Man Ordered At Gunpoint To Hand Over Phone For Recording Cops

HungryHobo writes with this excerpt from a story at Pixiq: "Miami Beach police did their best to destroy a citizen video that shows them shooting a man to death in a hail of bullets on Memorial Day. First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer. Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out of the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling, 'you want to be f****** paparazzi?' Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer's back pocket as he was laying down on the ground."

Comments

See with that Apple patent

[Scareduck]

the cops could have avoided all that trouble, and then it would just be a he-said/she-said scenario. Neat. Clean.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[brillow]

Don't think this couldn't be done optically, or with RFID, or wifi, or NFC.

The idea itself is powerful, an obvious weakness in a pathetic implementation does not weaken it.

Of course, this will never happen as long as consumers refuse to buy technology which disobeys them. Oh wait, damn...

Re:See with that Apple patent

[asdbffg]

the cops could have avoided all that trouble

Yes, by not shooting people or threatening witnesses at gunpoint.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[MagusSlurpy]

the cops could have avoided all that trouble

Yes, by not shooting people or threatening witnesses at gunpoint.

But then why would anyone bother to become a cop?

Re:See with that Apple patent

[History's Coming To]

The real trick is to post everything directly to "The Cloud". Yes, yes, I hate the term as much as the average /.-er, but in this case it's extraordinarily useful. Destroying the device doesn't destroy the data, and you also have a record of the destruction. There's a good reason for decent systems to keep off-site (ideally off-continent) records.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Lord Kano]

the cops could have avoided all that trouble

Yes, by not shooting people or threatening witnesses at gunpoint.

But then why would anyone bother to become a cop?

There're still plenty of drug dealers to shake down and prostitutes to extort free sex from.

LK

Re:See with that Apple patent

[shipofgold]

Obviously the other extreme is when all regulation disappears and the sharks feast on the small fish. The rich get richer and the gap between rich and poor grows enormously. As a student of history you also understand what happens next.....The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and today the Arab Spring....Don't think for a moment that any of those societies ended up better off.

Unfortunately those who want to cut all the social programs which attempt to equalize society, also want to spend the most on big brother technologies to keep the masses in line. I would rather pay my share to make sure people are not hungry, and have at least adequate medical care. Go visit India sometime if you want to see a society that has no social safety net....not a pretty sight seeing kids grow up under underpasses.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[MagusSlurpy]

the cops could have avoided all that trouble

Yes, by not shooting people or threatening witnesses at gunpoint.

But then why would anyone bother to become a cop?

There're still plenty of drug dealers to shake down and prostitutes to extort free sex from.

Or vice versa.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Artifakt]

See, you were making a pretty good argument, and then you threw in this:

Is anyone willing to *personally* take a good working-over by government thugs in exchange for another social program? (emphasis mine).

It's not the social programs that empower the goon squads. The US government currently has 17 civilian agencies that have agents empowered to carry fully automatic weapons. There is a line item in the federal budget equal to about half the overall FBI budget, and it goes just to pay for the FBI running rifle, grenade launcher, and even rocket launcher training ranges for all the other security related agencies. Those are not the social services agencies that have the police like powers. A person from the department of health and human resources may be able to take one of your kids away, but at least he or she can't shoot you in the head to stop you from getting a lawyer and fighting it. The BATF, DEA, and 15 other police/security related agencies most definitely can.

Right now, you can take the amount that goes to Israel out of the foreign aid budget, and half the rest is directed by the DEA. For example, we give multiple squadrons of assault helicopters to Columbia to 'help stamp out Cocaine trafficking, add attack helicopters and air to ground Hellfire missiles to protect them, current elite grade scrambling to keep the drug lords from overhearing their communications, and many other forms of support, and then all their neighbors worry about what happens if Columbia uses all those neat toys for something besides the war on drugs, so we have to give the rest of Central America weapons too. If they don't have enough Cocaine growers to justify putting it in the DEA budget, we put it in foreign aid, earmarked to be spent only buying weapons from US based corporations. Then we have right wing radio show hosts frequently stress how foreign aid is all a liberal waste of money. (Yeah, because the Liberals are the ones who support a huge war on drugs.). Many of us strongly suspect there's still funding for covert ops hidden in the social services side of the budget, but it's a pretty safe bet nobody in, say, the National Endowment for the Arts is hiding money in the Military/Security part of the budget. The reverse however, is false - it has now been openly admitted that the CIA funneled money through the Nat. Endowment for the Arts for covert ops in the 1950s and 60s.

