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Seattle Hacker Catches Cops Who Hid Arrest Tapes
An anonymous reader writes "In 2008, the Seattle Police illegally arrested security consultant Eric Rachner for refusing to show ID. After Rachner filed a formal complaint, he was prosecuted for obstructing, and the police claimed that videos of the arrest were unavailable — until Rachner's research uncovered proof that the police had the videos all along." It's an interesting story of how he figured out how the system in use by Seattle police automatically tracks deletion, copying, or other uses of the recorded stream.
Shouldn't the officers in this case be charged with obstruction of justice?
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The dream of cops, reactionaries, xenophobes, and fascist thugs everywhere...
What are the odds those cops got one of the few people left in their city who know their rights and have the means to defend them.
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Motherfucking pigs...
Not all cops are pigs, but these ones were.
A few bad apples making the other 1% look bad...
seriously, why do cops always circle the wagons to protect dishonest cops?
Actually, that's not what they said. They said they can no longer be obtained. They didn't say they were destroyed. They didn't say *who* could no longer obtain them. Are they saying "You can't obtain them" (because it's past 90 days and that's our policy) or "We can't obtain them"? (because they were destroyed). The language is intentionally unclear. They *implied* that the recordings had been destroyed, and that the police themselves could no longer obtain them, but that's not what they actually said.
Either way, this is a good lesson for those /.ers who maintain that you don't have to show a cop your ID in the U.S. when asked (that you don't need "papers" in the U.S.). That may *technically* be true, but it can still cost you a weekend in jail and a $3500 legal bill if you actually pull that shit with a real cop.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
ANY time the cops, spooks, politicians, corporations-- anybody, really-- claims to have "lost" the evidence, they are lying or they deliberately destroyed it. Like when the CIA, at the behest of Bush, just happened to lose hundreds of torture tapes after they'd been ordered by a court to preserve them. Like they did with much of the Abu Ghraib evidence.
Police in particular can NOT be trusted to police themselves. The few honest cops are often threatened by the rest. Rat on us and good luck when you call for backup...
It sounds like the cops got caught pretty red handed but I'm having a hard time buying that this douchebag was just politely refusing to show ID. They hit some guy in the head with some kinda nerf ball, which probably is no big deal but then heckled him to the point where he called 911. Now, the Capitol Hill is an area of seattle know for a large Gay community and Gay bashing hate crimes are far from uncommon there. He was also apparently drunk. The whole lot of them sound pretty belligerent in the video. Article seems a bit biased.
:)
Don't get me wrong, the cops should be made to answer for their actions here too, but let's be sure not to paint this guy as some Rosa Parks of drunken nerf golf. Besides, he sliced the shot.
meep
I'm glad that he went after the SPD, and didn't back down until he exposed their deceipt.
Additionally, he and his companions should have been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, but not for refusing to ID himself. Oh, and the one that hit the other guy in the face with the foam ball should have been arrested for assault. They were all a bunch of hooligans, and a public nuisance.
The more I read the article (yes, some of us do), the more obvious that this is a systemic issue with the Seattle police dept, and this was a bonified SNAFU, (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.)
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So they spent months, thousands of dollars in defense, thousands in city funds all over the fact that some drunk tool refused to tell the cop who he was?
No, you moron. They spent that money because the police made an arrest under false pretenses, then tried to cover it up by lying about the presence of evidence.
Look at the Hans Reiser case, or the Terry Childs case. On Slashdot we see tons of support for them, claiming they couldn't have done it, are being railroaded, etc, etc. They get consideration that people in other professions don't. A circling of the wagons.
It seems to be human nature.
Actually, if you RTFA, it wasn't him that hit someone in the face with the ball. Even the victim said he was only mad at the one person who did it, and it wasn't the subject of this article.
And he did really just refuse to identify himself and/or show his ID; it's all right on the recording in the linked article.
The issue here is that everyone is saying the cops are bigs, but in most jurisdictions, it is completely legal for a police officer involved in an investigation to ask an individual to identify him or herself. What is at issue is whether or not it is legal to arrest/detain someone ONLY for refusing to identify themselves if they are suspected of no other crime (the other issue here is that perhaps playing street golf/hockey is probably against some ordinance, but let's leave that aside).
