Police Videos
Police videos are an essential tool in law enforcement for a variety of reasons. Since the advent of small, portable, light weight video cameras, police videos have become as significant a part of an officer's tools as her revolver or handcuffs.
One of the main uses of police videos is to monitor an officer while she apprehends a person who has been stopped for a moving violation. Small video cameras are mounted on the dash board of patrol cars. These police videos consistently monitor the officer's daily actions as he moves about towns, cities, and highways, patrolling for possible criminal activity as well as the aforementioned traffic stop. When a person is pulled over for a moving violation, the dash board camera records the officer's approach of the vehicle, and captures the audible exchange between driver and officer. Often police videos are used as evidence in court to fully convict drunk drivers as well as point out in what ways an officer has been either put in danger by a suspect's action or whether the officer himself has overstepped his boundaries in the apprehension of a suspect. Likewise, the dash board police videos also allow officers to continue their pursuit of a vehicle that has been lost, by reading the license plate number of the offending vehicle off of police videos.
One other vital purpose for police videos is their function in training perspective police officers. Much like football and hockey coaches review video footage with their teams in order to point out areas that need improvement as well as applaud the efforts of distinguished players, police videos are used in similar circumstances at police academies throughout the country in an effort to demonstrate effective and ineffective strategies for the apprehension of a suspect. Police videos are also used in precincts as a part of continuing education courses that consistently retrain and remind police officers as to the best methods for protecting their own safety and the safety of others.