PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2016-09-26 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Are Police Allowed to 'Pop Hoods' to Block Dash Cams? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • On 22 September 2016, a Facebook user posted the status update reproduced above, claiming that police in Danville, Virginia, had permission to use the hoods of police vehicle to obstruct dash cam views at their discretion (presumably to avoid the recording of any potantial evidence of police misbehavior): The claim was widely shared via social media, often as a warning to individuals in the Danville area with respect to potential dangers during traffic stops: The original image of two police vehicles with raised hoods was traceable to a 24 August 2016 Danville Register & Bee article about an investigation of shots fired near a police precinct. The raised hoods seen in that image were not mentioned as having anything to do with a traffic stop or civilian interactions with police. We contacted the Danville Police Department to ask whether the department had such a policy in place (i.e., allowing officers to obstruct dash cams) and inquire about the images circulating on social media, and the officer with whom we spoke was aware of the photographs and stated that no such policy in Danville permitted police to deliberately obstruct their vehicle dash cams. He also told us that the photographs were taken during the investigation of a civilian vehicle that had been shot up, adding that the investigation took place over the course of an afternoon as police spent several hours combing the area for evidence such as shell casings Since responding vehicles remained at the scene for several hours, he said, officers lifted their units' hoods as a preventive measure to protect against overheating. (Weather records demonstrate daytime temperatures in Danville ranged from the mid-80s to the 90s during the week of 24 August 2016.) In a separate e-mailed response, a representative from the Danville Police Department affirmed that circumstance and provided a more detailed explanation about why police vehicle overheating is a common issue: Officers on police message boards in 2005 described lifting the hoods of their units to (among other reasons) ensure the safety of department canines during lengthy stops on hot days, a circumstance also mentioned in a River City TV interview with Danville Police about the social media controversy: A follow-up article from the Register & Bee noted that the problem that prompted the raising of patrol car hoods was not literally an issue with engines overheating, but a continual heating problem that damages electrical components: No indication of a pulled-over civilian vehicle (or any other form of police-public interaction) is visible in any of the photographs circulated on Facebook, and no one has yet produced any pictures of a hood-up Danville police car clearly involved in a traffic stop or cited an instance in which evidence from a Danville traffic stop was unobtainable due to dashboard camera blockage. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url