Study Finds That Cops Wearing Body Cameras Are Actually More Likely to Kill Civilians

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{snip} A recent study by Temple University researchers found that wearing body cameras was actually associated with a 3.64% increase in fatal shootings of civilians by police officers. Perhaps even more surprising is that no increase in fatalities was noticed in police interactions with Whites/Asians but police were found to be 3.68% more likely to kill Blacks/Hispanics while wearing body cameras. The study suggests that police officers are actually more likely to pull the trigger if they have video evidence to support their use of force.

Per the study:

Surprisingly, we found that the use of wearable video cameras is associated with a 3.64% increase in shooting-deaths of civilians by the police. We explain that video recordings collected during a violent encounter with a civilian can be used in favor of a police officer as evidence that justifies the shooting. Aware of this evidence, the officer may become less reluctant to engage in the use of deadly force. We conducted more in-depth analyses with incident circumstances (e.g. whether a subject was armed) and demographics of victims (e.g. race, age), and we obtained more intriguing findings. Notably, the above-mentioned effect of technology use on fatal shootings is more pronounced for (a) African American or Hispanic victims than Whites or Asians and (b) for armed suspects than unarmed civilians.

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