> Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed.
This is very much the case. I'm a paramedic, and the police agency in the area got body cameras a few years back. It is extremely common (in my first-hand experience) for folks who have been treated completely respectfully to threaten a complaint. Once it's pointed out the whole incident was on camera, it's amazing how often they drop it right there...
I have very serious concerns about policing in this country. I think they are trained to jump to lethal force far too quickly, and the militarization we have seen over the past decades has led to an 'us vs them' mentality for many officers.
But you're absolutely right that a large chunk of the drop in complaints is almost certainly folks who don't bother pressing an issue once they find out there is video evidence of what happened.
Bu then how does the fact that the drop is on officers with cameras and officers who don't have cameras? The spurious complaints would continue on officers who don't wear them.
That is not at all obvious. There is a large difference in relative power between a citizen and police officer compared to citizen and paramedic. Due to this, I would expect much fewer frivolous complaints against policemen.
Now, I do not mean to write this as a proof that there were no frivolous complaints against police, only that you cannot derive any conclusions from number of such complaints against paramedics.
I'm not talking about paramedics wearing cameras (that would be a HIPAA nightmare...). I'm sharing my personal experience from observing a large number of LEO/citizen interactions (cops and paramedics end up on the same scenes quite frequently)
This is very much the case. I'm a paramedic, and the police agency in the area got body cameras a few years back. It is extremely common (in my first-hand experience) for folks who have been treated completely respectfully to threaten a complaint. Once it's pointed out the whole incident was on camera, it's amazing how often they drop it right there...
I have very serious concerns about policing in this country. I think they are trained to jump to lethal force far too quickly, and the militarization we have seen over the past decades has led to an 'us vs them' mentality for many officers.
But you're absolutely right that a large chunk of the drop in complaints is almost certainly folks who don't bother pressing an issue once they find out there is video evidence of what happened.