Excellent Police Work & why body cams work

[Vas Deferens]

Just ran across this story of the incident that occured on S 75 in Glendale.  Didnt know anything about it until this.  The restraint this officer shows in the heat of the moment is absolutely incredible.  I like to think I could show the same restraint in a situation like this, but watching it all take place like this makes me question that ability.  

No charges for officer who shot knife-wielding man on I-75

Quote:GLENDALE, Ohio – Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters called the officer who shot a knife-wielding man on I-75 last week "one brave individual" before releasing body camera video to the public Tuesday.

The March 29 incident closed the highway for several hours and raised questions about why the man -- suspected in a fatal stabbing three weeks ago in Maryland -- was here in the first place.
Deters said no charges would be filed against Glendale Police Officer Josh Hilling, 30, who fired one shot at Javier Pablo Aleman after a confrontation. The prosecutor's office completed its investigation of the shooting Tuesday.
The dramatic body cam footage reveals Aleman, 46, demanded to be shot multiple times and waved a large knife while staggering around I-75.
After being stopped for walking on southbound I-75, Aleman grew confrontational when Hilling tried to pat him down, and Hilling shot Aleman once in the abdomen. The video shows Aleman refusing to comply with Hilling’s orders for several minutes before being dispatched with a Taser.



WATCH the body camera video in the player above. (WARNING: The video contains language and images some might find disturbing.)
“I’m not going to speak for the chief or the sheriff, but Joshua Hilling deserves a medal for what he did,” Deters said.
"He got a bad hombre off the street," added Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil. 
Officers quickly discovered Aleman was wanted in connection to the March 17 stabbing death of Victor Adolfo Serrano, 51. Police say Serrano was found suffering multiple stab wounds in Dundalk, Maryland, east of Baltimore. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Deters said there is a high probability that the knife Aleman waved at Hilling was the murder weapon used in Baltimore.
Aleman is being held in Cincinnati on charges of attempted murder and will come before a grand jury by April 13. He faces a potential prison sentence of 11 years in Ohio.
Deters said these charges give law enforcement in Baltimore additional time to conduct DNA tests related to their case against Aleman. Aleman remains hospitalized at UC Medical Center, but police had no update on his condition.
No charges will be filed against Hilling, who has previously been commended by the village of Glendale. Police said Hilling has been approved to return to work as an officer after being on paid leave since the shooting.
Hilling has had a clean personnel file and good performance reviews since joining the Glendale Police Department as a part-time officer in 2011, WCPO determined after examining his file. Hilling had been a full-time officer just 12 weeks when he shot Aleman.
In Hilling's last performance review, Glendale Police Chief Dave Warman gave him a 4.5 on a 1-to-5 scale, rating him very good or exceptional in all 12 areas and writing:

Quote:"P.O. Hilling is aggressive in his enforcement duties but also exercises significant discretion in his decision making. He is dependable and available for extra duties when needed. Josh is well-liked by his peers and has unlimited growth potential with the department."

Hilling was working as a part-time officer at Kings Island and Xavier University when he went to work for Glendale in August, 2008, according to his job application.

I know we have a few members within the LEO community here, and i know there is a section of that community resisting the use of body cameras.  My question is this.  Doesn't this footage essentially identify this officer as upper echelon in terms of poise in the heat of the moment?  Aren't the body cams working in a positive fashion for officers in this instance?

Regardless, Kudos to this officer.

[fredtoast]

Body cameras are good for everyone. They help both the police officers and the people who come in contact with police officers. There is no logical argument against their use.

[NATI BENGALS]

(04-05-2016, 08:59 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Body cameras are good for everyone.  They help both the police officers and the people who come in contact with police officers.  There is no logical argument against their use.

That is why I really need to buy some body camera stock.

[BFritz21]

That's all over Facebook in this area.

With how bad heroine is in this area, along with the bathsalts (not recently) and whatever mind-altering drugs that people are using now, it's awesome to see a cop keep his composure and do it the right way.

Hats off to him

[*PhilHos*]

(04-05-2016, 08:59 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Body cameras are good for everyone.  They help both the police officers and the people who come in contact with police officers.  There is no logical argument against their use.

I'm a big defender of the police and I have to agree with you, fred. I can't see any rationale for them to NOT be used.

[Au165]

(04-06-2016, 12:15 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I'm a big defender of the police and I have to agree with you, fred. I can't see any rationale for them to NOT be used.

I know the person in charge of evaluating technology at Cincinnati PD and they were all for it a couple years back. The biggest issue is the cost and the data consumption. Cameras aren't all that expensive, however moving the data has been the biggest obstacle in implementation for a lot of departments as it is expensive and a lot of networks can't handle it. People don't realize that all that footage has to be moved to servers then stored. Then the question is how long it is stored and how do you pay to store that much video for that long. It is a much more complicated process than many think.

[Vas Deferens]

(04-06-2016, 03:26 PM)Au165 Wrote: I know the person in charge of evaluating technology at Cincinnati PD and they were all for it a couple years back. The biggest issue is the cost and the data consumption. Cameras aren't all that expensive, however moving the data has been the biggest obstacle in implementation for a lot of departments as it is expensive and a lot of networks can't handle it. People don't realize that all that footage has to be moved to servers then stored. Then the question is how long it is stored and how do you pay to store that much video for that long. It is a much more complicated process than many think.

