Body cameras helped convict Texas police officer of murder - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08/28/jordan-edwards-roy-oliver-body-cameras-murder/ DALLAS — The body camera footage changed everything from the beginning. The day after police officer Roy Oliver fatally shot 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in April 2017, the Balch Springs police said the car of unarmed teens leaving a party was moving aggressively toward officers when Oliver fired into it. But the next day, after the chief saw the video, he walked back the statement and acknowledged that the car was moving away from police. Oliver was quickly fired and charged with murder. During his eight-day trial, which held closing arguments Monday, the footage from the cameras clipped to the chests of Oliver and his partner was played repeatedly and touched almost every piece of evidence brought forward by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Jurors watched videos and detailed frame-by-frame comparisons that showed the officers peacefully responding to a house party before gunshots rang into the night, prompting them to dash from the house up the street. They heard Oliver’s partner yell for the car driven by Edwards’ brother, Vidal Allen, to stop as it slowly backed onto the intersecting street, and they saw Oliver fire five rounds into the vehicle as it was moving away from the officers. And that footage likely played a large role in the jury’s incredibly rare guilty verdict, handed down Tuesday after more than 13 hours of deliberation. Oliver was convicted of murder and found not guilty of two counts of aggravated assault. The same jury sentenced him to 15 years in prison Wednesday night. The possible punishment for murder in Texas ranges from 5 years to life. The use of police body cameras surged after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as criticism against police shootings, particularly of unarmed black men, exploded. Advocates hoped their use would increase transparency and hold officers accountable, precisely what it appeared to do in the case of Oliver, a white officer who shot a black teen. But studies on the effects of body cameras have uncovered mixed results, and Oliver’s conviction is still the exception in police shootings, largely because of the wide discretion officers have when they decide to pull the trigger. “[Oliver’s] stands out as one of the kinds of cases that I think people thought were going to be quite common and have actually been much less common than what advocates expected,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, senior counsel and body camera expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. “What the officer has to do to be held accountable legally has to be so outside the norm, and officers do face a lot of risks, so I think there’s often a lot of sympathy.” Footage from the body cameras, as well as videos from police dashboard cameras and witness cell phones, have become commonplace in the news and on social media. And while it’s not uncommon for the videos to raise attention or create public outcry, their use in police prosecution is still rare. A 2016 George Mason University study showed that only 8 percent of prosecutors who used body camera evidence in criminal cases across the nation used it against a police officer, while almost all had used it as evidence against citizens. Still, some officers, including others in Dallas County, have faced prosecution in recent years, and video has often played an important role in those cases. Ultimately, the jurors in Oliver’s trial — 10 women, half of whom were black or Hispanic, and two white men — decided that Oliver’s actions weren’t justified. Though Oliver’s conviction will undoubtedly be appealed, and data since 2005 shows four of the five on-duty police shooting murder convictions were overturned on appeal, for now, they have made a historical statement: the high bar to convict a police officer of murder can be overcome.

The possible punishment for murder in Texas ranges from 5 years to life. What type of murder only gets your 5 years?

Accidental

That's manslaughter

possibly one where the murdered is a perpatrator of a serious crime against the murderer, domestic abuse and such. I aint no law man though.

crimes of passion?

I wonder what it's like to be a cop in a US prison.

Murdering someone for talking at the theater.

Probably very similar to being a cop in prison elsewhere: your own private hell.

https://youtu.be/8gaRYL4B-ZI?t=67

Probably just as bad as pedos get it in the prison system. If you're a cop? you're stuck with people you put in.