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00:01Oh
00:31Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Last Week Tonight.
00:34I'm John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:36It has been a busy week, and I mean really busy.
00:39Trump, against zero odds, delivered the longest
00:42state of the union in history.
00:43The US and Israel attacked Iran, with Israeli officials
00:46claiming they've killed Ayatollah Khamenei.
00:48And look, we are taping this on Saturday,
00:51so who the fuck knows what's happened
00:53by the time you see this?
00:54Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Clintons testified
00:56about their connection to Jeffrey Epstein,
00:58and it turns out, we might be getting a new business, daddy.
01:02Netflix has backed out of its bid
01:04to buy Warner Brothers Discovery,
01:06paving the way for rival Paramount Skydance to take over.
01:09Yeah, not great news.
01:12In fact, if I may quote anyone who's ever accidentally sat
01:15on their Roku remote, oh shit, I'm in Paramount now,
01:18how the fuck do I get out of this?
01:21Also, last Sunday, saw the US men's hockey team win gold,
01:25only for this to happen.
01:27A wild scene in the locker room,
01:29with FBI director Kash Patel even spotted celebrating
01:32with the team, appearing to chug a beer,
01:34before raising the bottle in the air,
01:36spraying it across the locker room.
01:47Yeah, that is the director of the FBI,
01:50looking like a little kid who won a prize for collecting
01:53the most canned goods, and got to go into the locker room.
01:56Also, for what it's worth, he didn't chug a beer,
01:59then spray it across the locker room.
02:00A successful chug would render the bottle unsprayable.
02:04Well, what he basically did there was drink a beer, weird,
02:06and then kind of fling his backwash around.
02:09Anyway, it was fun while it lasted,
02:11but it's official, hockey sucks dick now,
02:14and sadly, not in the hot way.
02:17Now, Patel's presence there was strange for a number of reasons,
02:21not least that his press office had insisted his trip to the Olympics
02:24was for work, trashing reports suggesting otherwise as false and garbage.
02:28But when his itinerary was released,
02:30it showed his four-day trip contained only several hours of work meetings
02:34and a handful of meet-and-greets,
02:36broken up by long segments of personal and leisure time,
02:39with his final day consisting of just the gold medal game,
02:41followed by his flight home.
02:42And look, nothing against going to Italy and getting a photo op.
02:45A couple of years back, every living comedian but me
02:48pulled that same move, and I hear they had a great time.
02:51But the work-to-play ratio seems a little off here,
02:54and this was just the latest instance
02:56of Patel seeming to use the FBI jet for personal trips,
02:59which is a little rich coming from him.
03:01Given just over two years ago,
03:02he sat down with Glenn Beck and complained
03:05about his predecessor's use of it like this.
03:07Chris Ray doesn't need a government-funded G5 jet
03:10to go to vacation.
03:11Maybe we ground that plane.
03:1315,000 every time it takes off.
03:16Just a thought.
03:17Okay, so first, let me address this man cave,
03:21because it has everything to hang out with the boys.
03:24A chalkboard, a typewriter in a box,
03:26a second camera in frame, and most crucially,
03:29three staggeringly different seating options.
03:32You might all be talking, but those pieces
03:34couldn't be less in conversation with each other.
03:37But more importantly, the FBI director
03:39is actually required by law to take the bureau's private plane,
03:42but crucially, if the travel is personal,
03:45they're required to reimburse the government,
03:47though only for the cost of a commercial flight.
03:49And Patel's been using the jet a lot since he took office
03:52to, among other things, go to an exclusive golf resort
03:55in Scotland for a getaway with friends,
03:56and to travel to a real American freestyle wrestling event
03:59where his girlfriend was performing the national anthem.
04:01He then flew to Texas to a resort
04:04literally called the Boondoggle Ranch,
04:07which would be bad enough even if it didn't happen
04:09during the government shutdown,
04:10and if he weren't hosted by a Republican megadonor named,
04:13and this is true, Bubba Salisbury.
04:16Which sounds like either the name of a baseball player from 1954
04:19who was also in the Klan, or a dinner special at Denny's.
04:24And when Patel and his country singer girlfriend
04:27went on a podcast with Katie Miller,
04:29who is Stephen Miller's, let me make sure I've got this right,
04:32wife?
04:33He offered up this not great defense.
04:36It's ironic that they're saying,
04:38oh, you're going on vacation,
04:40or you're going to see your girlfriend perform,
04:41and if I was actually abusing it,
04:44I would go see every one of her shows.
04:45I think I get to, like, 15%.
04:47Oh, so that's okay, then.
04:50We all know it's not abuse if you don't do it
04:52as much as you technically could,
04:53you deeply weird man.
04:55And by the way, if you're expecting me to show you
04:58a clip of his girlfriend's music, I refuse to do that.
05:00I will just point out that if you go to the YouTube page
05:02for her song, Country Back, about how she wants her country back,
05:06and scroll down, the top comments read simply,
05:08damn, Patel borrowed the jet and went to listen to this.
05:13I'd love to agree with that, except again,
05:15he didn't borrow the jet, we all paid for it.
