Original subtitles

Bye.

I'm John Oliver, thank you so much for joining us. It has been a busy week, and

I mean really busy.

Trump, against zero odds, delivered the longest date of the union in history.

The US and Israel attacked Iran, with Israeli officials claiming they've

Ayatollah Khamenei. And look, we are taping this on Saturday, so who the fuck

knows what's happened by the time you see this.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Clintons testified about their connection to

Epstein, and it turns out we might be getting a new business, Daddy.

Netflix has backed out of its bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, paving the

way for rival Paramount Skydance to take over.

Yeah, not great news.

In fact, if I may quote anyone who's ever accidentally sat on their Roku

oh shit, I'm in Paramount now, how the fuck do I get out of this?

Also, last Sunday saw the US men's hockey team win gold only for this to

A wild scene in the locker room, with FBI Director Kash Patel even spotted

celebrating with the team, appearing to chug a beer before raising the bottle in

the air, spraying it across the locker room.

Yeah, that is the director of the FBI.

Looking like a little kid who won a prize for collecting the most canned

and got to go into the locker room.

For all it's worth, he didn't chug a beer, then spray it across the locker

A successful chug would render the bottle unsprayable. What he basically

there was drink a beer weed and then kind of fling his backwash around.

Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, but it's official, hockey sucks dick now,

and sadly, not in the hot way.

Now, Patel's presence there was strange for a number of reasons, not least that

his press office had insisted his trip to the Olympics was for work.

trashing reports suggesting otherwise as false and garbage but when his

itinerary was released it showed his four -day trip contained only several

of work meetings and a handful of meet and greets broken up by long segments of

personal and leisure time with his final day consisting of just the gold medal

game followed by his flight home and look Nothing against going to Italy and

getting a photo op. A couple of years back, every living comedian but me

that same move, and I hear they had a great time. But the work -to -play ratio

seems a little off here, and this was just the latest instance of Patel

to use the FBI jet for personal trips, which is a little rich coming from him,

given just over two years ago, he sat down with Glenn Beck and complained

his predecessor's use of it like this.

Chris Wray doesn't need a government -funded G5 jet to go to vacation.

Maybe we ground that plane.

15 ,000 every time it takes off.

This is odd.

Okay, so first, let me address this man cave, because it has everything to hang

out with the void.

A chalkboard, a typewriter in a box, a second camera in frame, and most

crucially, three staggeringly different seating options.

You might all be talking, but those pieces couldn't be less in conversation

each other.

But more importantly, the FBI director is actually required by law to take the

Bureau's private plane, but crucially...

If the travel is personal, they're required to reimburse the government,

only for the cost of a commercial flight.

And Patel's been using the jet a lot since he took off, to, among other

go to an exclusive golf resort in Scotland for a getaway with friends, and

travel to a real American freestyle wrestling event where his girlfriend was

performing the national anthem. He then flew to Texas to a resort literally

called the Boondoggle Ranch.

Which would be bad enough even if it didn't happen during the government

shutdown, and if he weren't hosted by a Republican megadonor named, and this is

true, Bubba Salisbury.

Which sounds like either the name of a baseball player from 1954 who was also

the Klan, or a dinner special at Denny's.

And when Patel and his country singer girlfriend went on a podcast with Katie

Miller, who is Stephen Miller's, let me make sure I've got this right, wife?

He offered up this not great defence.

It's ironic that they're saying, oh, you're going on vacation or you're going

see your girlfriend perform.

And if I was actually abusing it, I would go see every one of her shows. I

I get to like 15%.

Oh, so that's okay then. We all know it's not abuse if you don't do it as

as you technically could, you deeply weird man.

And by the way, if you're expecting me to show you a clip of his girlfriend's

music, I refuse to do that. I will just point out that if you go to the YouTube

page for her song Country Back, about how she wants her country back, and

down, the top comments read simply, Damn, Patel borrowed a jet and went to

listen to this.

I'd love to agree with that, except again, he didn't borrow the jet, we all

for it.

Thousands of dollars to take off, just a thought. And the thing is, Patel's

Olympic trip wasn't even the first time he's been accused of treating work like

a vacation. Last May, he went to the UK for a meeting of the Five Eyes, an

intelligence alliance with close English -speaking allies. And also, by the way,

my high school nickname, when bullies determined something stronger than four

eyes was required.

