> The muting you observe of police footage isn't of the first part of the audio, it's the prior 30 seconds from before the record button is pressed. They have a constant buffer going, as things can happen... unexpectedly.
I just want to clarify that it only buffers the video. The way you worded it still doesn't explain why the previous 30 seconds of audio isn't included in the buffering.
When the button is pressed is when audio recording is started and the previous 30 seconds of video buffer is prepended to the live recording.