The Legacy of Michigan Trooper Paul Butterfield Should Be...

[XLFD]

... To Mandate the Use of In-Car Recording Equipment for All Patrol Cars

Background

On September 9, 2013 at about 6:20 PM, Michigan State Police Trooper Paul Butterfield pulled over a pickup truck on Custer Road, about a quarter mile north of the Townline Road intersection.   Butterfield called into dispatch some information about the vehicle he stopped, but not the reason why he made the traffic stop.

Roughly three minutes after the traffic stop had been called into the Mason-Oceana dispatch, they received another call from a motorist in that same area, notifying them that a trooper had been shot in the head and left in the road.  It was Trooper Butterfield, and his wounds proved fatal.

Due to the vehicle information Butterfield had supplied, it was determined that the vehicle stopped belonged to John Knysz, a former policeman himself.  They determined that Knysz's son Eric, a frequent visitor to criminal court, was the likely driver.  He and his pregnant wife, Sarah, were later apprehended by authorities in Dublin, Michigan.  Eric Knysz was in possession of a variety of guns including the one that is believed to be the murder weapon, registered to his father, that he brandished when he was apprehended, and before he was shot in the knee.

The Three Minute Gap

Between the point where Trooper Butterfield called in and when the passing motorist stopped to call in, what happened?  The physical evidence amounts to someone shooting Butterfield in the head at close range with a gun and leaving him in the road.  Nothing has yet to be released concerning any last words of Butterfield saying what exactly happened, or anything to indicate the motorist who called it in eyewitnessed any of the event.

Of the two other people who were there (no houses were on the side of the road in the immediate area of where it happened), Eric Knysz and his pregnant wife Sarah Knysz, the two people determined to be in the truck, only one has really talked about what happened.  At a plea hearing on November 5, Sarah Knysz said she and Eric were in Ludington trying to sell the guns they had in their vehicle, put in a blanket behind one of their seats in the pickup on their way back to their home in Irons.  Ironically, they are now both in irons.

Sarah states that the trooper had just got up to the window and had said "How's it going?", and while the sentence was finishing, a gunshot roared.  Sarah related she witnessed her husband shoot the trooper, and remembers further looking behind the vehicle and seeing the trooper down amid a lot of blood, as Eric drove off.

Eric has reportedly confessed about shooting the trooper, court transcripts say that he allegedly confessed to using a .357 Colt Python, one of several guns he stole from his father's house, to shoot Butterfield. It was the same gun police found in Eric Knysz' possession when he was arrested. He also had a second loaded gun inside the car.

Sarah has agreed to a plea deal for charges of unlawfully driving away of a vehicle and for accessory after the fact which could net her up to five years, and has a court date for this Tuesday December 10, at 2:30 PM for sentencing.  Eric will likely see trial soon, but probably won't testify.  Without Butterfield's account or any evidence to dispute it, Sarah's version will be accepted as the truth of the matter.  But can't we do better than one of the suspect's versions of the truth, made so as to get her the least amount of time in prison. 

The Legacy:  Mandatory Installed Dash Cams and Microphones

An officer was shot at a traffic stop, the event that led to his death taking place in view of the trooper's vehicle.  If Trooper Butterfield had a functioning, activated dash-cam and was miked, why wasn't it ever mentioned in the news stories during the first couple of days?   I sent a FOIA to the state police to find out what the MSP Policy for Dash Cams for that agency was, as I had always thought that all State Police vehicles used for traffic control would have this feature.

But they don't.  They do have a five year old policy that covers most aspects of having an 'in-car video recording system' (ICVRS), but does not make it a standard for all vehicles.  Here is that Dash Cam policy.  So just in case some of our media outlets forgot about asking for it, I made a supplementary request for audio and video of Paul Butterfield's vehicle's ICVRS.

I was denied these records:  page one.  For the simple reason that they did not exist:  page two, because there was no recording system in the car.

A dash cam and a microphone on Trooper Butterfield would have recorded exactly what happened and would have led to a quick conviction of the shooter without all the uncertainty of what may have occurred, and the unreliability of witnesses with ulterior motives.