  Please don't fall for the idea that we have to cut social services to control the government - the power and arrogance they contribute to the whole is so trivial compared to the effects of all those agencies grouped under homeland security that eliminating all social spending would probably have less effect on the nation's slide into fascism than finding out why anyone else in the Treasury department, besides the Secret Service, needs full auto weapons training. (I'm willing to grant we need something like a Secret Service to protect various officials from nutcases - but why does a guy who's full time job description is to investigate insider trading, a guy who is required to be a CPA before qualifying for the job, but need have absolutely no military or law enforcement background, need to qualify on a M16-A4 assault rifle with under-mounted M203 grenade launcher?). Multiply that by all the agents for BATF that are not investigating firearms or even the few remaining old fashioned stills in the Kentucky hills, but need them for all those cases where someone is smuggling cigarettes without tax stamps - surely a few pistols or assistance from a federal marshall or two would be enough to handle such cases. Multiply by all the small towns that now have used federal grants for SWAT teams even if the most serious crime in a typical year there is likely to be a bar fight.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[schnell]

whenever the government is given control of more wealth and power to legislate & regulate...that's the same as saying they want more of this crap like this videographer received

EXACTLY! The action of these cops is DIRECTLY related to the growth of government! We should return to a time of smaller government - say, the 1950s or even the early 1900s - when police in the US deep South never abused anybody. I think we can all recall how much better the cops - and government in the South in general - behaved before that darned Federal government started getting so big. In fact, instead of shooting a guy and destroying evidence, they probably would have sat down and had a nice discussion together over grits and chicory, if it weren't for the insidious creation of the Department of Health and Human Services which turned them into jerks.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Any government big enough to have local police forces is big enough to do this. There's a reason we talk about "police states" rather than "bureaucrat states" or "social worker states". This has nothing to do with big government or little government--police brutality would still be a problem in a minarchist state.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[shutdown -p now]

The real trick is to post everything directly to "The Cloud".

True. And the easiest way to do it is to use Qik. You can even set that up for the vids to land directly onto YouTube.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[t2t10]

Local police who are locally funded and controlled by local officials can only go so far before the other local citizens take their power and wealth away and replace them with better police with better, less-abusive policies.

And this astounding theory is based on ... what? Local police can become locally corrupt and start doing the bidding of local politicians and local wealthy people. And they have done that.

When law enforcement gets a large amount of funding, receive orders, and follow policies and directives from a large central government, then local law enforcement loses accountability to their local populations.

Historically, it's the federal government that has curbed corruption and excesses in local and state police.

In this case, you don't seriously believe that anybody would lift a finger locally to get these people their camera phone back.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Lemmy Caution]

The goons are busy protecting private property and the wealthy who own them. Absent the government, they'd skip the middle man and simply hire goons to get rid of people they find disagreeable with a lot more impunity.

"Government" is a discrete collection of programs, not a mass noun.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Lemmy Caution]

Yet, generally, the societies that offer the fewest social services to their citizenry are often the ones with the highest corruption, while social democratic governments in Europe seem to have a lot less of this kind of thing. I think you're the one fluent in cloaca-speak.

