126th Morrison Congress

2nd Session

H.R. 126-043

Title of the Bill: First Responders Carry Bodycam Act

Main Author(s): Rep Edward Chou

Co-Sponsor(s):

BE IT ENACTED BY THE MORRISON CONGRESS

1 SECTION 1: Findings
2 Congress makes the following findings:
3 1) The lawsuits involved more than 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and other
4 New York City workers who alleged they were not given proper protective
5 gear for their work at the World Trade Center ruins. (1)
6 2) First responders have filed a lawsuit in Harris County against Arkema,
7 Inc.They alleged that chemicals released from the fire at the Arkema plant in
8 Crosby, Texas northeast of Houston caused them to fall ill.(2)
9 3) These are the four elements of a case for injury to a person, or property
10 including reputation, ones good name: 1) Duty, and a 2) Breach of that Duty,
11 and 3) the Causation of 4) Actual Harm by the Breach. (3)
12 4) Police being recorded by bodycam to plant drugs into a black mans wallet.
(4)
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SECTION 2: Purpose
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In order to provide evidence during a dispute or lawsuits, require police officers to
16 have bodycams on while on shift and responding to calls. .
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18 SECTION 3: General Provisions
19 These 4 elements are the necessary information that needs to have happened in
20 order to file lawsuit against the first responders. 1) Duty, and a 2) Breach of that
21 Duty, and 3) the Causation of 4) Actual Harm by the Breach. As well as the first
22 responders filing a lawsuit. With a bodycam, provides evidences of how the first
23 responders were responding during a call. Making the disputes more based on
24 evidence as everything is being recorded. Just like the case provided above, a
25 police planted drugs into an innocent mans wallet. This man couldve have been
26 able to provide himself innocent without being able to provide evidence that the
27 police planted the drugs. Cases like this reveals how important it is to equip all
28 first responders to carry bodycam as a basic equipment in order to provide
29 security for themselves and for the others. This will lower the disputes between
30 first responders and others.
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32 SECTION 4: Definitions
33 First responders: those individuals who in the early stages of an incident are
34 responsible for the protection and preservation of life, property, evidence and the
35 environment, including emergency response providers as defined in section 2 of
36 the Homeland Security Act of 2002 as well as emergency management, public
37 health, clinical care, public works, and other skilled support personnel (such as
38 equipment operators) that provide immediate support services during prevention,
39 response, and recovery operations.
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Works Cited:
1) https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/lawsuit/first-responder-injury.html
2) https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/09/08/236059/first-responders-
suing-arkema-how-strong-is-their-case/
3) http://www.bartlee.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/First-Responder-Law-Text-2013.pdf
4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5071463/Lawyer-says-body-cam-video-shows-
LAPD-officer-planting-drugs.html