This really isn't about "papers, please". It's about a law enforcement officer making a legitimate, legal request...not complying with an officer's legal request, even if you haven't yet done anything else wrong, is itself a crime in many jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it hasn't been (and still isn't) established whether or not and under what circumstances it is inappropriate in the State of Washington for a police officer to request an individual's ID.
I get a kick out of all the posts here laying into the cops. Typical, though, and not surprising.
And pretty soon you have no rights left to give away.
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I'll condemn them heartily. They should be arrested if they're causing real problems and don't immediately respond to police presence by quieting the hell down and dispersing. But once the cops decide to start arresting people, they'd better be damned sure they follow the law - because when they don't, they further undermine their legitimacy.
Have any of you posting listened to the audio? Especially the ones claiming they were a group of 'drunken douchebags'?
If you listen to the audio you'll notice that nobody was loud, obnoxious or incredibly rude. Eric sounds a bit curt, but he's defending his rights against an office who clearly is uniformed of the laws or has gotten too used to getting his way because he is a police office.
But honestly, I don't fault the officer either. He was as polite as can be expected and I believe he thought that he was in the right.
The this should have gone down, Eric gets arrested, police realize "Oh crap, you shouldn't have done that." Eric gets compensated for his attorney fees, the police officer gets sent to additional training and a memo is written to the rest of the department reminding them of how the laws ACTUALLY WORK.
That would have been justice, but we live in a society where everyone is out for blood for the most minor injustices and neither side is willing to say "oops, we screwed up."
Everything that happened afterward could have been avoided by simply saying "we were wrong, we're sorry" and then providing the necessary training to the police force so that they understand that citizens DO have the right to refuse to identify themselves.
You might think it an inconsequential 'freedom' that one doesn't have to identify themselves to law enforcement officers. You might think that convenience trumps standing up for one's freedom. Rachner didn't. I agree with his choice. "Papers, Please" is something my German relatives have told me about from personal experience.
Some people are just more willing than others to make sacrifices for their country and their countrymen.
Blar.
Yes, people will make mistakes. If they also immediately admit their mistakes and try to ensure they don't happen again, people will still trust them. That is a sign of integrity.
Covering up mistakes and abusing your authority to put the blame on your victim is a sign that you have no integrity.
You cannot be trusted and cannot function as a public servant without integrity.
...is no excuse." That's what LEOs always love to throw in your face. It should be no different for them.
I made a post earlier that touches partly on this issue.
We just need to live in a system that is more willing to admit that mistakes happen and own up to them (and excuse them as mistakes) rather than try to cover them up.
If after going to court and being informed that the officer was in wrong, the SPD admitted the arrest was wrongfully made and then compensated the attorney fees and provided training for its officers to prevent further such incidents from occuring then we as a society would ALL be better for it.
Instead officers feel they have to protect each other (even if they're in the wrong) so that the next one who makes a mistake (and I honestly believe it was a mistake on the officers part) don't have to be fearful of losing their jobs.
1. Douchebaggery is not a crime.
2. He was arrested illegally and the police acted to cover up evidence of that fact.
It's really quite simple; if someone commits a crime, breaks a traffic law, etc they need to provide ID or they get their info run to see if they're legal....I don't see anything in there about Mexicans, do you?
Of course it doesn't say anything about Mexicans. That would be stupid, regardless of any intentions involved. You really think if they wrote a law like this with racist intentions they would state that explicitly? I'm not saying this is or isn't the case, but your proof is like asking people to play dumb.
Also your interpretation of the law doesn't match what I read in your link, nor does is coincide with what backers of the bill have said. The law states that they need "reasonable suspicion" and "lawful contact" to verify citizenship. Reasonable suspicion does not equal probable cause and neither does lawful contact. There is nothing in the law that establishes what reasonable suspicion is, and when asked what reasonable suspicion was, even the lawmakers who backed the bill can't come up with anything consistent. The only simple thing about the law is that it is open ended and poorly defined.
Another thing to note is your example is a bit ironic. Did you actually verify that the people in the emergency room weren't citizens? It's the emergency room where things aren't exactly planned out. Maybe they didn't have time to look for their paper work or it was lost in an accident. I carry around my drivers license but it might be in my coat on the table when I leave the office to get coffee. If I was rushed to the ER without it and was in their position would you have assumed I wasn't a citizen? Would the question be easier to answer if you could see what I looked like, or how I talked?