{"id":64982,"date":"2026-10-12T03:25:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64982"},"modified":"2026-10-13T03:27:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T08:27:02","slug":"citybuzz-how-activation-gaps-in-police-video-are-impacting-suppression-fights-in-misdemeanor-and-felony-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64982","title":{"rendered":"CityBuzz: How Activation Gaps in Police Video Are Impacting Suppression Fights in Misdemeanor and Felony Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>CityBuzz: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citybuzz.co\/2026\/10\/12\/how-activation-gaps-in-police-video-are-impacting-suppression-fights-in-misdemeanor-and-felony-cases\/\">How Activation Gaps in Police Video Are Impacting Suppression Fights in Misdemeanor and Felony Cases<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>When the Minneapolis officer who shot Justine Damond in 2017 walked up to her back alley, his body camera was off. So was his partner\u2019s. The ACLU used that case to make a wider point that still holds up: activation policies written as vague suggestions produce vague footage, and vague footage produces courtroom fights that turn on the seconds nobody recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That fight is now routine in ordinary misdemeanor and felony cases, well beyond the headline shootings. A stop, a pat-down, a doorway conversation, a roadside admission \u2014 many of the moments that decide guilt or innocence happen in the first minute or two of contact. That first minute is exactly when the camera is most likely to be off, buffering silently, or pointed at the pavement. What the recording shows, and what it doesn\u2019t, is reshaping how suppression motions get argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Silence Is Now an Argument<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For years, the presence of a body camera was treated as a settling force. The video would speak, and the case would follow. What has actually happened is stranger. The camera speaks when it is on, and its silence speaks when it is off. Defense attorneys who understand the device, the buffer, the policy, and the log are turning the first 90 seconds of a recording into the loudest part of the file.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CityBuzz: How Activation Gaps in Police Video Are Impacting Suppression Fights in Misdemeanor and Felony Cases:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-cameras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64983,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64982\/revisions\/64983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}