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Suspect Freed After Exposing Cop's Facebook Status
longacre writes "A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer's Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne's MySpace 'mood' was set to 'devious' on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read 'Vaughan is watching "Training Day" to brush up on proper police procedure.' From the article: '"You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street," Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. "What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room." Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.'"
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The persona you show in the locker room or internet is your real self, or at least a closer version of it than what you show on the streets when anyone else but the guy you're screwing with is watching. I've seen fine upstanding cops like this lie their asses off in court enough to believe that if he jokes that 'Training Day' is great training that he more than halfway actually believes it.
The suspect, Waters, is obviously not a great guy, but I'm not convinced I can trust anything a guy like Ettienne says either.
A couple days ago, there was an article in the local paper. Someone (college athlete) had been cited for DUI but the charges were dropped. Why? Well, the arresting officer's report claimed he was visibly drunk, couldn't stand, was falling over, etc. None of which was corroborated by his own video taping of the event.
The alleged drunk driver refused a breathalyzer test at the time, which some people consider an admission of guilt. Now, I don't know if he was drunk or not, but consider this: can a police officer who lies on his police report be trusted to accurately report the breathalyzer result? (Keep in mind there's no evidence, just a number he writes down.)
People are always keen to say "such and such" is just talk but the fact is the language we use about ourselves has a profound impact on our behavior.
That's about the same logic as the wingnuts who claim that video games lead to real-life violence.
It's just make-believe. People with proper psychological functioning can easily compartmentalize fantasy from reality.
I was waiting patiently outside of a coffee shop with my puppy while my girlfriend was inside getting a couple White Mochas.
As I sat on the bench, two cops came and sat down right next to me. They were in the middle of a conversation, which I couldn't help but overhear.
Cop 1: "Why'd we arrest that guy again?"
Cop 2: "Man I don't even know!"
Cop 1: "Eh, whatever. He had it coming to him. They'll sort it out at the station."
Interesting how much of what the police can charge you with relies solely on the officer's report of it. Would it not be prudent that such stewards of community safety be at least reprimanded harshly for implying that they could be 'in a mischevious mood' or that they are 'watching training day for pointers' etc.
Whether it is bullshit bravado or not, what is different from this situation and that officer talking in the locker room about 'fucking niggers' and managing to arrest a disproportionate number of blacks? A bias demonstrated in the locker room or on the Internet is still a bias. The officer is clearly too stupid to be allowed even on Myspace, but nobody stopped him, now he got caught^H^H^H^H^H^H^H knows better.
This is little different than political correctness finding its way to the Internet via the court. Is it right? Perhaps not. Finding yourself the prime suspect in a murder investigation is exactly when you don't want someone telling the cops that they heard you say "I'll kill that SOB" about the victim.
It's a delicate balance indeed, but public figures should expect just a bit more scrutiny. On that note, lets smile now that we know exactly why video surveillance of all the population will cause as much problem for the 'law' as it will for anyone else.
Lets face it, there just are somethings you shouldn't be putting on the Internet. You can guess how many cops in that precinct will have myspace accounts now... can't you?
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This is so very painfully true. What makes me really, really angry is that if you (as a defendant) lie in court, it's perjury and you're in deep shit. If the police officer lies in court, the judge smiles and nods. If you call them on it, the judge says "ok, well we'll ignore that bit".
Justice system: 1. Justice: 0.
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If they do, they would have legal grounds for getting the officer investigated (vigilantism has been a crime for a while, and "terroristic threats" were added shortly after 9/11), possibly kicked out the force, and maybe even jailed.
This should not be considered a bad thing. Getting rid of bent cops is the only way you can ever ensure law enforcement is free of corruption. If the corrupt advertise their corruption, do not excuse them for it, nail the bastards to the courtroom wall.
You want to know the reason nobody trusts those with power, and why power seemingly corrupts? Easy. Power doesn't corrupt, the corrupt seek power, and society hands that power to those who brag the best (ie: are the least stable). If you want those with authority to be responsible, then do not permit the irresponsible within a mile of authority.