05:19Thousands of dollars to take off, just a thought.
05:21And the thing is, Patel's Olympic trip
05:23wasn't even the first time he's been accused
05:25of treating work like a vacation.
05:27Last May, he went to the UK for a meeting of the Five Eyes,
05:30an intelligence alliance with close English-speaking allies.
05:33And also, by the way, my high school nickname,
05:35when bullies determined something stronger
05:37than four eyes was required.
05:40And while Patel's UK itinerary was tightly packed
05:42with important meetings, according to one senior official,
05:45Patel wanted to move them to more fun venues because,
05:48quote, he wants premier soccer games,
05:50he wants to go jet skiing, he'd like a helicopter tour.
05:53His staff only cared about three things, what his meals were,
05:56when his workouts would be, and what his entertainment would be.
05:59The biggest plan is how he's gonna get his girlfriend in there
06:01so she can go to Windsor Castle,
06:03which feels like what a 15-year-old boy
06:06thinks a trip to England is.
06:08Soccer, jet ski with James Bond's boss,
06:11and take your girlfriend to the castle?
06:12I'm gonna show her the full Agent Cody Banks.
06:16And it can seem like Patel's much more interested
06:20in the trappings of his job than the job itself.
06:23For instance, at one point, he ordered special extra-large
06:25challenge coins to hand out, which looked like this.
06:29And I assume he hands them out
06:31after only the sickest quests,
06:33like completing No Nut November
06:35or failing Anger Management.
06:37They look like the currency you use to pay for a divorce.
06:40But the thing is, this fixation on optics
06:43can make him very bad at his job.
06:46Take what happened last September
06:47after Charlie Kirk was shot.
06:49Within hours, Patel took to Twitter
06:51to announce that the subject for the horrific shooting today
06:53is now in custody.
06:55Only two, 98 minutes later, have to follow that with a tweet saying,
06:59the subject in custody has been released.
07:01And in the words of one FBI veteran,
07:03it wasn't a good look.
07:05Which does make sense, among other things.
07:07Patel's first post sure made it sound like people
07:10could stop worrying about an armed shooter on the loose
07:12when that was not the case.
07:13And yet, he stood by his actions.
07:16Could I have worded it a little better
07:18in the heat of the moment?
07:19Sure.
07:19But do I regret putting it out?
07:21Absolutely not.
07:21I was telling the world what the FBI was doing
07:23as we were doing, and I'm continuing to do that.
07:26And I challenge anyone out there to find a director
07:28that has been more transparent and more willing
07:31to work the media on high-profile cases
07:33or any case the FBI is handling.
07:34OK, but the FBI director shouldn't be working the media for likes.
07:39He's supposed to be solving the case,
07:41not providing running commentary.
07:42There was a reason the CIA has never sent out a press release
07:45saying, we think we found an alien.
07:47And then 90 minutes later, I had to say, never mind.
07:50It was just a fucked up looking squirrel.
07:53And the chaos in the Kirk investigation continued
07:55once Patel landed in Utah.
07:57Because according to one senior leader in counterintelligence,
08:00Patel didn't have a raids jacket
08:02and reportedly ordered people to go find him one.
08:04He needed a size medium.
08:06They found him a female's jacket
08:07that didn't have the patches that he wanted.
08:09So he had the SWAT team taking their patches off
08:12to put on his jacket before he'd go to the press conference.
08:15And sure enough, that is what he then wore.
08:18Now, I do have to tell you, he disputes that account.
08:20And he went on Fox News to work the media on the story.
08:24I was honoring my men and women at the FBI.
08:26One of my agents handed me a jacket and said,
08:28hey, boss, you should probably wear this.
08:30We're going into the command center.
08:31I said, I'd be honored to wear that.
08:32And then another one handed me the SWAT team badge
08:35of the unit that was protecting the area
08:37where Charlie was assassinated.
08:39I wore that with pride.
08:40I mean, OK.
08:42Although, to be fair, Cash wearing something with pride
08:45isn't exactly a high bar, given he might be
08:47the first FBI director who has his own apparel line.
08:51And yes, that is a logo featuring Trump
08:53as the Punisher as Santa.
08:55And yes, his hat does say K dollar sign H,
08:59which I do get is supposed to stand for Cash,
09:01but it makes him look more like he's
09:02in a shitty Kesha cover band.
09:04But wait, because it gets even worse.
09:06Because when Patel and his then deputy, Dan Bongino,
09:09joined a conference call about the shooting,
09:11FBI officials were apparently shocked
09:12by their fixation on social media,
09:15with one saying of Patel, he's screaming
09:17that he wants to put stuff out,
09:18but it's not even vetted yet, it's not even accurate.
09:21Everyone on the call is just like,
09:23this guy is completely out of control.
09:25And let's just agree, you should never be
09:28on any conference call thinking,
09:29this guy is out of control.
09:31At worst, you should be thinking,
09:33if I died right now, would anyone notice?
09:37Would anyone care?