And while Patel's UK itinerary was tightly packed with important meetings,

according to one senior official, Patel wanted to move them to more fun venues

because, quote, he wants premier soccer games, he wants to go jet skiing, he'd

like a helicopter tour.

His staff only cared about three things, what his meals were, when his workouts

would be, and what his entertainment would be. The biggest plan is how he's

going to get his girlfriend in there so she can go to Windsor Castle, which

feels like what a 15 -year -old boy thinks a trip to England is.

Soccer, jet skiing. jet ski with James Bond's boss and take your girlfriend to

the castle? I'm going to show her the full agent Cody Banks.

And it can seem like Mattel's much more interested in the trappings of his job

than the job itself. For instance, at one point, he ordered special extra

challenge coins to hand out, which looked like this. And I assume he hands

out after only the sickest quests, like completing No Nut November or failing

anger management.

They look like the currency you use to pay for a divorce.

But the thing is, this fixation on optics can make him very bad at his job.

what happened last September after Charlie Kirk was shot. Within hours,

took to Twitter to announce that the subject for the horrific shooting today

now in custody.

Only two, 98 minutes later, have to follow that with a tweet saying, the

in custody has been released.

And in the words of one FBI veteran, it wasn't a good look. Which does make

sense, among other things.

Patel's first post sure made it sound like people could stop worrying about an

armed shooter on the loose when that was not the case. And yet, he stood by his

actions. Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure.

But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not. I was telling the world

FBI was doing as we were doing, and I'm continuing to do that, and I challenge

anyone out there to find a director that has been more transparent and more

willing to work the media on high -profile cases or any case the FBI is

handling. Okay, but the FBI director shouldn't be working the media for

You're supposed to be solving the case, not providing running commentary.

There is a reason the CIA has never sent out a press release saying, we think we

found an alien, and then 90 minutes later had to say, never mind, it was

fucked up looking squirrel.

And the chaos in the Kirk investigation continued once Patel landed in Utah.

Because according to one senior leader in counterintelligence, Patel didn't

a race jacket and reportedly ordered people to go find him one. He needed a

medium. They found him a female's jacket that didn't have the patches that he

wanted. So he had the SWAT team taking their patches off to put on his jacket

before he'd go to the press conference. And sure enough, that is what he then

wore. Now, I do have to tell you, he disputes that account and even went on

News to work. the media on the story.

I

mean...

Okay. Although, to be fair, Cash wearing something with pride isn't exactly a

high bar, given he might be the first FBI director who has his own apparel

And yes, that is a logo featuring Trump as the Punisher, as Santa.

And yes, his hat does say K $H, which I do get is supposed to stand for Cash,

but it makes him look more like he's in a shitty Kesha cover band.

But wait, because it gets even worse, because when Patel and his then -deputy

Dan Bongino joined a conference call about the shooting, FBI officials were

apparently shocked by their fixation on social media, with one saying of Patel,

he's screaming that he wants to put stuff out, but it's not even vetted yet,

it's not even accurate.

Everyone on the call is just like, this guy is completely out of control.

And let's just agree, you should never be on any conference call thinking, this

guy is out of control.

At worst, you should be thinking, if I died... Right now, would anyone notice?

Would anyone care?

And it says something that by the time Kirk's alleged killer turned himself in,

Utah's Governor Spencer Cox had taken the lead in handling the press, with the

source telling Fox News that, quote, letting cash talk much could fuck up the

prosecution.

The point is, Patel seems in way over his head. But weirdly, Trump might

actually like that right now, given that there are certain areas where he might

prefer loyalty over competence. Most notably, the Epstein case.

Because before Patel became FBI director, he insisted that the agency

release an alleged list of people Epstein had trafficked underage girls

he was incredulous the Republicans hadn't already demanded that.

What the hell are the House Republicans doing?

They have the majority.

You can't get the list?

You're going to accept Dick Durbin's word or whoever that guy is as to who is

that list and who isn't and that it can and can't be released?

Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.

Wait, wait, wait.

Put on your big boy pants?

I'm not sure that's the language I'd use to talk about catching pedophiles.

Given it sounds more like the slogan for a clothing line started by Jared from

Subway. But Patel's now singing a very different tune, arguing there's no

credible information Epstein trafficked young women to anyone beside himself.

And whenever the subject of Trump's name being in the files has come up, things

have been noticeably tense.

Did you tell the Attorney General that the President's name is in the Epstein

files?

During many conversations that the Attorney General and I have had on the

of Epstein, we have reviewed. The question is simple.