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always prefix and end your conversations with "yes sir" and "no sir".
This has always baffled me about you Americans, you viciously and readily proclaim yourselves as a nation of citizens over state power and the freest people on earth, but every single time a thread like this comes up people say baffling things like the above. Why would you, a free and presumably upstanding citizen of the community call a public servant "Sir" - in a manner that's really a bit too close to groveling for comfort?
How does having to grovel to police officers lest you upset them and they ruin your life (apparently they have this much power in your country) make you the freest people on earth?
I don't know about general social mores in the US, and perhaps calling people Sir is something that everyone does, but here in Australia nobody calls anybody Sir except for people employed in the service industry and some children to adults. If I was being bailed up by the police and I started calling them Sir, it'd probably make things worse. Either they'd think I was a spineless lick-spittle trying to suck up to them and so not worthy of ANY respect, or they'd think I was taking the piss and being a smartarse and so worthy of a hard time.
Whenever I've had association with police on either side of the law (more often than I'd like to admit now that I think about it), I speak to them in exactly the same manner that I would speak to any other reasonable and upstanding adult that I have just met. With general politeness and general respect, no more and no less, they're not gods and treating them as such is probably half the reason your police run around thinking they are. Wouldn't you get a bit of an ego if people were falling at your feet calling you Sir everywhere you went just because of some government power you wield?
Of course you're entirely correct about the temper and arguing, but attempts at gentle correction of inaccuracies in the officers claims are perfectly reasonable, they're just people after all and may well be wrong. And if they're a reasonable person and officer they'll listen to what you have to say. If they're a prick then all bets are off anyway temper or not.
I enjoy the internet, sometimes it lets me see how much better my own country is than others in various things, (the opposite too).
Sorta like the arrest report I have that I've saved for over 20 years.
Reality: I'm sitting quietly on some church steps with a girl, a cop car pulls up on the lawn, I look up to see the cop's mouth move but can't tell what he said, so I ask "would you like us to leave officer?" (it was not unusual for cops to shoo teens along around that neighborhood.) He grins, says no, he wants ID, I have none, he arrests me.
His police report: says I was making a disturbance, refused repeated requests that I leave until finally he was forced to arrest me.
I'm lucky that's all it was, he threatened to add resisting arrest (which I of course didn't do.)
In the car on the way to the station I find out why I had just been arrested for sitting on church steps. Turns out I had made some wisecracking unflattering comments about the town's cops' weight and age in the presence of an undercover cop (who was busy checking someone else out at the time...) and the arresting cop says to me "how about we let you meet with him alone in a room and talk about just how fat and old you think we cops are?"
I was guilty of being a cynical 19 year old wiseass, is all.
COPS LIE. ROUTINELY.
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The defendant is under oath in a British court, I know because I was once (wrongly) accused of a crime here and relied on that very fact.
When I got to the important facts the prosecution tried to shut me up and I got the court's permission to carry on (against the magistrate's initial ruling) by pointing out that I'd be breaking the 'Solemn Oath I'd sworn on the Holy Bible with our Lord Almighty as Witness' tell the whole truth if I was stopped from doing exactly that. The magistrate allowed me to carry on on religious grounds. I carried on pointing out the holes in the case and cleared my name, thankful that I was never asked if I actually believed in any of that god stuff.
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Or he could list 'Nazi'. This is not a classic 'Godwin' statement: a number of British police were revealed to be members of the 'British National Party' when a membership list was revealed on Wikileaks (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/19/bnp-list). That's the Nazi party of the UK, and it's illegal for police to be members of it.
Wikileaks is wonderful for publishing criminal or abusive facts that 'those with the secret privilege' would like to never see revealed, and I applaud their work.
The magistrate allowed me to carry on on religious grounds. I carried on pointing out the holes in the case and cleared my name, thankful that I was never asked if I actually believed in any of that god stuff.
Yes, that bit does sound quite bizarre - he let you carry on on religious grounds, but not on the grounds of justice, you know, what the whole point of the court is for...