Great point.  Seems like this would be a better use of that NSA data center out in UT rather than spying on us.  Not sure how I feel about a federal depository, but diverting the cost from local coffers in order to institute this nationally would be do great things for confidence in the police nationwide.  


Speaking about moving the data, you're talking about moving it at the end of the day to the cloud correct?  Not transmitting it cellularly from the camera itself?

[Au165]

(04-06-2016, 05:59 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Great point.  Seems like this would be a better use of that NSA data center out in UT rather than spying on us.  Not sure how I feel about a federal depository, but diverting the cost from local coffers in order to institute this nationally would be do great things for confidence in the police nationwide.  


Speaking about moving the data, you're talking about moving it at the end of the day to the cloud correct?  Not transmitting it cellularly from the camera itself?

Both, depending on the manufacture. Some earlier versions move the data instantly, and some newer models make you wait and dock at the end of the day to move the data. The issue with the end of day docking is that in the event of an incident that the officer knows he was in the wrong, it is very easy for the data to become corrupt or the camera to be damaged. Some of the first generation systems had DVRs in the back of the cars that would instantly relay the video to the cloud, but the issue was that the networks couldn't handle moving that data well in some areas. The end of day retrial is becoming more common because it is easier, but I think we will see a few incidents of video being corrupt and we will see a move back to instant uploading.

Interesting thing is Taser, who is obviously known for the Taser, has made a hard push into body cameras. In the last few years they have shifted their revenue to almost a 50/50 split between actual tasers and the body cameras. A large portion of that body camera revenue is in the service and storage of the data. Big money is in the data, not the cameras....they practically sell those at cost.

[*PhilHos*]

(04-07-2016, 09:36 AM)Au165 Wrote: Both, depending on the manufacture. Some earlier versions move the data instantly, and some newer models make you wait and dock at the end of the day to move the data. The issue with the end of day docking is that in the event of an incident that the officer knows he was in the wrong, it is very easy for the data to become corrupt or the camera to be damaged. Some of the first generation systems had DVRs in the back of the cars that would instantly relay the video to the cloud, but the issue was that the networks couldn't handle moving that data well in some areas. The end of day retrial is becoming more common because it is easier, but I think we will see a few incidents of video being corrupt and we will see a move back to instant uploading.

Interesting thing is Taser, who is obviously known for the Taser, has made a hard push into body cameras. In the last few years they have shifted their revenue to almost a 50/50 split between actual tasers and the body cameras. A large portion of that body camera revenue is in the service and storage of the data. Big money is in the data, not the cameras....they practically sell those at cost.

Did you know that the name for the taser (the TASER) is actually an acronym? It stands for the "Thomas A Swift's Electric Rifle." I shit you not.

[fredtoast]

(04-07-2016, 11:29 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Did you know that the name for the taser (the TASER) is actually an acronym? It stands for the "Thomas A Swift's Electric Rifle." I shit you not.

I knew that, but I learned it from some comedian's monologue.

[Vas Deferens]

(04-07-2016, 09:36 AM)Au165 Wrote: Both, depending on the manufacture. Some earlier versions move the data instantly, and some newer models make you wait and dock at the end of the day to move the data. The issue with the end of day docking is that in the event of an incident that the officer knows he was in the wrong, it is very easy for the data to become corrupt or the camera to be damaged. Some of the first generation systems had DVRs in the back of the cars that would instantly relay the video to the cloud, but the issue was that the networks couldn't handle moving that data well in some areas. The end of day retrial is becoming more common because it is easier, but I think we will see a few incidents of video being corrupt and we will see a move back to instant uploading.

Read about this in the past, very interesting.  I'll add this to the list of reasons we need to break up Telco/ISP monopolies and remove state legislation barring municipally owned and operated networks.  

[*michaelsean*]

Outside of AU's concerns, it seems like a no brainer if I were the police.

[Au165]

(04-07-2016, 05:06 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Read about this in the past, very interesting.  I'll add this to the list of reasons we need to break up Telco/ISP monopolies and remove state legislation barring municipally owned and operated networks.  

Really has nothing to do with the ISP monopolies, the movement of the data is on the ISP but that is a minor issue compared to the storage problem. Data storage and movement is about to be one of the great challenges as we move into a completely digital on demand age. Storage especially as hi def video are very large files and while compression helps you lose some of the resolution, so it can only go so far. It's one of those things that we need more innovation on lossless compression and storage to find a solution.

[Vas Deferens]

(04-07-2016, 05:26 PM)Au165 Wrote: Really has nothing to do with the ISP monopolies, the movement of the data is on the ISP but that is a minor issue compared to the storage problem. Data storage and movement is about to be one of the great challenges as we move into a completely digital on demand age. Storage especially as hi def video are very large files and while compression helps you lose some of the resolution, so it can only go so far. It's one of those things that we need more innovation on lossless compression and storage to find a solution.

Completely understand.  Don't think we're far off, commercially speaking, to be able to store data at these astronomical rates.  Wouldn't doubt there are NSA or other gov programs that could already handle this situation.  Like I said earlier, I would rather my tax dollars go to databasing this information rather than the spying on ourselves.  That infrastructure is already there.


I would say the movement of the data is an issue given our current wireless network(s).  Won't get too deep into it, I'm not satisfied with the illusion of competition (performance/capacity/price) between networks, and their current legislative stranglehold allows it.  Seems to me the only competition between these companies is on the marketing and churn front, a cost they end up passing on to the consumers anyway....  /rant