Did you tell the Attorney General that Donald Trump's name is in the Epstein

file? Yes or no? Why don't you try spelling it out? Yes or no, Director?

alphabet. Yes or no?

No. A, B, C, D, E, F.

Oh, you got him. You got him so good.

By the way, later in that hearing, a photo showed Patel holding a note

Good fight with Swalwell. Hold the line.

And I don't know what would be a more embarrassing explanation there, whether

wrote that note to himself or his mum wrote it and flipped it into a Tasmanian

devil lunchbox.

And his defensiveness there is striking. Now, the files are being released and

Trump's name is all over them. And while that doesn't necessarily show evidence

of wrongdoing, this week, NPR scrutinised the files and revealed

The spotlight tonight on what's not in the millions of Epstein files released

the DOJ.

Summaries and notes from three separate interviews the FBI conducted with a

Jeffrey Epstein accuser who also made sex abuse allegations against President

Trump in 2019.

Yeah, that looks pretty damning. In fact, the only thing that could be any

suspicious is if we eventually find out that the night Epstein died, Trump was

caught buying a bunch of rope at Home Depot.

And look.

I'm not sure how long Patel's going to stay in this job. Trump's reportedly

displeased with his Olympics hijinks. But as stupid as that locker room

is, and it's very, very stupid, it may actually be the perfect encapsulation of

his tenure at the FBI. Because think about it. He's in somewhere that he

belong, wearing something that makes him look ridiculous, and objectively having

way too good of a time. And when all of this is said and done, and he's

eventually gone, someone else is going to have to clean up his fucking mess.

And now, this.

And now, the Dan Bongino Show is back, and it is weird as fuck.

It is good to see you guys and ladies out there.

It's been a crazy year.

For those of you watching the show right now, we are obviously live.

My watch, well, anybody can set a time and a watch, but you get the point. I

think it's fairly obvious.

And I'm going to tell you something. I ate this morning for the first time in

three days. And, man.

I feel like a million dollars. So just throwing that out there.

Elbow's a little sore this morning.

I was putting on a shirt the other day. My elbow snapped back.

And it is, like, killing me. I had to take an Advil when I got up. I'm like,

what the hell? Sorry, my eye is getting a little red. I feel like I have a

little something in my eye there.

You see how it's a little red over there?

I know. I drink funny. I told you. I got arthritis in my elbow.

Nothing like being a dad.

I don't have any.

any boys. I got to tell you, I wish I had.

I've got an older daughter and a younger daughter, and they're pretty far apart.

I probably should have had one in between and taken a shot. I'm one of

boys. I have a stepsister, but I never had a, you know, a boy.

Hey, Dick.

Dicko.

Dickie.

Hey, Dicko, did you see that?

They call you Dicko, your friends.

Dickie, Dicko, something like... I thought my friends called me Daniel.

they call him Dicko. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know.

You don't have to, like, speculate on what... That was my

plastic cigar. Don't get distracted, because if there's a there there, don't

into another there that's not there, because it takes away from the there

there. Do you get my point?

Moving on.

Our main story tonight concerns the police. The main thing Steven Seagal

pretends to be, aside from a guy whose hair is naturally black. I'm sorry, but

the only way you get that color is by dunking your head into a vat of printer

ink. Specifically, we're going to talk about a particular tool police use that

is responsible for, among other things, this incredible story.

A shocking scene for kids is a Chuck E. Cheese. One minute they are just having

fun, and then all of a sudden, police rush in and put Chuck E.

Cheese... handcuffs

Wow

there

is a lot going on there from the kids screaming Chucky No

To the phrase, we're going to detain the mouse, dude.

It sounds like what an ice agent would say if Fievel tried to immigrate to

America today.

That arrest is one of many videos we've only been able to see thanks to police

body cameras, the devices that give us a nipple -to -eye view of law

enforcement's interactions with the public. They are ubiquitous now, but

cameras are still fairly new. As recently as 2013, only a third of police

departments had them, but by 2020, 79%.

of officers reported working in departments with body -worn cameras, to

point it's been said that they represent the largest new investment in policing

in a generation.

And body cams have been viewed as a popular solution to problems regarding

transparency in law enforcement, which may be why a key democratic demand right

now for ending the shutdown of funding to DHS involves this catchy phrase.

We want there to be masks off, body cameras on.

Masks off, body cameras on.