A Policy That is Best for All Concerned

In The Impact of Video Evidence, the case is made that having dash cams in police vehicles is best for both the public and for the police, doing so by reviewing a variety of law enforcement agencies across the United States.   In it they find that such systems gave a wide range of benefits including:  

Enhancing officer safety, 

Improving agency accountability,

Reducing agency liability

Simplifying incident review

Enhancing new recruit and in-service training (post-incident use of videos)

Improving Community/Media perceptions

Strengthening police leadership

Advancing prosecution/case resolution

Enhancing officer performance and professionalism

Increasing homeland security

Upgrading technology policies and procedures

The first interesting result from the study is that eleven times more police thought the cameras added to their safety than took away from their safety, although most felt it made no real difference.

Of the participating officers, nearly half (48%) reported that citizens have become less aggressive after learning the event was being recorded, most of the rest noted no difference.   About half of the time, those who make complaints about officer behavior during traffic stops withdraw their complaints once they find out it was recorded, saving a significant amount of time in conducting investigations.  Plus, this video evidence actually exonerates the officer's actions:

Yet in surveys of 900 people from 18 states on the use of in-car cameras, 94% stated they support it, often citing the impartiality of a neutral camera and the perceived safety and accountability issues for the officers and those stopped.  A similar majority of prosecutors (93%) rated the overall use of video evidence from these dashcams as successful or highly successful, in assisting them to do their jobs.  It also can trump the perceptions of eyewitnesses, who may miss what the camera picks up:

Earlier this year, a New jersey legislator introduced a bill making dash cam activations mandatory for traffic...  The impetus behind it was a traffic stop that he was involved with, where an in-car video record exonerated him from the crime he was suspected of.  It is something that is sorely needed in Michigan and in-car cameras are very affordable (competent systems start under $200, about a half of a days work for most officers). 

 It can be a fitting remembrance for Paul Butterfield to assign his name to a bill like the one in New Jersey, so that we can improve all those facets listed above that would come from a universal dash cam policy.  It will make it easier to nab and convict a person who would cause such harm to our sterling law enforcement officers, like Trooper Paul Butterfield.

[Willy]

I'm not a big fan of all these video cameras throughout our society but I do support cameras in police vehicles if only to show the police abusing the people they serve. As a matter of fact,  areas of any and all  police headquarters should have video surveillance so we could keep an eye on them.  Let's expand that to include every politicians offices and all meetings between politicians and the people that do business with them and the Government. I'm tired of them keeping track of me. So instead of them watching us let's watch them.

[XLFD]

It's demonstrable that both the public and the police behave better when they're on camera, politicians... I'm not so sure.  Wallace Cain and the Ludington City Council are obviously okay with cameras in the public poopers, so I'm sure we'll get the Shaycam coming soon, where we can be there when he breaks charter rules, state laws, and fabricates the latest fiction, LOL.

[XLFD]

Here is a 'good' legacy for Paul Butterfield, more appropriate than naming a section of highway along the lakeshore that has nothing to do with his life.  Mason County's Fin & Feather Club is getting set to award its criminal justice scholarship next month and they have given the award a new name. They've renamed it the “Paul K. Butterfield II Scholarship.” It goes to a student planning to attend West Shore's criminal justice program. Butterfield was shot & killed during a traffic stop along Custer Road in September, and appropriately the Fin & Feather is situated in the remote Sherman Township where that sad act occurred and in the general area where Trooper Butterfield established a homestead.

[XLFD]

As our local media and police officers talk about the tragic series of events that happened exactly one year ago today with MSP Trooper Paul Butterfield's shooting, lionizing the trooper and demonizing (demon-Knyszing?) the perpetrator and his accomplices-after-the-fact family, encourage them instead to devote their energies and money to see to it that if such an event was to happen in the future, that there would be an audiovisual recording of the event and a notice on the record of why the traffic stop was made. 

The police were fortunate in this case to have caught the criminal, have forensic evidence still available, have the wife testify against him, and have him be cooperative in their prosecution of him.  In future cases with similar circumstances, the killer may not be so easy to corral and prosecute without the in-car recordings and any other data that could easily be captured before contact is made.