Google Glass Captures First Arrest On Video

Documentary filmmaker Chris Barrett is the first person to record an arrest with Google Glass. On July 4th, Barrett took the wearable computer to the Jersey Shore boardwalk in search of capturing interesting visuals, and got what he was looking for.

The recorded video shows Barrett walking through a very crowded boardwalk, where others are heard shouting about a fight up ahead. Barrett maneuvers through the crowd in search of the altercation. He catches the aftermath of a fight and watches as a police officer chases someone involved. Barrett proceeds to follow the officers as they take a shirtless man away from the area in handcuffs.

I picked up my Google Glass explorer edition last week,” Barrett told VentureBeat. “I wanted to test Glass out, so I filmed some fireworks, getting a very cool first-person perspective. About ten minutes after the fireworks, we were walking back to our car, and I just decided to try it out on the boardwalk.”

Barrett believes this could be a huge step for citizen journalism.

If Google Glass takes off, everyone’s going to have their entire life captured … first words, first steps … but also people getting shot, and natural disasters.”

With Google Glass, the average wearer can inconspicuously record these events without drawing attention to themselves.

Christophe Gervey, Global Head of Editorial Solutions for Thomson Reuters, gave his take about the video on his personal blog, saying that the footage is much more than just the first arrest recorded with Google Glass. “More notable than the video itself is the ease at which it was captured without the knowledge of those in the middle of the melee,” he says. “His footage foreshadows the rapidly approaching future where everything can be filmed serendipitously by folks wearing devices like Google Glass without the knowledge of the parties involved.”

Barrett says that if he were holding an actual camera up, there would have been problems for him.

Whether or not the captured arrest signifies a change in journalism and the way we capture videos, it is still a milestone piece of footage for Google Glass, and more videos are anticipated in the future.