Need I point out: this story is about locally-funded, locally-controlled police. Not federal officers.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[hairyfeet]

Yes because how dare they bring medical supplies and food to help out them niggers...err I mean Arabs, whom the sky bully says must be kept under boot or else Jebus won't come back, praise Jebus! Funny how the right wing wouldn't care if the Israelis had them an old fashioned lynching party for them poor bastards on the strip as long as there remains a Jew standing there to fulfill that "when the Jews return to Zion" line which IIRC wasn't even in the King James version. Don't you think it is kinda sad that our ME peace policy is based on a line written on a sheepskin by a 1800 year dead goat herder about a 2000+ year dead mystical figure?

As for TFA, as someone who still has a scar on the back of his head from a cop who said, and I quote "Fucking niggers and God damned hippies, i don't which makes me more sick" I can tell you that most cops I have encountered touring the south has been roid raged bastards going out of their way to start shit.

I have found for every decent cop you got a half a dozen or more roid raging, crooked, vicious, nasty, all around mean motor scooters. That is what happens when your police for cares more about its code of silence than it does in keeping out the dirty and the mean, but what truly makes them dangerous is they know they can get away with murder and that a good 95%+ of the time the laws simply won't apply to them. I know in my own area they actually got the coroner to testify that two teens that died by being hit by a train had passed out 'due to marijuana intoxication' even though the engineer said repeatedly that the kids were covered by a police tarp BEFORE he hit them and that neither body lying under the tarp so much as twitched even with the horn blowing full blast, and that the same coroner testified a year later a body found under a bridge in the same area belonged to someone who 'committed suicide'. Yeah he beat, shot, stabbed, AND strangled himself before jumping off a bridge in an area where it is pretty common knowledge that most of the cops are running meth.

So frankly is anyone surprised? When folks take videos of the cops acting like SA what does the prosecutors do? Oh yeah go out of their way to arrest the one who took the pics while the cops get a small suspension WITH pay, if they get anything at all. Funny how some many on the right scream that we are becoming 'socialists' when it actuality we are becoming (I would argue we are already there for the most part) fascist totalitarian.

But if anyone thinks this is shocking they should watch The Largest Street Gang in America and see how 'aggressive looking for a fight SA style' intimidation and oppression are the SOP for the blue shirts.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[RockDoctor]

It's what happens when government grows too big and powerful. It's happened every single time throughout the history of national governments whenever they grow too big.

So, what you're saying is that EVERY (your word, not mine) single government which has been "bigger" (your word, not mine ; I note that you don't define your terms, so I have to guess at what you mean) than yours (and presumably those that are "as big", but you need to define your terms) suffers the problem of redneck idiots running around in uniforms with guns and little sense of public service?

Speaking from a country which almost certainly has "bigger" government than yours (again, define your terms), we don't have this problem to any significant degree, because we haven't bred-up a society that is so wedded to the gun that public servants feel the need to carry a gun themselves.

You have a small degree of sympathy for being caught in an arms race between your government and the police. But continuing to do the same thing isn't being a successful solution to the problem. And the main problem is not the morality and intelligence of your police forces (they're always going to be kept relatively cheap because of tax-cutting pressure, which means that they're always going to be on average thick because brighter people will fuck off and get better-paid jobs), the problem is that they, and society in general have lots of lethal force available.

The police in Britain can, and occasionally do, beat people to death with their "night-sticks" (we call them truncheons ; whatever) ; but it is much much rarer than for the small number of armed officers to kill someone accidentally or without justification. Actually, just as a for-instance, only a week or so ago a coroner's court jury threw a case back at the public prosecutors where a police officer hit a man with truncheon, who subsequently died ; the prosecutors didn't want to prosecute him, but the jurors threw the case back in terms that the prosecutors now have the very unwelcome (to them) prospect of being forced to charge the officer with murder.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[drinkypoo]

And meanwhile it has been ruled that they can reject your application to be a cop because you are too smart. Citations are easy to find. Do well on an IQ test? We don't want you. We only want idiot bully-boys who will push the status quo. Think for yourself? We make you a detective or frame you for something, depending on if we need detectives.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[martyros]

But then why would anyone bother to become a cop?

