"It can serve as a deterrent", Payne says, "because they (suspects) know the camera has certainly caught them in the act."
The "dash cam" video of police pursuits records the dangerous and unpredictable sequence of events leading up to the apprehension of a suspect or suspects.
"When you are in that type of situation where it may be critical for the video camera, I don' think the officers are thinking too much about the video cameras", Payne says, "they are thinking about the threat at hand and their training kicks in, and they rely on their training."
"We pretty much assume that we are always on video", says Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Dept. Sgt. Mark Williams, "you know with the cell phones, everyone has a video camera, we conduct ourselves as if we are always being videoed, that's kind of the nature of the business these days."
While recent higher-profile encounters captured by dash cam video locally have become the focus of controversy, the images don't always tell the whole story.
"What the camera doesn't record is the emotions and the subtle resistance that a defendant can make", Payne says, "as long as the defendant (suspect) is still resisting the officers, the officers have the right to try to subdue the defendant."
