在一些警务改革的倡导者看来，一段记录了发生在南卡罗来纳州一名白人警官开枪击毙一名手无寸铁的黑人男性的视频， 可以用来印证科技武器在争取警务改革的斗争中开始起到越来越大的作用。
The video of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in South Carolina is seen by some advocates of police reform as evidence of the rising power of technological weapons in their fight.
这包括了智能手机和伴随着智能手机兴起的许许多多的应用程序，活动分子们开发的这些应用程序可以将记录和传播警民互动视频的流程变得很简单。
That includes the smartphone camera, and with it, a growing number of apps produced by activists that streamline the process of capturing and broadcasting videos of police interacting with citizens.
“在这些视频出现之前，很多时候（打死黑人的）警察会一走了之”，一个名叫Cop Watch的iphone应用程序的开发者达伦·巴普提斯特（Darren Baptise）表示。这个应用程序在你点开程序的时候就会自动开始录像，而当录像停止的时候应用程序会自动将视频上传到YouTube。
“A lot of times, until these videos show up, the officer is going to walk,” said Darren Baptiste, the creator of Cop Watch, an iPhone app that automatically begins recording when you tap its icon and automatically uploads the video to YouTube when the recording is stopped.
今年47岁的巴普提斯特是一名多伦多的应用程序开发者。而他所在的城市近几年有好几段由公民拿起相机拍摄视频记录了警察使用暴力的场景，其中好几起最终都被判定为非法行为。巴普提斯特说，人们在这种紧张时刻拍摄警察通常会很慌乱——很有可能会忘记按下录像键或者完全不懂如何上传视频或者去哪上传。以前也有过警察在违法的时候把围观者拍下他们违法视频的相机或者手机没收掉的情况。
Mr. Baptiste, 47, is an app developer in Toronto, where several episodes of force by police — some of them eventually deemed unlawful — have been captured by citizens wielding cameras over the last few years. He said that when photographing the police during intense situations, people often get flustered — they may forget to hit record, or may not know how, or where, to upload a video. There have also been cases in which police, sometimes in violation of the law, confiscated cameras or phones containing stored recordings.
这个应用程序是巴普提斯特和一个多伦多名叫“停止警察暴力网络”（Network for the Elimination of Police Violence)的倡导组织一起开发的，其目标是把拍摄记录警察变得更简单，并且让视频更难被权力机构没收。每次有用户上传视频的时候，他们的组织都会收到通知，随后就会有组织人员审查视频，在有必要的时候他们会将任何明显的警方过错通知给新闻媒体和有关权力机构。
The app, which Mr. Baptiste created with the Network for the Elimination of Police Violence, an advocacy group based in Toronto, is meant to make recording the police easier and to make the footage less vulnerable to confiscation by the authorities. Once a user uploads a video, the group is notified, and its staff can review and, if necessary, alert the news media and authorities of any apparent wrongdoing by police.
虽然这只是最近一系列非专业摄影记录警察暴力事件中的最新一次，南卡枪击事件还是非常明显的展现出公民拍摄视频的巨大作用。涉案警官迈克尔·T·斯雷格（Michael T. Slager） 最开始说因为驾驶汽车的尾灯破损而被他拦下的司机沃尔特·L·斯科特（Walter L. Scott）在扭打过程中掏出了手枪。然而一个旁观者用手机拍下的视频记录下了在斯科特逃跑过程中这名警官八次开枪射击当事人的场景。斯雷格警官在周二以谋杀罪名被指控。
Though it is only the latest in a string of cases in which amateur photography has been used to document officers’ use of force, the South Carolina shooting demonstrates the power of citizen-captured video in the most salient way. Michael T. Slager, the officer in the case, initially said that Walter L. Scott, a driver who had been stopped for a broken taillight, had taken his stun gun during a scuffle. The video, captured on a cellphone by a bystander, instead showed the officer shooting Mr. Scott eight times while he ran away. On Tuesday, Mr. Slager was charged with murder.
