From ‘Cops’ to body cams: Can filming affect police behavior?

The Lakewood Police Department was being recorded on camera over two decades ago. Only it wasn’t with officer body cameras like the ones proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray this week – it was on a reality television show.

If you’re a fan of the popular series “Cops,” then you’ll remember the frequent appearances from the Lakewood police. The department was featured on the show from 1989 to 2004. Which begs the question: with such a fandom for the TV version of policing, why the debate when the cameras are turned on in real life?

RELATED: Mayor Murray orders all Seattle police to wear body cams

KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show invited Lakewood Police Chief Mike Zaro to talk about the city’s unique history as part of the “Cops” franchise, and whether he believes wearing a body cam can affect officer behavior.

Lakewood’s history on “COPS”

Nearly 50 “COPS” segments were filmed in Lakewood, Washington until 2004, according to The Seattle Times. Only the Las Vegas and Miami-Dade police departments filmed more segments.

“We had a significant percentage of the episodes to where there was a lot of times I would travel across the country and people could comment to me just about ‘COPS,’ and that’s what they knew Lakewood for,” said Zaro, who himself appeared on an episode in 1996.

“For me personally, it was kind of fun, it was nice for my family to see that and my friends to see me on TV and me at work, but as far as a net gain for the city of Lakewood, I really would have a hard time arguing that there was.”

Zaro tells Ron and Don that even though the crew rides with officers for months (to capture just a few minutes’ worth of footage) he never became fully-accustomed to the presence of reality-TV cameras.

“Eventually you kind of get used to it, but you never really are comfortable. You always know that they’re there.”

Do police body cams work?

A recent order from Seattle Mayor Ed Murray requiring police to wear body cameras has drawn both praise — from those who believe it encourages transparency – and criticism from those who believe it adds little to no benefit to the community or its officers.

Does Zaro think body cams help reduce the use-of-force?

“If you’re talking about use of force or complaints, those are two sort of different things,” said Zaro. “I do think that there’s some evidence there that shows people behave better, both cops and citizens when there’s a camera and audio rolling.”

The call for police body cams comes in the wake of a number of controversial officer-involved shootings, including high-profile use-of-force cases against a number of Black men and women. That list includes Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and – in Seattle – Charleena Lyles and Che Taylor.

And there is evidence that suggests racial bias between police and communities of color – even during small infractions: A recent Stanford study found police officers of all races use less respectful language with Black drivers as opposed to white drivers during traffic stops. (Results were taken from 36,000 language snippets at nearly 1,000 stops.)

To Zaro, body cams may have an effect on police use-of-force – but with such a new program, the evidence just isn’t there yet. Even then, the sample size could be small. He notes there are limited use-of-force instances in his experience with Lakewood.

“There might be eventually if [body cams] are around for a few more years, but I think most of it’s just anecdotal for now,” he said. “I can tell you that the amount that we use force on a percentage basis, if you compare it to all the calls we go to and the arrests that we make, it’s nominal. For us, it’s less than five percent of all arrests require any use of force, and it’s less than .02 percent for all calls that we go to and all people we interact with. So it’s already at a very low number. So, to say that adding cameras would reduce that even further I think is strictly speculation.”

At this time, there’s no federal regulation or rules covering the use of body cams by police departments. The decision whether to use them is left to be decided on the local level. One early study of police departments in both the UK and California is promising: it found officers wearing body cams received fewer complaints. It also suggested the use of body cams decreased the chance of escalation by all parties during police-public interactions. However, studies are limited to the relatively new policy.

Murray’s new order is set to go into effect July 22.