09:40And it says something, that by the time
09:42Kirk's alleged killer turned himself in,
09:43Utah's Governor Spencer Cox had taken the lead
09:46in handling the press, with a source telling Fox News
09:48that, quote, letting Cash talk much
09:50could fuck up the prosecution.
09:52The point is, Patel seems in way over his head,
09:56but weirdly, Trump might actually like that right now,
09:58given that there are certain areas
09:59where he might prefer loyalty over competence,
10:02most notably, the Epstein case.
10:05Because before Patel became FBI director,
10:07he insisted that the agency could release
10:08an alleged list of people Epstein
10:10had trafficked underage girls to,
10:11and he was incredulous.
10:13The Republicans hadn't already demanded that.
10:16What the hell are the House Republicans doing?
10:19They have the majority.
10:20You can't get the list?
10:22You're gonna accept Dick Durbin's word,
10:24or whoever that guy is, as to who is on that list
10:27and who isn't, and that it can and can't be released?
10:29Put on your big boy pants and let us know
10:32who the pedophiles are.
10:33Wait, wait, wait.
10:34Put on your big boy pants?
10:37I'm not sure that's the language I'd use
10:39to talk about catching pedophiles.
10:42Given it sounds more like the slogan for a clothing line
10:44started by Jared from Subway.
10:46But Patel's now singing a very different tune,
10:49arguing there's no credible information
10:51Epstein trafficked young women to anyone beside himself.
10:55And whenever the subject of Trump's name
10:56being in the files has come up,
10:58things have been noticeably tense.
11:01Did you tell the Attorney General
11:02that the President's name is in the Epstein files?
11:04During many conversations
11:06that the Attorney General and I have had
11:08on the matter of Epstein, we have reviewed...
11:11The question is simple.
11:12Who can tell the Attorney General
11:16that Donald Trump's name is in the Epstein files?
11:18Yes or no?
11:19Why don't you try spelling it out?
11:20Yes or no, Director?
11:22Use the alphabet.
11:22Yes or no?
11:23No, A, B, C, E, F...
11:26Oh, you got him. You got him so good.
11:29By the way, later in that hearing,
11:31a photo showed Patel holding a note reading,
11:33Good fight with Swalwell. Hold the line.
11:36And I don't know what would be
11:38a more embarrassing explanation there,
11:40whether he wrote that note to himself
11:42or his mom wrote it and slipped it
11:43into his Tasmanian devil lunchbox.
11:46And his defensiveness there is striking.
11:48Now, the files are being released
11:49and Trump's name is all over them.
11:51And while that doesn't necessarily show evidence
11:53of wrongdoing, this week, NPR scrutinized the files
11:57and revealed something odd.
11:59The spotlight tonight on what's not
12:01in the millions of Epstein files released by the DOJ.
12:05Summaries and notes from three separate interviews
12:07the FBI conducted with a Jeffrey Epstein accuser
12:10who also made sex abuse allegations
12:12against President Trump in 2019.
12:15Yeah, that looks pretty damning.
12:17In fact, the only thing that could be any more suspicious
12:20is if we eventually find out
12:22that the night Epstein died,
12:23Trump was caught buying a bunch of rope at Home Depot.
12:26And look, I'm not sure how long Patel's gonna stay in this job.
12:30Trump's reportedly displeased with his Olympics hijinks.
12:33But as stupid as that locker room footage is,
12:36and it's very, very stupid,
12:39it may actually be the perfect encapsulation
12:41of his tenure at the FBI.
12:43Because think about it, he's in somewhere
12:44that he doesn't belong,
12:46wearing something that makes him look ridiculous
12:48and objectively having way too good of a time.
12:50And when all of this is said and done and he's eventually gone,
12:53someone else is gonna have to clean up his fucking mess.
12:56And now, this.
12:59And now, the Dan Bongino show is back.
13:03And it is weird as fuck.
13:05It is good to see you guys and ladies out there.
13:10It's been a crazy year.
13:12For those of you watching the show right now,
13:14we are obviously live.
13:16My watch, well, like anybody can set a time on a watch,
13:19but you get the point.
13:19I think it's fairly obvious.
13:20And I'm gonna tell you something.
13:21I ate this morning for the first time in three days.
13:24And man, I feel like a million dollars.
13:27So, just throwing that out there.
13:29Elbows a little sore this morning.
13:32I was putting on a shirt the other day,
13:33my elbow snapped back,
13:35and it is like killing me this morning.
13:37I had to take an Advil when I got up.
13:39I'm like, what the hell?
13:39Sorry, my eye is getting a little red.
13:41I feel like I have a little something in my eye there.
13:44You see how it's a little red over there?
13:47I know, I drink funny.
13:49I told you, I got arthritis in my elbow.
13:51Nothing like being a dad.
13:52I don't have any boys.
13:54I gotta tell you, I wish I had.
13:57I've got an older daughter and a younger daughter.
14:02And they're pretty far apart.
14:04I probably should have had one in between and taken a shot.
14:06I'm one of three boys.
14:08I have a stepsister.
14:09But I never had a, you know, a boy.
14:12Hey, Dick.
14:14Dicko.
14:16Dickie.