We want masks off, body cameras on.

Stirring stuff.

That is the leader of the opposition there, and that is truly the best he's

Honestly, you can set a white noise machine to fiery Chuck Schumer speech

get a full eight hours.

And the truth is, body cams can seem like a great tool for increasing

accountability and building trust, and cops themselves tend to value them too,

though for slightly different reasons than the rest of us, as for them, it's

more about reducing frivolous or false complaints. In fact, according to a 2018

survey, while just 34 % of local police and sheriffs said they acquired body

-worn cameras to reduce use of force, nearly 80 %...

wanted them in order to do things like improve officer safety, increase

quality, reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability.

And look, ideally, you could have all of those things. In fact, as this police

captain in Virginia sees it, the best case scenario for body cams is them

improving everyone's behaviour.

When a camera is present, everyone acts a little bit better.

So perhaps this is an opportunity for us to de -escalate an incident. If

something is very, very escalated, it will be a reminder to everyone involved,

to include the officers and the public, that a camera is present and hopefully

that we all are acting a little bit better, a little more civil to each

Well, that certainly sounds nice, doesn't it? Although, when a camera is

present, everyone acts a bit better, is an observation for someone who clearly

doesn't watch reality TV.

A world in which a camera's presence is your cue to throw a glass of Pinot

Grigio into someone's face and call them a whore in the middle of a nice

restaurant.

Still, that notion that body cams can be a way of calming down interactions with

law enforcement is appealing, and it may be why it seems we're about to slap

them on the chest of all ICE agents across the country in the name of

accountability. But the thing is, the more you look into body cams, the more

realise they are only effective if they are used properly, and in many cases,

they are just not.

So given that tonight, let's talk about body cams. Let's start with the fact

that straight away, there are certain limitations to what they can tell us as

because of their field of view, they can't capture the full context of

everything going on. And while I think you probably already get that, just

as this Today Show reporter demonstrates it in the weirdest possible way.

Seth is putting on a body camera.

My producer, Giovanna, is off to the side shooting from a distance on her

to give us the complete picture like a bystander would.

Scenario one, something Seth calls deceptive intensity.

Watch this body camera footage closely. What's happening here?

All right, now let's look from the bystander's iPhone.

That's right, no brawl here, just really bad dancing.

Okay, I will admit that demonstration was effective because the body cam

did look like a violent brawl.

when we now know they were in fact doing a Richard Simmons workout at each

other. And that's not the only weird demonstration like that.

Interpretation can be very misleading. For example, you, the viewer at home,

only see me from the chest up. You have no idea what's in my hand. However, the

view from a second camera may show that I'm holding what appears to be a gun,

when in reality, I'm just holding a flashlight.

Okay. I'll be honest, that felt less like a local news segment and more like

routine of the world's worst birthday magician.

Gather round, kids, for my first trick. You probably think I have a gun in my

hand, but it's actually a flashlight.

What's that? Your parents want their money back? No problem. Here's their

Or is it actually another flashlight?

But those examples, while ridiculous, do show how hard it can be to interpret.

what's captured on video. But the audio can be deceptive as well. Take this

example from Florida, where the shouts of officers wound up shaping a very

misleading narrative.

Officers were wearing body -worn cameras, and they were chasing after an

individual. He walked over to the sidewalk and lay down on the sidewalk,

-eagled.

You can hear on the body -worn camera footage officers screaming, you know,

resisting, stop resisting.

He claimed that they beat him unnecessarily and nobody believed him

video from the nearby building came out.

Yeah, they're yelling stop resisting when he wasn't resisting at all.

And it can be powerful to claim something's happening that the camera

see. It'd be like me telling you that under this desk I've got the size of a

bodybuilder and an ass that won't quit when the...

Truth is, I've got two perfectly average thighs and an ass that quits all the

time.

And that's not a one -off. A similar situation happened in the beating death

Tyree Nichols, where the audio on officer's body cams picked them up,

things like, lay flat, only for another video to emerge, showing him lying limp

as an officer handcuffed him. The point is, there are immediately limits.

to what a camera can show you. But those limitations get even more acute when

cops mute, obscure, or turn off their cameras, which happens, and sometimes on

purpose. And that is something driven home by this incident, where a police

captain who was arrested for drunk driving kept urgently trying to convey

something to the officer who pulled him over.

You been drinking tonight?

I just got a ride.

You been drinking tonight, sir?

