Ear-mounted cameras serve as witnesses for JoCo deputies

The RoboCop look is coming nationwide, a law enforcement supplier says, and Johnson County deputies are on the cutting edge as they test cameras they wear on their ears.</p><p>Executives at Taser International Inc. hope the company&#x92;s new device spreads as quickly among police as its zappers did in the 1990s.</p><p>Much of the motivation is police self-defense, they say. In an age when everyone has a cellphone camera, video of police pounding a suspect can go viral and feed a lawsuit.</p><p>Sgt. Paul Nonnast of the Johnson County Sheriff&#x92;s Office said, &#x93;This gives us the ability to show what happens from the officer&#x92;s point of view from start to finish.&#x94;</p><p>The department is the only one in the metro area to buy the new recording equipment. Just 16 police agencies nationwide have bought the gear, although about 100 are testing it, said Steve Tuttle, Taser vice president of communications.</p><p>Taser started marketing it more than a year ago, he said, but now the word is getting out.</p><p>&#x93;This is a game changer,&#x94; he said. &#x93;Police and suspects behave better when they know it is being recorded.&#x94;</p><p>Already, some people who have complained about police action dropped those complaints after they saw video, he said. &#x93;You&#x92;ve got technology that gets rid of he said, she said.&#x94;</p><p>The units cost about $1,700 each and about $1,300 more a year to store the digital video, he said.</p><p>Johnson County deputies are using them so far for domestic violence calls, on SWAT teams, for warrant searches and to document sobriety tests, they say. Nonnast demonstrated it last week.</p><p>It&#x92;s all hard-wired. The ear camera plugs into a chest unit that connects to a police radio and to a belt computer with a video monitor &#x97; all like something out of Batman. It can be mounted on the helmet of a traffic officer, who could show a driver his violation.</p><p>If an officer is following a driver in a car who throws something out the window, the officer can also use it to get a GPS location.</p><p>At the end of shift, an officer plugs the gear into a docking station that encrypts the video and stores it on a Taser website. The officer can also use the video to help quickly fill out paperwork reports.</p><p>Video can&#x92;t be altered by police and can be set to save for specified times.</p><p>&#x93;We have a solid evidence trial, a chain of custody,&#x94; Nonnast said.</p><p>The camera can also be held to see around corners or into attics.</p><p>Taser sees a military market in that, Tuttle said, but for now the company is focused on law enforcement.</p><p>&#x93;Think of the police officers coming up. They grew up on BlackBerrys and cellphones with cameras,&#x94; he said.</p><p>The concept grew out of a popular Taser stun weapon that had a camera on it, he said, but the problem was the camera only came on when officers used the Taser.</p><p>That led to the idea of a camera on sunglasses or a hat and then to the new product, called AXON, he said.</p><p>&#x93;It&#x92;s a double-edged sword. If there is something that is bad (done by police), it will catch it and still protect the public,&#x94; he said. &#x93;It&#x92;s a neutral observer.

News USA Online: SEALs wore helmet-mounted cameras

The U.S. military is reviewing footage of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, a military official says. NEW : U.S. Navy SEALs found porn at bin Laden compound NEW : Official "confident" that SEALs' families can be protected amid safety concernsSEALs wore helmet-mounted cameras to record the bin Laden raidBin Laden apparently had a support system in Pakistan, U.S. officials say

(CNN) -- Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told CNN Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy and fast-moving, and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the source said.

The revelation of the digital video was among a series of developments Friday in the wake of bin Laden's May death, including word that U.S. intelligence officers, along with Pakistanis, interviewed three of his widows and found them "hostile."

Also Friday, a source familiar with the material seized from bin Laden's compound told CNN that U.S. Navy SEALS recovered a stash of pornography. The source would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was, or if it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan's northwest, the Taliban took responsibility for twin suicide bombings at a military training facility that killed 80 people, nearly all of them recruits, and said they were avenging bin Laden's killing, officials said. About 140 others were injured.

On a related front, four alleged U.S. drone strikes have pounded Pakistan's tribal region since the al Qaeda leader's death, including one Friday that killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He apparently didn't even prepare an escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Large-screen-projection, avionic, and helmet-mounted displays, 26-28 February 1991, San Jose, California

Human factors of remotely operated vehicles

Visual search 2

Helmet-mounted displays II, 19-20 April 1990, Orlando, Florida

American Motorcyclist