Cop Watch只是许许多多为了方便公民记录和传播与警方冲突场景而设计的智能手机程序之一。在2011年占领华尔街运动发展到最高峰的时候，名为杰森·凡·安顿（Jason Van Anden)的艺术家和工艺师创建了名为“我要被捕了（I’m Getting Arrested）”的应用程序，这个程序允许用户通过简单按键就可以自动发送短信给一系列提前设定好的紧密联系人名单 。随后，在凡·安顿的应用程序的启发下，纽约公民自由联盟（New York Civil Liberties Union）也开发了名为“Stop and Frisk Watch”的应用程序，作为对当时纽约市长迈克尔·布隆伯格（Michael Bloomberg）政府拥护的警务策略的响应。
Cop Watch is one of a number of programs for smartphones aimed at helping citizens broadcast encounters with the police. In 2011, during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Jason Van Anden, an artist and technologist, created “I’m Getting Arrested,” an app that could automatically send text messages to a list of prepopulated close contacts with the push of a button. Later, inspired by Mr. Van Anden’s app, the New York Civil Liberties Union developed the “Stop and Frisk Watch” app, a response to a line of policing tactics championed by then-mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.
纽约公民自由联盟的应用程序让路人可以从安卓手机或者苹果手机直接按下手机侧面的按键来录像，程序可以直接把与警方冲突的举报发送给公民自由联盟，由他们来进行评估。
The N.Y.C.L.U. app allows a bystander to record from an Android-based phone or iPhone by just pressing a button on the phone’s frame. The app can send a report of a police encounter directly to the group for evaluation.
“不幸的是，我们以为这项技术对于纽约市的有色种族年轻人也同样有用，”纽约公民自由联盟的媒体总监珍尼佛·佳妮格（Jennifer Garnig）表示。“当然，在纽约，如果你在和警方冲突过程中伸手掏口袋拿手机的话，你最后可能会丧命。”
“We, sadly, thought the technology would be equally useful for young men of color in New York City,” said Jennifer Carnig, the director of communications for the N.Y.C.L.U. “Of course, in New York City if you touch your pocket to get your phone during an encounter with the police, you can end up dead.”
佳妮格说，去年因为美国密苏里州弗格森发生的警方击毙一名手无寸铁的黑人青年迈克尔·布朗（Michael Brown）而发起的“黑人性命也很重要”( #BlackLivesMatter)抗议示威游行活动期间，他们的应用程序有很高的使用量。
Mrs. Carnig said the app was used heavily last year during the protests surrounding the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which was spurred by the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo.
这些事件也让公众对给警方佩戴随身相机产生了更大的兴趣，这些相机能够记录下每一次警方与公民之间的互动，并将视频上传到一个服务器，可以用于随后需要的审查。奥巴马政府已经要求拨款2.63亿美元给各地警察局来为警官配备相机。
The episodes also brought greater interest in police-worn body cameras, which record every police interaction with a citizen and upload the video to a server, where it would be available for later review. The Obama administration has called for $263 million in funding for police departments to outfit their officers with cameras.
至少有些警方的支持者还能够在一定程度上接受给警官们配备随身相机和可穿戴设备，用以监控警方和民众之间的冲突。但是具体到此项目的进程，有些州的配置过程还是非常缓慢。
At least some police advocates are comfortable, to a degree, in outfitting officers with body cameras and wearable technology to monitor police encounters with citizens. But the details of how that process might go has, in some states, has slowed overall adoption of the process.
“有些涉及到警官、受害者和相关群体的隐私权的事务还是需要全面审查，”南卡罗来纳州执法委员协会的执行理事瑞恩·阿尔芬（Ryan Alphin）说道，他正在游说州立法机构通过两项法案，让随身相机技术普及到州内执法机构的所有普通成员。
“There are privacy concerns for officers, victims and members of the community that need to be fully vetted,” said Ryan Alphin, executive director of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers’ Association, who is currently lobbying the state Legislature on two bills that would incorporate body camera technology into the rank-and file law enforcement agencies in the state.
