What body cameras can't solve

In the wake of the grand jury’s failure to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown—and in light of conflicting eyewitness accounts of the incident—many have argued that video evidence would have helped a lot. Body-mounted cameras offer a technological solution to what is otherwise a problem of human moral complexity: eyewitnesses can’t agree; officers can’t behave; human evidence can’t be trusted. Technology, the argument suggests, can supersede all of this.

And then, of course, a grand jury in New York City failed to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of another unarmed black man, Eric Garner, despite the fact that Pantaleo was caught on camera subduing Garner with what appears to be an illegal chokehold, which the coroners say caused his death.

This grand jury had all the video evidence it could possibly have needed. Even if Pantaleo had been wearing a body camera, it's hard to imagine how this would have made any difference to whatever evidentiary standard the grand jury was following. What's easy to imagine is the grand jury bringing its own presuppositions to the supposedly impartial technological evidence—presuppositions representing both structurally racist elements and excessive deference to the legal standing of police officers.