TASER's AXON on-officer recording system could revolutionize COPS

Oh sure, technically COPS is still a current show, but seriously, the formula hasn't changed in eons. TASER International's AXON / EVIDENCE.com tandem is gearing up to change all that -- so long as officers agree to strap the hardware on their person, that is. In short, AXON is an on-officer recording system that captures audio and video of arrests, and after the scuffle is complete, it sends the data (encrypted heavily, of course) to EVIDENCE.com servers that are managed far, far away from the potentially dubious grasp of police departments. There are built in sensors to see if any data has been tampered with, and if all goes to plan, the entire system should be ready for deployment in Q3 of this year. In other words, go ahead and get all your stupidity out before the summer ends.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

[rock99rock @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:19AM]

Good for us AND them. It's tech like this that can help society be a better place.

[Tedeks @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:52AM]

I agree, although I hope they use this all the time. The key here is that it gets used, which I would imagine would be challenging.

[Ellianth @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:01AM]

/me walks up in front of rock99rock
/me looks to the right
/me punches rock99rock in the face
/me looks back at rock99rock and wonders why he's in so much pain
/me walks away.

[Ebzy @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:08AM]

@Ellianth

O if only there was a camera to see what rock99rock would then do when your back was turned.

[rock99rock @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:14AM]

/me wishes i was wearing TASER's AXON to record such events

[OneLove @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:23AM]

.....not if it has an OFF button.

..."officer Johnson, whats this 10 minute gap in your recording"?..."eh, it fell off while I was arresting the suspect, sir".

[Winston @ Mar 23rd 2009 11:00AM]

If these are made mandatory, that would be great as long as, of course, the videos are archived and made fully available to the public. I'm not holding my breath on that.

[absurdio @ Mar 23rd 2009 2:27PM]

Yeah. I'd love it if these were mandatory for cops. Who will protect us from our protectors? TASER, I guess. Who'd've thought?
For the same reason, I'm sure these aren't ever going to be mandatory.

[Justin @ Mar 24th 2009 1:57AM]

Agreed, this is awesome technology. Hope to use this when I'm in Law Enforcement.

[Wwhat @ Mar 24th 2009 2:10AM]

Small correction to the article: "EVIDENCE.com servers that are managed one short phonecall away"

[nxp3 @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:20AM]

Not that I get arrested and beaten up before, but I think all cops should be required to wear this at all times. It will prove once in for all that all they do is sit around school zone trying to catch speeders and people without sticker while crime everywhere is on the rise. I don't think we need more cops...I just think we need existing cops to do their jobs. Oh and it would really be nice if they try to remove this thing it delivers a taser shock of their own. This way it will prevent trigger happy cops from indiscriminately tasing everyone in their way. It aint a toy you know.

[Nexus @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:36AM]

Isn't catching speeders part of their job, especially around schools ??

[Tarnation @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:35AM]

They sit at school zones to keep you from running over kids jack ass.

[nxp3 @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:48AM]

I take it you aholes never had your house robbed before eh? Well I lived about 10 minutes from my work place, on my way home I passed by 2 cops. When I got home, I realized that my house had been broken into. I called the cops and for 1 hour, no one showed up. Called again and a cop shows up an hour later. 2 hours for a damn robbery and when I passed 2 cops on the way home? Man, how efficient the system is and what the F were they doing at a school zone when they could have respond to robbery or actually patrolling around instead of sitting in one place. I see it too many times. None of them deserves any kind of respect when they pull that shit.

[ww @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:56AM]

Simply because it can weed out the bad cops. I have nothing but respect for police, but the bad one really stink up the join sometimes. Also, I think the video could actually save the city money, avoid paying out million dollars "bonus" to those sue the city.

[Carl @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:01AM]

I agree and feel that it would be a helpful tool. I don't believe it'll be a save all as someone will hack it or do whatever most likely. It will help keep them honest though. Not that you couldn't just put your finger or something over the camera when you needed.

But as for what they do, yea I agree it doesnt make alot of sense. I would like more patrols as well. I've never had an instance where I needed them. I feel if they got paid a decent amount then they'd be more willing to go the extra mile. As it is now if I got paid that I wouldn't be very motivated either. I wouldnt mind more tax payer money going to them, but please please, more money for DTV coupons.

Ok, I could have called them when the B***ch keyed my jeep. But I knew it wouldn't have mattered. Even though I knew which car she was driving and they probably could have tested her keys or what not for residue. Gone all gil grisom on her ass.

[j_g_puff @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:38AM]

NXP, you said it yourself. It's the system that is inefficient, not necessarily the cops. You didn't think that your calls go straight to the cop cars, did you? Tazering their heads with cam-headsets isn't going to get them to show up at your robbed house any quicker.

Incidentially, perhaps the reason they took 2 hours is because they were responding to real emergencies. A robbery isn't an emergency - they could take 20 minutes or 5 hours to get there and it wouldn't really make any difference to the case (that is, unless the robbers were still prowling round your house with knives. If that was the case, then i totally sympathise with you).

[nxp3 @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:11AM]

j_g_puff: I don't know exactly how the system works, they could be as bad as the cops. But when you see a bunch of cops but not much results in terms of crime and deterence you have to wonder if they're really doing their job. All this evidence I see around me points to them not being efficient in what they do and not caring about their job. You kind of wonder why they want to be a cop in the first place. The police seem to think they are underpaid and undermanned. Maybe they are underrpaid, but certainly not undermanned. If there were stricter rules, maybe we can weed out the bad ones who don't really want to work and recruit more good ones that we could afford to pay them more. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but some of these cops are fat...I mean how the hell are they suppose to catch criminals when they can't even run a block. We are in a city full of red light cameras in every street corrner, on top of that we got cops waiting at the other corners. It seem to me the city is more concerned about raising money than protecting the people.

