Originally Posted by
UberGeek
Best solution to this, is to immediately surrender your camera to the officer taking the report, to be admitted as evidence. If there's no chance to tamper, since it was immediately surrendered, then that defense falls flat on it's face.
Even CCTV systems with no crypto controls are admissible, if proper procedures are followed.
I'd give them the memory card, but not the camera.
Regarding the incident I described, I called police when I got home and they showed up a while later. Total time between incident and police showing up to my door was 4 hours.
However, I think that IF this should happen again, I will call the police immediately, wait on location (Gawd knows how long) and give them the memory card. Although they'll likely want the camera.