Bob Hennelly
WNYC's Bob Hennelly is an award-winning investigative journalist. While at WNYC he has reported on a wide gamut of major public policy questions ranging from immigration and homeland security to power outages and utility mergers.
NYPD Will Videotape Interrogations
Thursday, February 18, 2010
New York, NY –
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says his department will start videotaping police interrogations in two precincts as a pilot project this year.
Rebecca Brown with the Innocence Project, a public policy group that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, says a survey of 238 jurisdictions that videotape interrogations found law enforcement officers prefer it.
"They find that these are airtight confessions that they can use in court," she says. "Nobody will question them. It prevents disputes about how officers conducted themselves. It creates a record of statements made by the suspect. It permits officers to concentrate on the interview rather than being distracted by the note taking."
But the President of the Detectives Endowment Association vehemently opposes videotaping interrogations. Mike Palladino says it would offer criminals insights into police interview techniques and could prejudice juries against the prosecution.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes says he's for the videotaping pilot.
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