If you, as a police officer, are in court because somebody died in an altercation with you, and the camera was obstructed/destroyed, and there are any eyewitnesses at all that will testify to your bad behaviour, you are toast.
Most juries will assume you destroyed evidence out of malice, and the prosecution will go for that.
Do you have any examples of this happening? Because there are multiple examples of the opposite. The boy shot in Ohio with the toy gun is one, off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more.
Comments
If you, as a police officer, are in court because somebody died in an altercation with you, and the camera was obstructed/destroyed, and there are any eyewitnesses at all that will testify to your bad behaviour, you are toast.
Most juries will assume you destroyed evidence out of malice, and the prosecution will go for that.
Do you have any examples of this happening? Because there are multiple examples of the opposite. The boy shot in Ohio with the toy gun is one, off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more.
Not when prosecution is a collegial DA who uses the missing video as a lack of evidence and declines to press charges.