Despite the continuous barrage of race-related crime perpetuated by white police officers against black civilians, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley provided a spark of hope when she signed a bill mandating members of law enforcement to wear body cams on the job into law on Wednesday, June 10.
Since the murders of teenager Michael Brown in August 2014 in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in July 2014 in Staten Island, N.Y., questions of how to keep law enforcement accountable for their actions have circulated in relation to the larger discourse on racism and policing in the U.S.
In South Carolina, this issue also hits close to home: North Charleston resident Walter Scott was gunned down in April earlier this year, apparently stopped by Officer Michael Slager for a nonfunctioning brake light.
Though surveillance culture, cameras, and cops aren't usually a popular mix with the general populace, using body cams for the sake of the balance between insurance and liability is a game-changer. As the ACLU put it in a white policy paper released on its website in March 2015:
"Historically, there was no documentary evidence of most encounters between police officers and the public, and due to the volatile nature of those encounters, this often resulted in radically divergent accounts of incidents. Cameras have the potential to be a win-win, helping protect the public against police misconduct, and at the same time helping protect police against false accusations of abuse."
When used with police officers, body cameras are typically palm-sized units worn clipped to the breast pocket, optimum for mobility.
The ties between surveillance and accountability when it comes to racially motivated crime - and their penchant for serving as an objective witness, as well as championing the (usually POC) victims of police brutality - were recently demonstrated a Dallas suburb, where white police Officer Eric Casebolt pulled a gun out on a group of black teenagers at a community pool party on June 5. The incident was recorded by a witness and the video went viral, prompting national outrage. Casebolt has since taken leave of the force.
At the law signing, Haley was quick to evoke Scott's memory. "This is going to strengthen the people of South Carolina. This is going to strengthen law enforcement, and this is going to make sure Walter Scott did not die without us realizing that we have a problem," she said.