I'm a captain on a police department.

What police department?

Oklahoma City.

I'm not turning my camera off. Okay.

Yeah, that is a police captain whispering turn your camera off while

simultaneously staring into it like a raccoon caught on a ring doorbell.

And it is genuinely hard to imagine a more embarrassing way to get arrested

that, which is saying something because you just saw someone get handcuffed

while dressed like a giant mouse.

And look, it makes sense that these things have an off button.

Cops need to be able to take a shit in peace like the rest of us.

And some of the people they talk to might need their privacy protected too.

is why Connecticut, for instance, has a law that says they have to turn cameras

off in cases like during an encounter with an undercover officer or informant,

when an officer is on break or engaged in personal business, and when a person

is undergoing a medical or psychological evaluation or treatment. But obviously,

some critical interactions, when people have been hurt or killed by police,

still go unrecorded. Well, you might think, well, maybe the incident

suddenly and officers didn't... have time to turn their cameras on you should

know most body cams are basically always in a standby mode in which the camera

is powered on and rolling but not yet permanently saving the footage. It's

when an officer presses record that the camera will begin saving footage to

permanent memory. That saved clip then includes footage recorded for a

predetermined amount of buffer time before the record button was pressed,

can range from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. So there's actually a meaningful amount

of context that can get captured prior to an officer hitting record if that's

something they're inclined to do.

And yet oftentimes they just happen to be turned off.

during incidents of police violence. For example, even though the LAPD requires

officers to turn on their cameras before any interaction with the public, nearly

a fourth of its officers involved in incidents where serious force was used

failed to activate them in a timely manner. And some unions and police

are quick to excuse that sort of thing. For instance, not long after Houston...

rolled out body cams. Two police officers shot a man near a gas station,

neither turned on their cameras until the incident was over. And this is how

police union's then president defended that.

This was the first real high -profile test of this department's body -worn

camera policy.

Pass or fail? If the officers...

primary responsibility was his safety, he passed.

If his primary responsibility was videotaping the entire scene, he failed.

was your cameraman and only had to worry about videotaping that, I would blame

that cameraman for not getting it. But that's not his primary responsibility.

His primary responsibility is to make sure he's safe and the public's safe.

Okay, but he didn't shoot someone.

My cameraman gets footage and has never shot anyone. Well, doing this job at

least. I don't know what Dante does during his off hours. That's his time.

Also, activating a body camera isn't exactly an overwhelming task. We looked

into it and the process is, step one, press the record button. Step two, end

steps.

But even if an officer does turn on their camera, and even if it shows what

happened clearly, there's still the issue of what happens to all the

Because to be clear, there is an enormous amount of it. To give you a

scale, Axon, the nation's largest police camera provider, offers cloud storage

for many of its clients' footage. And its database is more than 100 petabytes.

equivalent to more than 5 ,000 years of high -definition video, which is pretty

wild, isn't it? Both that there is so much of it, and also that Pedabyte is a

real unit of digital storage, and not what it sounds like, a snack food brand

exclusively for pedophiles. Pedabyte, have a snack, you fucking monster!

And the thing is, most of that footage will never be watched by anyone, which

understandable. It's impossible for agencies to look at every minute.

footage from all these cameras, but far too often, even footage that documents

misconduct isn't meaningfully reviewed, meaning departments miss opportunities

to spot both problem officers and broader patterns of abuse.

After the murder of George Floyd, it emerged that body cams had captured

Chauvin kneeling on the necks of others, including a handcuffed black woman and

a 14 -year -old black boy. In both those cases, supervisors had access to the

recordings yet cleared Chauvin's conduct.

And when a state civil rights investigation later looked at 700 hours

cam footage, it found Minneapolis cops repeatedly used neck restraints and

concluded that if police or the city had conducted a substantive audit of the

footage, they would have seen how often officers there were using neck

restraints and could have taken steps to stop it. And clearly, someone should

have done that.

Because there's no point in the police just stacking up...

thousands of hours of footage that nobody's ever going to see, especially

that we all know that is Paramount Plus's job.

Hey, what are they going to do?

Take us over and immediately cancel us? I'm genuinely asking.

So, internally, departments aren't reviewing their own footage nearly

And when it comes to public transparency, the results have been all

map. And you might be thinking, well, why not just put all the footage out

for everyone to see?

Well, the thing is, there are legitimate reasons not to do that. First, there

are issues with how all that video could be fed into facial recognition systems,

which we have talked about before.

