We won't you provide with functioning equipment, but we will sure punish you for it.

[pablo]

http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/features/top-story/stories/chicagos-interim-chief-officers-dashcam-must-working-31172.shtml


Escalante told the Chicago Tribune that he's sent inspectors to do random checks of dashcams. He says that when they've found technical problems preventing them from working they are disciplining officers who did not report those problems to their supervisors.

Chicago PD, like most agencies probably has a good old boy in charge of the "police technology department", who probably specs out and buys substandard equipment, and then has it installed in a way that conflicts with the manufacturer's recommendations. To top it off, items like body mics have NiCad batteries and won't hold a charge after 3 months, but the department will view them as indefinite service life items. The daily routine is probably: check out a vehicle, do an in car camera inspection, the crap doesn't work, take it to the garage where the tech can't fix it, notify a supervisor and get told to take the vehicle out anyways, and then generate an incident report (or that supervisor notification never happened when SHTF)

Or show up to work, rather than spending the first three hours of shift screwing around with equipment that doesn't work, go out and work, that's what would have anyways. The reward for being given equipment that never worked and wearing a pair of big boy pants? Discipline.

Nothing is a big deal until it's full blown embarrassment.

[Rex G]

I remember when one of my assigned vehicles had a dash cam system that did not work. Well, it recorded the footage, and saved it, but nobody could move the footage to external storage for later use. I think the car was assigned to me for two years, a normal cycle at the time, as we were issued vehicles by seniority. The camera would record, but the upload never worked. When we had a DWI arrest, and a DWI task force guy would try to upload/download/"tag" the footage, it was simply not there. When the camera finally filled-up with data, it was then simply an ornament, as it would not record new data over the old data. I was glad when I became eligible for a newer vehicle, which, notably, had no dash cam, as those boondoggles rotated into oblivion.

We are about to be issued our body cameras. With only six working computer terminals at the station, it has been estimated it will take each shift a collective two hours to upload the data at the end of each shift. What has not been determined is whether that means we report to the station early for the upload, or will be compelled to work late at the end of each shift. As calls tend to really pick-up near the end of the shift, reporting to the station early for uploading would cause a substantial reduction in our service to the public.

The technology that really irritates me is the new, larger X2 Taser, with darts considered so dangerous we have to avoid the front of the torso, by policy. There are so many other thou-shalt-nots in the policy, that the X2 is just an ornament on my duty belt, that I had probably best not deploy unless deadly force would be be applicable, anyway. I had to give up my cuff pouch to make room for the smaller X26 Taser, and then I had to give to give my radio pouch* to make room for the new X2, so I am pocketing some very important equipment that really should be on my belt, in order to make room for a Taser I am almost never allowed to use. (Actually, I found I could tuck one bracelet of Peerless Hinged cuffs inside my waistband, behind the mag pouches, with relative success, but my portable radio now rides inside a cargo pocket, or gets left inside the patrol vehicle.)

*I am considering some inventive way to carry my magazines, in order to be able to put my radio pouch back onto my belt. Perhaps I may wear my spare mags AIWB. Perhaps I will buy a buckle-less belt system, to get more usable space. Last resort, start eating donuts, to gain more available real estate?

[voodoo_man]

Yeah, this is the old "just keep it going the way it is and don't say anything" until you get jammed up when something happens.

[jnc36rcpd]

Rex, can you clarify the issue with the X2 probes? Are they significantly different than the twenty-five foot XP cartridges for the X-26?