The recent case in which a black Harvard professor accused a white police officer with racial discrimination could've been settled easily if the police officer in question carried a mini video camera on his uniform that recorded everything.

Such cameras today are placed on the dashboards of many police patrol cars. Many traffic violation cases are settled satisfactorily thanks to these cameras. Sometimes the video record of the event is so clear cut that the parties agree to settle right away, out of court.

Police officers unfortunately still do not carry a video camera on them although the technology exists.

Today there is no discussion about what constitutes a racial discrimination, or racial profiling. The discussion is about the "nature of the facts" since the police report is still a WRITTEN document. I heard a CNN commentator today refer to the police record as just a "perspective." Everyone has his own perspective thus we should give equal credence to the stories of all sides, was his implication.

But justice will never be served if we cannot agree on one objective story and instead give equal weight to everybody's own rendition of what "allegedly" happened, who said what when in what manner, and precisely which words were exchanged.

One way to cut through all that subjectivity is to record the events automatically, as they occur.

Operation of such video recording equipment should be made mandatory for all officers and those who do not record their arrest cases should be reprimanded. And once a case is ruled "closed" perhaps the recording should be erased forever, but I'm not sure on that point.

Once such recording becomes common place, both unnecessary use of force and frivolous charges against the police should both drop significantly since there won't be any reliance on written documents which can and do get interperted differently by different partties for obvious self-serving reasons.

We need a new Statue of Justice, a statue for the 21st century which carries a digital video camera in her hand, and not a mechanical scale.