[erik @ Mar 23rd 2009 11:48AM]

The police unions would never let that happen

[Joe @ Mar 23rd 2009 11:54AM]

Don't tase me bro

[bking5 @ Mar 23rd 2009 12:19PM]

To bad it won't happen.

The other issue is that they will ALWAYS be bug ridden. They will ALWAYS fail when there is a need to beat the crap out of someone. It will be a horrible coincidence, but it will happen over and over and over. Just like the in-car cameras seem to continually fail. Just try to recover the footage with a supeiona, seems that more than half of the time, the camare footage is 'not available' due to problems with the camera or the storage device. That;s simply not going to change.

[maveric101 @ Mar 23rd 2009 1:28PM]

wait, i though crime rates have been falling.

[Wwhat @ Mar 24th 2009 2:16AM]

From those reality shows that follow cops I get that they don't give a damn if people film them while they behave like incredible fascist assholes that violate human rights and the constitution, not one bit.
So I expect that this will just make it all more acceptable than it already is and will lead to more people posting that it's great that they taser random people for no reason and such idiocy, and how people should just grovel and do whatever anybody with a badge gets in his mind.

Brave new world.

[iGoon#2 @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:22AM]

AHAHAH!!!!!1

MY ASS!

Every time someone gets killed by "accident" the camera will have either;

-lost
-was damaged
-conveniently not turned on.

These wimps are pwned by organized crime... no family man has any business being a Police officer. And what happened to all that high tech gear? Why run in a room when you could just scan it with heat tracker?

I say we the public whould be walking around with camera 24/7 and also have a camera on the dash of our cars. That would cut down on the stupidity that is car insurance.

[Rob @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:35AM]

I'm sure this thing will have a 'pause' button or something, for those moment that a cop needs some privacy, such as going to the toilet. Which can then be conveniently pressed when needed in other circumstances.

[Timm @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:53AM]

Are you really this stupid?

[ww @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:00AM]

Cops don't usually go it alone, I doubt they can say both are damage at the same time. Besides that, the thing should transmit the signal wireless back to the cop cruiser rt. How about a camera pointing at the back?

[Wwhat @ Mar 24th 2009 2:23AM]

From incidents that were filmed in the past the MO is that all material will be confiscated to be 'viewed as evidence' by an 'independent police commission' who will then declare the cop 'innocent' no matter what he pulled.
The only way a cop get punished by film material is if someone from the public films it and gets it out in public enough before it can be stopped, that means either national television or many website copies, preferably university networks and international and not just youtube who can be edited easily. But even then it's not guaranteed to get a conviction or even the cop getting fired, there's a more than 50% chance they simply promote him and call that 'removed from his position'.

[crispy @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:23AM]

Cops should be REQUIRED to wear this.

[Tedeks @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:52AM]

I agree, however I bet it will be challenging to make this a requirement.

[mxak @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:27AM]

"In other words, go ahead and get all your stupidity out before the summer ends."

ahhahahhahaha

[haX0r @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:36AM]

How are the Cops going to wear this with sunglasses?

[rock99rock @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:16AM]

I'm sure Oakley is preparing their own version right now. @ 500% markup. That the taxpayers end up providing.

[Wwhat @ Mar 24th 2009 12:24PM]

I'm sure these already have a startup markup of 8000 percent, those things they make to sell to the cops always have.

[boomhower @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:36AM]

This will never be wide spread, law enforcement doesn't have the budget for it. They can barely stay staffed and equipped as it is.

[Timm @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:53AM]

I agree. departments can hardly afford tasers for each officer, let alone superfluous crap like this.

[Tedeks @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:53AM]

Good point, although it should be subsidized by the government or someone. This could make a huge difference.

[Andrew Timson @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:54AM]

Subsidized by the government? Who do you think sets the police departments' budgets in the first place?

[Sarvesh @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:42AM]

POLICE BRUTALITY !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Smi @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:43AM]

We've had helmet mounted cameras in the UK's police forces for the last four or five years?

[barry99705 @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:48AM]

I don't know, have you?

[Carl @ Mar 23rd 2009 8:51AM]

I think you explained why in the first part of your sentence.

[tim @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:00AM]

Helmet mounted is not sexy enough and won't address the police's envy for military-style equipment.

[OneLove @ Mar 23rd 2009 10:26AM]

Please frame your comment in the form of a question?

[Joe @ Mar 23rd 2009 11:55AM]

I'm Ron Burgundy?

[BigD145 @ Mar 23rd 2009 12:34PM]

Cops are generally harmless and don't wail on folks?

Hahaha?

[mrF1xIT @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:06AM]

This kinda reminds me of what they used in 'Strange Days' but not nearly as advanced. When will we see something like that? lol

[Justin @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:27AM]

Need this for home... "No Dear, that is not what I said..." or "I told you about this months ago..." then run the playback.

[f3rg @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:39AM]

All cops should be required to wear these. Not only would it cut down--eliminate--crimes committed by them while they're on duty (running red lights; speeding while not in pursuit; pulling people over to check out their cool cars; beating up skateboarders, etc; chatting from car to car in parking lots instead of patrolling; a probably a million other things they do while on the job), but it'd protect both cops and citizens, and cut down on financial waste by forcing them to do their jobs properly.

[KidKlassic @ Mar 23rd 2009 9:47AM]

Hope it actually stays on. Might need a strap because running after someone resisting could cause problems. I know the officer is NOT going to stop and pic it up.

Imagine !! ^_^