全国最大的两个警察局洛杉矶和休斯顿警局已经开始为所有出勤警官配备随身相机，许多其他小规模的警局也已经开始这项计划。
Two of the largest police departments in the country, Los Angeles and Houston, are in the early stages of deploying body cameras to all of their field officers and dozens of smaller departments are well underway in their plans.
斯科特·格林伍德（Scott Greenwood）是一名专注于警方不法行为领域的民权律师，他也和警局就如何开展配备相机的事务进行过商议，他表示智能手机相机的兴起让警方对随身相机有了很大兴趣。
Scott Greenwood, a civil rights lawyer who focuses on police misconduct and who has consulted with police departments on how to deploy cameras, said that the rise of smartphone cameras had spurred police interest in body cameras.
“执法不应该寄希望于依赖外界目击者拍摄的视频。拥有警察局自己创建的视频记录对于这一职业、社区关系和强有力又符合宪法的警务都有极大的好处，而记录的最好方式就是让警官佩戴记录设备。” 格林伍德说。
“Law enforcement should not hope to rely on the existence of external video of witnesses,” he said. “It is best for the profession, community relations, and solid, constitutional policing to have the police departments create that record itself, and the best way to do that is on the officer.”
而对于公民拍摄的视频，合法性几乎不会成为问题，美国国家摄影记者协会（National Press Photographers Association）的总顾问米基·奥斯特瑞琪（Mickey Osterreicher）表示。他说他每周都会和被警察制止拍摄警方活动过的民众进行谈话。基本上在所有这些情况中警方都没有权利这样做。
When it comes to citizen-captured video, there are few questions regarding legality, said Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association. Mr. Osterreicher said that he talked to people on a weekly basis who had been told by police to stop recording their activities. In almost all cases, the police are wrong to do so.
“只要在公共场合，你就有权记录下任何你看到的东西，这是美国宪法第一修正案规定的，” 奥斯特瑞琪说。
“If you are in a public place, you have the right to record anything you see,” he said. “That is the First Amendment.”
在威胁人参安全和妨碍警方执法的情况下有一些例外。警察可以让拿着相机拍摄的路人后退几英尺或者离开像繁忙的马路这杨有危险的区域。 奥斯特瑞琪说他经常为警方提供相关培训，让警官们学习自己在被拍摄情况下的责任。
There are exceptions for safety and for interference with police work. An officer can tell a camera-wielding bystander to step back a few feet, or to step out of a dangerous place, like a busy street. Mr. Osterreicher said that he frequently conducted training sessions with police departments on their responsibilities when being filmed.
“年轻警官很理解——他们习惯被相机拍摄，”他说，而且有些年轻警官也会把录像带看成面对指控自己执法中犯错时证明自己清白的方式。“年长一些的警官会觉得这是对他们权威的质疑。”
“The younger officers get it — they’re used to being filmed,” he said, and some also see the footage as a way to clear up any accusations of wrongdoing. “The older officers are the ones who sometimes see it as questioning their authority.”
到目前为止，Cop Watch应用程序还没有搜集到任何警方违法行为的证据。这个应用程序的使用量还很低。在应用程序推出的那年，巴普提斯特说有约2千人登陆过他们的应用程序，有约1千个视频上传，但是大部门视频都是用户对程序的测试。
So far, the Cop Watch app has not garnered evidence of police misconduct. Usage has been low. In the year that the app has been available, Mr. Baptiste said that about 2,000 people have signed in to the program, and about 1,000 videos have been uploaded, most of which show people trying out the program.
“这真的就是那种你不希望民众想用到的东西，”巴普提斯特说，“有这个程序的主要目的就是让大家来讨论有这种应用程序出现的原因。”
“This is truly one of those things that you hope people wouldn’t want to use it,” Mr. Baptiste said. “The main point of this app is to make people talk about why we have an app like this in the first place.”