14:18Hey, Dicko, did you see that?
14:20They call you Dicko, your friends?
14:23Dickie, Dicko, something like that.
14:25Some of my friends call me Dano.
14:26Maybe they call him Dicko.
14:26I don't know.
14:27I don't know.
14:28I don't know.
14:30You don't have to, like, speculate on what it...
14:36That was my plastic cigar.
14:38Don't get distracted, because if there's a there there,
14:40don't get into another there that's not there,
14:42because it takes away from the there that's there.
14:44Do you get my point?
14:51Moving on.
14:52Our main story tonight concerns the police.
14:54The main thing Steven Seagal pretends to be,
14:56aside from a guy whose hair is naturally black.
14:59I'm sorry.
14:59But the only way you get that color
15:01is by dunking your head into a vat of printer ink.
15:05Specifically, we're going to talk about a particular tool
15:07police use that is responsible for, among other things,
15:09this incredible story.
15:11A shocking scene for kids with a Chuck E. Cheese.
15:14One minute, they are just having fun,
15:16and then all of a sudden, police rush in
15:19and put Chuck E. Cheese in handcuffs.
15:22We're gonna detain, detain the mouth, do you?
15:24We are.
15:25Parker and I live one to tell you.
15:28He's a suspect, he stole someone's card here
15:31and was going to be using it.
15:32Uh, someone that was one of your employees
15:35like gotcha or something like that.
15:40So, uh...
15:40Yeah, yeah.
15:41Oh, Chuck E. Cheese!
15:44Wow!
15:45There is a lot going on there.
15:47From the kids screaming, Chuck E, no!
15:50To the phrase, we're gonna detain the mouse, dude.
15:53Which sounds like what an ICE agent would say
15:55if Fievel tried to immigrate to America today.
15:58That arrest is one of many videos
16:00we've only been able to see
16:01thanks to police body cameras,
16:03the devices that give us a nipple's eye view
16:05of law enforcement's interactions with the public.
16:07They are ubiquitous now,
16:09but body cameras are still fairly new.
16:11As recently as 2013,
16:13only a third of police departments had them,
16:15but by 2020, 79% of officers reported
16:19working in departments with body-worn cameras,
16:21to the point it's been said that they represent
16:23the largest new investment in policing in a generation.
16:26And body cams have been viewed as a popular solution
16:29to problems regarding transparency in law enforcement,
16:32which may be why a key democratic demand right now
16:35for ending the shutdown of funding to DHS
16:37involves this catchy phrase.
16:40We want there to be masks off, body cameras on.
16:43Masks off, body cameras on.
16:46We want masks off, body cameras on.
16:50Stirring stuff.
16:52That is the leader of the opposition there,
16:54and that is truly the best he's got.
16:57Honestly, you can set a white noise machine
16:59to fiery Chuck Schumer speech
17:01and get a full eight hours.
17:03And the truth is, body cams can seem
17:06like a great tool for increasing accountability
17:08and building trust,
17:09and cops themselves tend to value them too,
17:12though for slightly different reasons
17:13than the rest of us, as for them,
17:15it's more about reducing frivolous or false complaints.
17:18In fact, according to a 2018 survey,
17:20while just 34% of local police and sheriff's offices
17:23said they acquired body-worn cameras
17:25to reduce use of force,
17:26nearly 80% wanted them in order to do things
17:29like improve officer safety, increase evidence quality,
17:32reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability.
17:35And look, ideally, you could have all of those things.
17:38In fact, as this police captain in Virginia sees it,
17:40the best case scenario for body cams
17:42is them improving everyone's behavior.
17:45When a camera's present, everyone acts a little bit better.
17:48So perhaps this is an opportunity for us
17:50to de-escalate an incident.
17:52If something is very, very escalated,
17:54um, it'll be a reminder to everyone involved,
17:56to include the officers and the public,
17:59that a camera's present, and hopefully that we all
18:01are acting a little bit better,
18:02a little more civil to each other.
18:04Well, that certainly sounds nice, doesn't it?
18:06Although, when a camera's present,
18:07everyone acts a bit better
18:08is an observation from someone who clearly
18:10doesn't watch reality TV.
18:13A world in which a camera's presence is your cue
18:15to throw a glass of Pinot Grigio into someone's face
18:17and call them a whore in the middle of a nice restaurant.
18:20Still, that notion that body cams can be a way
18:23of calming down interactions with law enforcement
18:25is appealing, and it may be why it seems we're about
18:27to slap them on the chest of all ICE agents
18:30across the country in the name of accountability.
18:32But the thing is, the more you look into body cams,
18:36the more you realize they are only effective
18:38if they are used properly, and in many cases,
18:40they are just not.
18:42So, given that tonight, let's talk about body cams.
18:44Let's start with the fact that straight away,
18:46there are certain limitations to what they can tell us,
18:49as because of their field of view,
18:50they can't capture the full context of everything going on.
18:54And while I think you probably already get that,
18:56just watch as this Today Show reporter
18:57demonstrates it in the weirdest possible way.
19:00Seth is putting on a body camera.
