Medina offered two puzzling excuses for leaving his camera off. He “cited intermittent conversations with his wife, who was a passenger in his unmarked patrol vehicle at the time of the collision,” Ortiz says. “He claimed there was a right to privileged communication between spouses, which specifically exempted him from mandatory recording requirements.” But the relevant policy “does not provide for nonrecording based on spousal privilege.”
Even more troubling, Medina said he “purposefully did not record because he was invoking his 5th Amendment right not to self-incriminate.” Since “he was involved in a traffic collision,” he reasoned, he was “subject to 5th Amendment protections.”
I think Albuquerque’s police chief can go fuck himself.
My workplace’s IT staff can see what I’m doing on my work computer, even when it’s texting my wife. That’s fine, it’s their computer; anything I do with it is under their banner and they bear some responsibilities around it, and therefore my using it for personal stuff is a privilege I need to be cognizant of the realities around. A cop’s work vehicle is no different. The camera isn’t there to protect his wife, it’s there to protect society against him and he doesn’t get to pick and choose when he’s subject to that oversight.