But also remember, body cams can show vulnerable or embarrassing moments,

can then be exploited for entertainment.

And I know we've already showed you a couple of examples of that tonight.

But we thought a lot about why we were doing that and how, in the mouse one,

face is covered.

And in the police captain one, you might have noticed, he was a police captain.

Countless channels on YouTube that have made a business out of obtaining body

cam footage of people in distress and which do feel like they're leaning into

exploitation. One channel has videos called Entitled Lady Finally Gets What

Deserves and Buckle Up Kids Grandma's Drunk, which sounds like a kid's book

written by Kathy Lee Gifford.

Another channel has videos mainly of young women with titles like 19 -Year

Girl Arrested for DUI Over Double the Limit After Getting Drunk at the Beach,

which is pretty grim.

And by the way, we've blurred the faces there.

But they don't do that. And it almost makes me think that YouTube as a whole

might not have been worth it, offsetting its very real accomplishments, like

this video of a chihuahua riding a turtle, or this one of Kelsey Grammer

off a stage, or this one of a sheep screaming like a human.

Yeah, that might be the best thing ever posted to YouTube. And if you're

thinking, John, what about the several hundred episodes of your show?

I said what I said.

Now, those channels often get videos through public records requests, but

departments can have a huge amount of leeway when it comes to what they

as in most places, policy makers have defaulted to leaving them with the power

to decide what's recorded, who can see it, and when.

Just watch as a reporter asks Charlotte, then police chief, how to reconcile his

commitment to transparency with his department's refusal to release video of

police shooting.

You seem to get mixed messages here. On the one hand, you're saying we should

have full transparency.

On the other hand, you're saying you're not going to release the video. How can

you square those two things?

Obviously, the idea of full transparency is release the video so we can all see

it. Sure, I appreciate your passion, but I never said full transparency.

I said transparency, and transparency is in the eye of the beholder.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

Transparency is in the eye of the beholder?

That is just fully nonsense.

That sounds like the last thoughts of a pigeon that's about to smash into a

closed window.

And yet, that has been the de facto stance of many departments.

For example, even though in 2020, the NYPD promised to release footage of

critical incidents within 30 days, when ProPublica looked into it three years

later, they found that out of 380 such incidents, the NYPD had released footage

within a month, just twice.

And in South Carolina, when the police there had killed at least 19 people in

2023, they'd only released footage in three of those cases, with one

refusing a request by saying, we never released that footage.

And a popular argument police use is that making video public would undermine

the integrity of an investigation. It's an excuse which works in almost every

state in the country, even when there's rules for public access.

They'll also argue that reviewing the footage and redacting sensitive

information like juveniles' faces or witnesses' identities carries a

cost. In Las Vegas, police charged about $70 an hour to produce footage, while

in Memphis, journalists have been asked to pay as much as $3 ,100 in hourly

labour costs for video from a single case.

And as one expert said, for a local news organisation, a bill for $2 ,000 might

as well be a denial.

Which does make sense, doesn't it? Because local news are known for a lot

things. Dedicated employees, probing investigations, inadvertently

massive dicks on their weather maps. But they're not famous for rolling in

money. And even if footage gets released... it can be so heavily

then essentially useless. For example, until last year, Tempe, Arizona's police

department had a policy which mandated that all body cam footage they released

would include a general medium blur.

And just so you know, this is what their blurred footage looks like.

And it is notable that when body cam footage shows officers in a bad light,

will often cite the cost and technical hurdles of redaction to not release it.

But when it shows them in a good light... Those problems seem to

Just watch as a reporter in Texas confronts a police chief who was

because they didn't have the ability to redact videos themselves, they couldn't

release a video of a police search during a traffic stop.

In the year 2024, why doesn't this department have software to redact

It's really...

expensive for us to get. Angleton Chief Lupe Valdez showed us a quote from their

body cam vendor, more than $14 ,000.

Budget -wise, it's not in our budget to do that.

But there's this.

Body cam video Angleton police released a few months ago of a crash where

officers heroically pulled the driver out of the burning car.

And look, portions are blurred.

How were you able to redact the video in that case? We paid somebody to do that.

So, let me get this straight. When your officers are heroes, you find a way to

release it, but when your officers are scrutinized, you find a way to withhold

it? No, sir.

That's what happened here, Chief. No, sir.

Uh, yes, sir.