19:03My producer, Giovanna, is off to the side,
19:06shooting from a distance on her iPhone
19:08to give us the complete picture,
19:10like a bystander would.
19:11Scenario one, something Seth calls deceptive intensity.
19:16Watch this body camera footage closely.
19:18What's happening here?
19:20All right, now let's look from the bystander's iPhone.
19:25That's right, no brawl here, just really bad dancing.
19:31Okay, I will admit that demonstration was effective
19:36because the body cam footage did look like a violent brawl,
19:38when we now know they were, in fact,
19:40doing a Richard Simmons workout at each other.
19:43And that's not the only weird demonstration like that.
19:47Interpretation can be very misleading.
19:48For example, you, the viewer at home,
19:50can only see me from the chest up.
19:52You have no idea what's in my hand.
19:54However, the view from a second camera may show that
19:57I'm holding what appears to be a gun,
19:59when in reality, I'm just holding a flashlight.
20:03Okay, I'll be honest, that felt less like a local news segment
20:06and more like the routine of the world's worst birthday magician.
20:10Gather round, kids, for my first trick,
20:12you probably think I have a gun in my hand,
20:14but it's actually a flashlight.
20:16What's that? Your parents want their money back?
20:18No problem. Here's their money.
20:19Is it a movie or is it actually another flashlight?
20:23But those examples, while ridiculous,
20:25do show how hard it can be to interpret
20:28what's captured on video.
20:29But the audio can be deceptive as well.
20:32Take this example from Florida, where the shouts of officers
20:35wound up shaping a very misleading narrative.
20:38Officers were wearing body-worn cameras
20:40and they were chasing after an individual.
20:42He walked over to the sidewalk
20:43and lay down on the sidewalk, spread-eagled.
20:50You can hear on the body-worn camera footage,
20:53officers screaming, you know,
20:54stop resisting, stop resisting.
20:56Get your hand behind you!
20:59Stop resisting!
21:00Get your... Stop resisting!
21:02Stop resisting!
21:03Stop! Stop!
21:05He claimed that they beat him unnecessarily
21:07and nobody believed him until that video
21:09from the nearby building came out.
21:11Yeah, they're yelling, stop resisting,
21:14when he wasn't resisting at all.
21:15And it can be powerful to claim something's happening
21:18that the camera cannot see.
21:20It'd be like me telling you that under this desk,
21:22I've got the thighs of a body-builder
21:24and an ass that won't quit,
21:25when the truth is I've got two perfectly average thighs
21:28and an ass that quits all the time.
21:31And that's not a one-off.
21:33A similar situation happened in the beating death
21:34of Tyree Nichols, where the audio on officers' body cams
21:37picked them up saying things like,
21:39lay flat, only for another video to emerge,
21:42showing him lying limp as an officer handcuffed him.
21:44The point is, there are immediately limits
21:47to what a camera can show you,
21:48but those limitations get even more acute
21:51when cops mute, obscure, or turn off their cameras,
21:54which happens, and sometimes on purpose.
21:56And that is something driven home by this incident,
21:59where a police captain who was arrested for drunk driving
22:01kept urgently trying to convey something
22:03to the officer who pulled him over.
22:05You've been drinking tonight?
22:07I just got a ride.
22:09You've been drinking tonight, sir?
22:11I'm a captain. I'm a police department.
22:14What police department?
22:15Oklahoma City.
22:18How much have we had to drink tonight, sir?
22:25Please.
22:26Huh?
22:28I'm not turning my camera off.
22:30OK.
22:31Yeah.
22:32That is a police captain whispering,
22:34turn your camera off, while simultaneously staring into it
22:37like a raccoon caught on a ring doorbell.
22:39And it is genuinely hard to imagine a more embarrassing way
22:43to get arrested than that, which is saying something
22:45because you just saw someone get handcuffed
22:47while dressed like a giant mouse.
22:50And, look, it makes sense that these things have an off button.
22:54Cops need to be able to take a shit in peace like the rest of us.
22:57And some of the people they talk to
22:58might need their privacy protected, too.
23:00That is why Connecticut, for instance, has a law that says
23:03they have to turn cameras off in cases like
23:05during an encounter with an undercover officer or informant,
23:08when an officer is on break or engaged in personal business,
23:11and when a person is undergoing a medical
23:12or psychological evaluation or treatment.
23:15But obviously, some critical interactions
23:17when people have been hurt or killed by police
23:20still go unrecorded.
23:22Well, you might think, well, maybe the incident escalated suddenly
23:25and officers didn't have time to turn their cameras on.
23:27You should know most body cams are basically always
23:30in a standby mode in which the camera is powered on and rolling,
23:34but not yet permanently saving the footage.
23:37It's only when an officer presses record
23:39that the camera will begin saving footage to permanent memory.
23:43That saved clip then includes footage recorded
23:45for a predetermined amount of buffer time
23:47before the record button was pressed,
23:49which can range from 15 seconds to two minutes.
23:52So there's actually a meaningful amount of context
23:54that can get captured prior to an officer hitting record
23:57if that's something they're inclined to do.
