Turn on the cameras, bear witness and change the culture

On November 24, a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, a white St. Louis police officer, in the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black teen.

In the aftermath, activists called for increased use of body cameras on police; on December 1, President Barack Obama announced he would request $75 million in federal funds to cover 50,000 body cameras for law enforcement nationwide. Such technology, Obama said, would improve community policing.

On December 3, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July 17 death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man. Footage of the encounter between Pantaleo and Garner—filmed by an onlooker with a cell phone camera—showed the officer placing Garner in a chokehold, a move long prohibited by the New York City Police Department. Pantaleo pushed Garner to the ground, where, surrounded by officers, he repeated the words “I can't breathe” 11 times before dying. This incident was also filmed by a second bystander and a state medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide.

And, yet, all the video footage in the world didn't change the legal outcome.

Cameras—whether required to be worn by officers or wielded by others—are not a stand-alone solution. Still, cameras could prove, eventually, to be vital.

The more we bear witness to such brutality, the more we'll protest, particularly against this country's unequal treatment of people of color. The more we see, the more we'll not just demand action but, more importantly, realize there's no better safeguard than a change in the culture that starts at the most basic human level.