That is exactly what happened. That interview could not have been any more

embarrassing for that man, which is why I'm sure he'd prefer if we blurred him

right now.

But I'm not going to do that, because much like him, I only pay people to

video when I fucking feel like it.

But maybe no case illustrates the extent to which the mere presence of body cams

isn't sufficient to prevent police violence or indeed bring accountability.

More than that of Ronald Green, a Louisiana man who died following an

with police in 2019.

Officers initially told his family that he died on impact after crashing his car

at the end of a chase with police. And even though there was body cam footage

from officers on the scene, state officials, including the then governor,

repeatedly refused to publicly release it for more than two years.

In the end, someone wound up leaking the video to the AP, which is how people

came to see a trooper wrestling Green to the ground, putting him in a chokehold

and punching him in the face. And I'm not going to show you the video of any

that. But I do think it's worth seeing one moment from one of the officer's

cams as he drove away from the scene.

I beat the ever -living fuck out of him, choked him and everything else trying

to get him under control.

And then all of a sudden he just went limp.

Yeah, I thought he was dead.

We set him up real quick.

He's on the ambulance en route to Glenwood, and I'm hauling ass trying to

up to him.

You think he'll... Y 'all got no body cam?

Yeah. As soon as he was reminded his body camera was on, he turned it off.

Which is pretty damning. It is honestly the panicked move of someone whose

internal monologue was essentially just this.

Yeah, exactly.

Now, none of the six officers on the scene wound up facing much in the way of

charges. The guy in that video actually wound up dying the following year in a

car crash. As for the other five, only two were convicted on any charges, and

those were misdemeanors pled down. But charges against the other three were

dismissed, and the DOJ dropped its criminal investigation, saying it had

insufficient evidence to support federal charges.

But that might be because even though there was body cam footage, the

microphones weren't always on and not all of the troopers at the scene had

cameras on during the arrest. And that does not seem like a coincidence

because... the AP found state troopers there had made a habit of turning off or

muting body cams during pursuits, that when footage is recorded, the agency

routinely refused to release it, and that one supervisor in the department

told internal investigators that it was his common practice to rubber stamp

officers' use of force reports without reviewing body cam video.

And if you're not even going to watch the footage...

Why give your officers body counts at all? You might as well just let them

a bologna sandwich off their shirt instead.

It'll lead to exactly as much accountability, and they'll have a

snack in case they get hungry.

And the truth is, if someone hadn't leaked that footage, we'd likely never

known about any of this. But hoping for leak just cannot be the system here.

What do we do? Well, I would argue we have to take back the power from police

departments to decide when and how to use body cams. Some agencies are

transitioning to auto -triggering technologies like sensors that switch

when officers do things like draw their gun or exit their police car.

Experts told us those aren't necessarily bad ideas, but...

They're likely to fall flat if they aren't combined with clear, enforceable

rules, stating the footage must be retained, routinely reviewed, and

a timely manner, especially in critical incidents.

One way of doing that is to have those rules enforced by an independent body,

free of police influence.

And all of this is really worth bearing in mind during the current debate over

requiring federal agents to wear body cams during immigration enforcement,

because it's worth remembering a pretty important fact.

about the officers in the Alex Preti shooting.

Customs and Border Protection officers involved in the deadly shooting were

wearing body cameras. The agency says the footage is preserved, but it's

when or whether the public's going to see it. Can I ask you a question? Why

isn't it automatic that the body camera footage would eventually be released?

You'd think it would be. Here, though, the Trump administration has resisted

cooperation with any investigation.

And, George, remember, they've already drawn a conclusion that the shooting was

justified.

Yeah, they still haven't released the body cam footage.

Kind of rendering that whole masks off, body cams on slogan pretty toothless.

Though, to be fair, I guess masks off, body cams on and operating under clear

guidelines about when footage is released and overseen by an independent

ensure maximum transparency isn't quite as catchy. And if Chuck Schumer tries to

say it, I think his head might explode.

The point is... The reason we know what happened to Alex Preti isn't because of

body cams. It's because of all the other people with cell phones filming what

happened. And that is going to need to continue.

Because until we see significant changes, body cams will just never live

their promise of shining a real light on misconduct. And if you need a visual

metaphor for light being shined on things, don't worry, because I have in

hand, and this may surprise you, a flashlight!

That's our show.

Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next week. Good night.

Don't blur me. Don't blur me.

Don't blur me. I don't want to be blurred.