24:00And yet, oftentimes, they just happen to be turned off
24:03during incidents of police violence.
24:05For example, even though the LAPD requires officers
24:08to turn on their cameras before any interaction with the public,
24:11nearly a fourth of its officers involved in incidents
24:14where serious force was used failed to activate them
24:17in a timely manner.
24:18And some unions and police officials
24:20are quick to excuse that sort of thing.
24:22For instance, not long after Houston rolled out body cams,
24:25two police officers shot a man near a gas station,
24:27but neither turned on their cameras
24:29until the incident was over.
24:30And this is how the police union's then president defended that.
24:35This was the first real high-profile test
24:38of this department's body-worn camera policy.
24:41Pass or fail?
24:41If the officer's primary responsibility was his safety, he passed.
24:46If his primary responsibility was videotaping the entire scene, he failed.
24:50If he was your cameraman and only had to worry about videotaping that,
24:54I would blame that cameraman for not getting it.
24:56But that's not his primary responsibility.
24:58His primary responsibility is to make sure he's safe
25:01and the public's safe.
25:02Okay. But he did shoot someone.
25:05My cameraman gets footage and has never shot anyone.
25:08Well, doing this job, at least.
25:09I don't know what Dante does during his off hours.
25:12That's his time.
25:14Also, activating a body camera isn't exactly an overwhelming task.
25:17We looked into it, and the process is,
25:19step one, press the record button.
25:21Step two, end of steps.
25:23But even if an officer does turn on their camera,
25:26and even if it shows what happened clearly,
25:28there's still the issue of what happens to all the footage.
25:31Because to be clear, there is an enormous amount of it.
25:34To give you a sense of scale,
25:35Axon, the nation's largest police camera provider,
25:37offers cloud storage for many of its clients' footage.
25:40And its database is more than 100 petabytes of footage,
25:43equivalent to more than 5,000 years of high-definition video,
25:47which is pretty wild, isn't it?
25:49Both that there is so much of it,
25:50and also that petabyte is a real unit of digital storage.
25:55And not what it sounds like,
25:56a snack food brand exclusively for pedophiles.
25:58Petabyte, have a snack, you fucking monster!
26:02And the thing is, most of that footage
26:05will never be watched by anyone, which is understandable.
26:09You know, it's impossible for agencies
26:11to look at every minute of footage from all these cameras.
26:14But far too often, even footage that documents misconduct
26:18isn't meaningfully reviewed, meaning departments miss opportunities
26:21to spot both problem officers and broader patterns of abuse.
26:26After the murder of George Floyd,
26:28it emerged that body cams had captured Derek Chauvin
26:30kneeling on the necks of others, including a handcuffed black woman
26:33and a 14-year-old black boy.
26:35In both those cases, supervisors had access to the recordings,
26:39yet cleared Chauvin's conduct.
26:41And when a state civil rights investigation later looked
26:43at 700 hours of body cam footage,
26:45it found Minneapolis cops repeatedly used neck restraints
26:49and concluded that if police or the city
26:50had conducted a substantive audit of the footage,
26:53they would have seen how often officers there
26:55were using neck restraints,
26:56and could have taken steps to stop it.
26:58And clearly, someone should have done that.
27:01Because there's no point in the police
27:03just stacking up thousands of hours of footage
27:06that nobody's ever going to see,
27:07especially given that we all know that is Paramount Plus's job.
27:11Hey, what are they going to do?
27:14Take us over and immediately cancel us?
27:16I'm genuinely asking.
27:21So, internally,
27:23departments aren't reviewing their own footage nearly enough.
27:25And when it comes to public transparency,
27:26the results have been all over the map.
27:28And you might be thinking, well, why not just put
27:30all the footage out there for everyone to see?
27:33Well, the thing is, there are legitimate reasons not to do that.
27:36First, there are issues with how all that video
27:39could be fed into facial recognition systems,
27:41which we have talked about before.
27:42But also remember, body cams can show
27:44vulnerable or embarrassing moments,
27:46which can then be exploited for entertainment.
27:48And I know we've already showed you
27:50a couple of examples of that tonight.
27:52But we thought a lot about why we were doing that
27:55and how in the mouse one, his face is covered.
27:57And in the police captain one, you might have noticed
27:59he was a police captain.
28:02But there are countless channels on YouTube
28:04that have made a business out of obtaining body cam footage
28:07of people in distress, and which do feel
28:09like they're leaning into exploitation.
28:11One channel has videos called
28:12entitled Lady Finally Gets What She Deserves
28:15and Buckle Up Kids, Grandma's Drunk,
28:17which sounds like a kid's book written by Kathie Lee Gifford.
28:21Another channel has videos mainly of young women
28:24with titles like 19-year-old girl arrested for DUI
28:26over double the limit after getting drunk at the beach,
28:29which is pretty grim.
28:30And by the way, we've blurred the faces there,
28:32but they don't do that.
28:34And it almost makes me think that YouTube as a whole
28:37might not have been worth it,
28:38offsetting its very real accomplishments,
28:40like this video of a chihuahua riding a turtle,
28:42or this one of Kelsey Grammer falling off a stage,
28:46or this one of a sheep screaming like a human.
