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Cops To Start CrimeTube To Report Offenses
An anonymous reader writes "UK citizens may soon be able to report crimes by uploading videos taken from their mobile phones. Ian Readhead, director of information for the Association of Chief Police Officers, told silicon.com that forces want to build a video reporting portal to allow the public to upload potential evidence. Checking YouTube is now a routine part of many police investigations, he said, and police want to build on the extra functionality that this gives them."
Your every action is already videotaped in England.
Not a huge surprise. They already have the "If you suspect it Report it" campaign.
Not to mention good old "Secure beneath the watchful eyes".(yes, they are actually serious. As in, that poster is not ironic.)
That's easy, all of them will be deleted. Because they would be information about the police that may be of use to terrorists, and it's illegal to collect such information.
They already had something very much like this, Rate My Cop.
Police complained and GoDaddy pulled the site.
The resolution to that case was fairly interesting. FOr those not familiar with it you can see the video here. Basically this officer, Patrick Pogan, picked a guy out of a huge group of cyclists riding in a rally and decided to body check him, hard. In the video the cyclist clearly steers away from the cop and the officer charges him. The officer then arrested the cyclist, writing in the police report that he was weaving in and out of traffic, forcing vehicles to swerve or stop, and generally disrupting the normal flow of traffic. He said that he suffered lacerations on his arms because the cyclists steered his bike into him and knocked him down, and that when he tried to arrest him he began flailing, kicking and screaming, "You are pawns in the game!". The cyclist spent the next day in police custody charged with attempted assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
The charges against the cyclist were dropped. Pogan, after being a police officer for three weeks got put on desk duty during the investigation. Then on Dec 16, 2008 he appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to felony charges of of falsifying business records and filing a false instrument and misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault, second-degree harassment and making a punishable false written statement. After the indictment, he was suspended. Two months later he resigned as the department prepared to fire him.
In a way this cyclist was lucky, the cop was so stupid he did it in front of at least 100 onlookers. His partner saw it all and still went along with it which doesn't say much for him either. Had there not been so many people around the outcome could've been very different.
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes