ICE officers shot two men with cameras off; ICE's fix lets officers keep deciding that.

…(cont) A second officer at the scene did have a camera running, and it caught part of the shooting — part, because a camera that is off when the trigger is pulled only records whatever someone remembers to switch on afterward. Two shootings, two cities, the same missing footage both times.

These are the cameras the GAO was reviewing when it wrote its recommendation: equipment bought with historic levels of funding funneled to the immigration agency, issued to officers in the field, and, in both shootings on the public record so far, not actually on when the officer fired. Both shootings happened before the GAO's report was finished. The fix under review was built for exactly that gap — a camera that switches on by itself the moment a weapon comes out, so the decision doesn't depend on anyone remembering, or wanting, to flip the switch. ICE's review of that fix, completed this week, was to turn it down.

ICE's position is that officer discretion should stay in charge of when the camera runs. Put plainly: the discretion that already failed twice this fall, in two different shootings, in two different cities, is the discretion the agency is choosing to keep. That isn't a defense of the policy. That's a description of it.

So the rule stands exactly as it stood before either shooting: the camera comes on when an officer decides it should. In Austin, no one decided. In New York, no one decided. The recommendation written to take that decision out of anyone's hands is the one ICE just turned down.