28:52Yeah, that might be the best thing ever posted to YouTube.
28:56And if you're thinking, John, what about the several hundred
28:58episodes of your show, I said what I said.
29:02Now, those channels often get videos
29:05through public records requests,
29:06but police departments can have a huge amount of leeway
29:09when it comes to what they release,
29:10as in most places, policy makers have defaulted
29:13to leaving them with the power to decide what's recorded,
29:15who can see it, and when.
29:18Just watch as a reporter asked Charlotte's then-Polise Chief
29:21how to reconcile his commitment to transparency
29:23with his department's refusal to release video
29:25of a police shooting.
29:27You seem to get mixed messages here.
29:29On the one hand, you're saying we should have full transparency.
29:31On the other hand, you're saying you're not going to release the video.
29:33How can you square those two things?
29:35Obviously, the idea of full transparency
29:37is release the video, so we can all see it.
29:40Sure, I appreciate your passion,
29:41but I never said full transparency.
29:43I said transparency, and transparency is in the eye of the beholder.
29:47Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
29:49Wait, wait, wait.
29:51Transparency is in the eye of the beholder?
29:54That is just fully nonsense.
29:56That sounds like the last thoughts of a pigeon
29:58that's about to smash into a closed window.
30:01And yet, that has been the de facto stance of many departments.
30:05For example, even though in 2020, the NYPD promised
30:08to release footage of critical incidents within 30 days,
30:10when ProPublica looked into it three years later,
30:13they found that out of 380 such incidents,
30:16the NYPD had released footage within a month just twice.
30:20And in South Carolina, when the police there had killed
30:22at least 19 people in 2023,
30:24they'd only released footage in three of those cases,
30:27with one department refusing a request by saying,
30:29we never released that footage.
30:31And a popular argument police use is that making video public
30:34would undermine the integrity of an investigation.
30:36It's an excuse which works in almost every state in the country,
30:40even when there's rules for public access.
30:43They'll also argue that reviewing the footage
30:44and redacting sensitive information like juveniles' faces
30:47or witnesses' identities carries a prohibitive cost.
30:51In Las Vegas, police charged about $70 an hour
30:53to produce footage, while in Memphis,
30:55journalists have been asked to pay as much as $3,100
30:58in hourly labor costs for video from a single case.
31:02And as one expert said, for a local news organization,
31:05a bill for $2,000 might as well be a denial.
31:08Which does make sense, doesn't it?
31:10Because local news are known for a lot of things.
31:12Dedicated employees, probing investigations,
31:15inadvertently broadcasting massive dicks
31:17on their weather maps.
31:18But they're not famous for rolling in money.
31:21And even if footage gets released,
31:24it can be so heavily redacted,
31:26it's then essentially useless.
31:27For example, until last year, Tempe, Arizona's police department
31:30had a policy which mandated that all body cam footage
31:32they released would include a general medium blur.
31:35And just so you know, this is what their blur footage looks like.
31:39And it is notable that when body cam footage shows officers
31:42in a bad light, they will often cite the cost
31:45and technical hurdles of redaction to not release it.
31:48But when it shows them in a good light,
31:50those problems seem to disappear.
31:53Just watch as a reporter in Texas confronts a police chief
31:55who was claiming that because they didn't have the ability
31:58to redact video themselves, they couldn't release a video
32:01of a police search during a traffic stop.
32:03In the year 2024, why doesn't this department
32:07have software to redact videos?
32:10It's really expensive for us to get.
32:13Angleton chief Lupe Valdez showed us a quote
32:15from their body cam vendor, more than $14,000.
32:19Budget-wise, it's not in our budget to do that.
32:22But there's this.
32:24Body cam video Angleton police released a few months ago
32:28of a crash where officers heroically pulled the driver
32:32out of the burning car.
32:33And look, portions are blurred.
32:36How were you able to redact the video in that case?
32:38We paid somebody to do that.
32:41So let me get this straight.
32:42When your officers are heroes, you find a way to release it.
32:45But when your officers are scrutinized,
32:48you find a way to withhold it?
32:49No, sir.
32:50That's what happened here, chief.
32:52No, sir.
32:53Uh, yes, sir.
32:55That is exactly what happened.
32:56That interview could not have been any more embarrassing
32:59for that man, which is why I'm sure he'd prefer
33:00if we blurt him right now.
33:03But I'm not going to do that, because much like him,
33:05I only pay people to redact video
33:07when I fucking feel like it.
33:09But maybe no case illustrates the extent
33:12to which the mere presence of body cams
33:14isn't sufficient to prevent police violence
33:16or, indeed, bring accountability.
33:18More than that of Ronald Greene, a Louisiana man
33:20who died following an encounter with police in 2019.
33:23Officers initially told his family
33:24that he died on impact after crashing his car
33:27at the end of a chase with police.
33:28And even though there was body cam footage
33:31from officers on the scene, state officials,
33:33including the then governor, repeatedly refused
33:35to publicly release it for more than two years.
