DARLINGTON, SC (WBTW) – The recent incident in Columbia where a school resource officer was fired after throwing a student from her desk has brought a great deal of controversy to many areas about the role of officers in schools and how incidents are handled.
Now, many parents are asking that officers in the schools be required to wear body cameras.
Anthony Hall says he has two granddaughters in school, and he feels body cameras would provide accountability and transparency for all parties involved.
“Police, in whatever capacity they are, ought to have a body camera. I think that one, it tells the whole story. It tells both sides of the story. People will react differently if they know they are being filmed. An officer may react differently if they know whatever their actions are can be caught on camera also,” said Hall.
Chief Danny Watson with the Darlington Police Department says body cameras are the only way to protect the whole truth.
“It doesn’t change. It cannot be modified. So, what happened is what happened,” said Watson.
Watson says the Darlington Police Department has six different school resource officers, and when they walk inside their schools, they’re required to wear their body cameras.
That’s not the case for other officers around the Pee Dee. News 13 reached out to the Marion, Dillon, Florence, and Marlboro police departments to see if their school resource officers were required to wear body cameras, and all four departments said no, but in light of recent events, said it would be something to consider.
But what advantage would the body camera have over the student-shot cell phone video?
“Say you’re talking to me, what you see through your eyes is what that camera is going to see. You’re going to hear what that officer heard, you’re going to see what that officer saw from that officer’s perspective, not from somebody who’s standing at this angle or that angle,” said Watson.
In the case in Columbia, it may have allowed us to see what happened in the classroom from start to finish.
Chief Watson says officers are trained to first ask, then tell, and finally force. He says body cameras would allow all three of those steps to be caught on camera and used as evidence if needed.
