves, and a recent report has shown that a minor group of “untouchable” policemen is responsible for over $34M in settlements since 2009.

My personal experience as a former competitive shooter who knew plenty of police officers back in the day indicates that when cops feel they are under pressure, they either stop doing their jobs or they adopt a fortress-city mentality.

In Baltimore, the former has obviously happened; allegations that officers are “standing down” as the city experiences a post-Freddie-Gray murder spree are being thrown and denied with equal vehemence. In Chicago, by contrast, the police appear to be hunkering down and attempting to do what they feel is their core mission despite what they feel to be intrusive and Pollyanna-esque civilian oversight.

The sabotage of dashcams, in particular the sabotage of microphones and audio recording equipment connected to those dashcams, has become the norm, not the exception, in Chicago. Yet, as the Post points out, it’s not a phenomenon that’s limited to Rahm’s Murder City USA. In one particularly egregious case, a Maryland county claimed that all seven of its dashcams on scene at one incident had simultaneously malfunctioned.

Nobody but a child or an idiot could believe that police officers across the country are not sabotaging their recording equipment. It’s also plain as day that they are going to continue to get away with it. Yet even the most fervent cop-hating nutjob in America (raises hand) has to wonder just how much longer this country’s urban elite is going to demand that cops treat their suspects with the same courtesy given by Kimpton to its guests and clutch its pearls about violent crime that is rapidly returning to ’70s levels of mayhem. You can’t have both, ultra-progressive protestations to the contrary and Bill deBlasio’s mewling feel-good soporifics notwithstanding.

Eventually, someone will come up with a sealed dashcam box that streams to the cloud and immediately snitches to a higher authority when it can’t see and hear everything it needs to. In the meantime, some departments are using dashcams to “humanize” public perceptions of officers. Other departments are promoting abusive officers despite clear evidence of their violent mania. Which raises the question: Why disable the dashcam, if you won’t be punished for anything it shows?

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Seanx37 Seanx37 on Feb 03, 2016

    I am shocked. Who the hell are those 20 percent that didn't break the cameras? How do they function in Chicago?

  • Don1967 Don1967 on Feb 03, 2016

    Is it really so surprising, after all the kangaroo-court video clips uploaded to Youtube, that some cops might go to extreme lengths to avoid being captured on film as they perform a job which requires them to use physical force and make quick life-or-death decisions? Not endorsing sabotage of taxpayer-funded equipment, nor am I defending bad cops who seek to cover up their actions. Just sayin' that there are many good cops with a legitimate reason to fear the camera, and this needs to be addressed if we expect them to do their jobs.

  • Kwik_Shift Hyunkia'sis doing what they do best...subverting expectations of quality.
  • MaintenanceCosts People who don't use the parking brake when they walk away from the car deserve to have the car roll into a river.
  • 3-On-The-Tree I’m sure they are good vehicles but you can’t base that on who is buying them. Land Rovers, Bentley’ are bought by Robin Leaches’s “The Rich and Famous” but they have terrible reliability.
  • SCE to AUX The fix sounds like a bandaid. Kia's not going to address the defective shaft assemblies because it's hard and expensive - not cool.
  • Analoggrotto I am sick and tired of every little Hyundai Kia Genesis flaw being blown out of proportion. Why doesn't TTAC talk about the Tundra iForce Max problems, Toyota V35A engine problems or the Lexus 500H Hybrid problems? Here's why: education. Most of America is illiterate, as are the people who bash Hyundai Kia Genesis. Surveys conducted by credible sources have observed a high concentration of Hyundai Kia Genesis models at elite ivy league universities, you know those places where students earn degrees which earn more than $100K per year? Get with the program TTAC.
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