33:38In the end, someone wound up leaking the video
33:40to the AP, which is how people came to see a state trooper
33:44wrestling green to the ground, putting him in a chokehold
33:47and punching him in the face.
33:48And I'm not going to show you the video of any of that.
33:51But I do think it's worth seeing one moment
33:53from one of the officer's body cams
33:55as he drove away from the scene.
33:57I beat the ever-living fuck out of him,
34:00choked him and everything else,
34:01trying to get him under control.
34:02And then all of a sudden, he just went limp.
34:05Damn.
34:05Yeah, I thought he was dead.
34:07We set him up real quick.
34:09He's on the ambulance en route to Glenwood
34:13and I'm hauling ass trying to catch up to him.
34:22Yeah, as soon as he was reminded his body camera was on,
34:26he turned it off, which is pretty damning.
34:29It is honestly the panicked move of someone
34:31whose internal monologue was essentially just this.
34:36Yeah, exactly.
34:38Now, none of the six officers on the scene
34:40wound up facing much in the way of charges.
34:42The guy in that video actually wound up dying
34:44the following year in a car crash, as for the other five.
34:46Only two were convicted on any charges
34:48and those were misdemeanors pled down.
34:51But charges against the other three were dismissed
34:53and the DOJ dropped its criminal investigation,
34:55saying it had found insufficient evidence
34:57to support federal charges.
34:59But that might be because,
35:01even though there was body cam footage,
35:03the microphones weren't always on
35:04and not all of the troopers at the scene
35:07had their cameras on during the arrest.
35:09And that does not seem like a coincidence
35:11because the AP found state troopers there
35:14had made a habit of turning off
35:15or muting body cams during pursuits.
35:17That when footage is recorded,
35:19the agency routinely refused to release it.
35:21And that one supervisor in the department
35:23even told internal investigators
35:25that it was his common practice
35:26to rubber stamp officers' use of force reports
35:29without reviewing body cam video.
35:31And if you're not even gonna watch the footage,
35:34why give your officers body cams at all?
35:36You might as well just let them hang a bologna sandwich
35:39off their shirt instead.
35:40It'll lead to exactly as much accountability
35:42and they'll have a little meat snack
35:44in case they get hungry.
35:46And the truth is, if someone hadn't leaked that footage,
35:49we'd likely never have known about any of this.
35:52But hoping for leaks just cannot be the system here.
35:56So, what do we do?
35:58Well, I would argue we have to take back
35:59the power from police departments
36:01to decide when and how to use body cams.
36:04Some agencies are transitioning
36:05to auto-triggering technologies,
36:07like sensors that switch them on
36:09when officers do things like draw their gun
36:10or exit their police car.
36:12Experts told us those aren't necessarily bad ideas,
36:15but they're likely to fall flat
36:17if they aren't combined with clear, enforceable rules,
36:20stating the footage must be retained,
36:22routinely reviewed, and released in a timely manner,
36:25especially in critical incidents.
36:28One way of doing that is to have those rules enforced
36:30by an independent body free of police influence.
36:34And all of this is really worth bearing in mind
36:36during the current debate
36:38over requiring federal agents to wear body cams
36:40during immigration enforcement.
36:42Because it's worth remembering
36:43a pretty important fact
36:45about the officers in the Alex Pressey shooting.
36:48Customs and Border Protection officers
36:50involved in the deadly shooting
36:51were wearing body cameras.
36:53The agency says the footage is preserved,
36:56but it's unclear when or whether
36:58the public's going to see it.
36:59Can I ask you a question?
37:00Why isn't it automatic that the body cam footage
37:03would eventually be released?
37:05Uh, you'd think it would be.
37:07Here, though, the Trump administration
37:09has resisted cooperation with any investigation.
37:13And, George, remember, they've already drawn a conclusion
37:15that the shooting was justified.
37:17Yeah. They still haven't released the body cam footage.
37:21Kind of rendering that whole
37:22masks off, body cams on slogan pretty toothless.
37:26Though, to be fair, I guess,
37:27masks off, body cams on and operating
37:30under clear guidelines about when footage is released
37:32and overseen by an independent body
37:33to ensure maximum transparency isn't quite as catchy.
37:36And, if Chuck Schumer tries to say it,
37:38I think his head might explode.
37:41The point is, the reason we know what happened to Alex Preti
37:45isn't because of body cams.
37:47It's because of all the other people with cell phones
37:49filming what happened.
37:51And that is going to need to continue.
37:53Because until we see significant changes,
37:55body cams will just never live up to their promise
37:58of shining a real light on misconduct.
38:00And if you need a visual metaphor for a light being shined on things,
38:04don't worry, because I have in my hand,
38:05and this may surprise you...
38:08...a flashlight!
38:11That's our show.
38:13Thank you so much for watching.
38:14We'll see you next week. Good night.
38:16Don't blur me. Don't blur me.
38:18Don't blur me. I don't want to be blurred.
38:23If I'm just a lost boy searching for something,
38:27is anybody out there feeling this loneliness?
38:32I'm not my fault.
38:36I'm not my fault.
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