You've put your finger on the source of the inevitable problem. Given the job, you're guaranteed to get this kind of person showing up at least occasionally; just like you get BOfH sysadmins, Wall Street attracts get-rich-quick schemers, the lawsuits attract ambulance-chasers.

The critical question isn't whether these things happen; they will. The critical question is how they organization responds. What will happen to these police, and the department that they work for? Will they be fired and never allowed to work in law enforcement again? Will there be a review of the attitudes of the police department to see if there are other systematic violations of rights, or a failure to provide adequate training or incentives to uphold the law (rather than abuse it for personal gain)? Or will they be given a slap on the wrist, and business continue as usual?

If there are consequences, then it won't be as attractive to this kind of person; or, this kind of person will control themselves because they know there will be consequences. If there aren't consequences, you're going to attract a whole lot more of this kind of person.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[turbidostato]

"Apparently you are *not* a student of history, or else you'd know that every single one of the revolutions/uprisings you listed (with some exception for the "Arab Spring") was caused directly or indirectly by a too-large and powerful government that took too many resources away from the citizens"

Apparently it is **you** (see? double asterisks, that's even more remarking that your single asterisks) the one that it is not a student of History, or else you'd know the difference between "government" and "ruling class". Government by the time of both the French and Russian revolutions were almost bankrupted and at the mercy of a rich ruling class which was the one taking away resources from the peasants.

"they had grown powerful enough to not care what the citizens wanted/needed."

It's only that, no, sorry, that was not the case. Government by the days of both the French and Russian revolutions was basically a post-feudalist structure. The king and court were not really so powerful and indeed were basically at the mercy of high nobility ('primus inter pares', you know) and banking resources.

"Gee, just like the times we find ourselves in now"

Yes, more or less the same: a government that does govern no more but it is a puppet at the mercy of a rich and powerful ruling class clearly obfuscated at sustaining the current 'statu quo'.

"wish for worldwide chaos as an opportunity for them to gain power and overthrow Western Capitalism."

What's "Western Capitalims" nowadays? For all that it seems, it looks like puppet governments at the mercy of a powerful ruling class made out of transnational corporations and financial entities, aka fascism.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, the homosexual activists want to finish what the Nazis started. Right. You are so sick that you'll repeat any insanity so long as you think it could hurt the people who scare you.

Please post more crazy so we can see that the modern Republican Party is the beacon for America's hopelessly insane. You're the one who's asleep: your American Dream is a nightmare.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Doc Ruby]

They're a Republican. And they're typical of Republicans.

FWIW, it's not a matter of what they "believe". No one can ever be sure what another person truly believes. Republicans are so absorbed lying about what they believe to insist on what others must do or don't that their actual beliefs are too hidden, perverted and inconsistent to bother with.

Because what counts is only what people do. Republicans vote for politicians, donate to politicians, who do such lying and harm, in direct contradiction of what they say they believe, that it's clear what the Republican beliefs are in effect.

Which is the only reason to care about their beliefs: their actual effect. Their beliefs are their own business. Their terrible effect on others (and themselves, then they drag us down with them) is abundantly clear.

Re:See with that Apple patent

[shipofgold]

Also, on your list:

• Haiti -- 16.4%
• Cambodia -- 13.3%
• Bangeladesh -- 12.8%

I totally miss your point about why you would rather live in Taiwan than the UK or Sweden. Are you assuming you will have the same income in all three places and will live better in Taiwan? I think if you are a Janitor, you may prefer to live in Sweden....its all about income and where you fall in the social hierarchy and how the society treats people at each one of the rankings. Somebody has to be the janitor in every society, and I think that the society will be better off and more stable if those guys don't think they are getting screwed everytime they turn around.

I would choose to live in Haiti given enough cash...I could probably get myself a nice tropical beach house, maids, drivers, and cooks (and a few security guys).

Re:See with that Apple patent

[Lord Kano]

I love how this was modded insightful.

So do I. Apparently we have enough people here who have seen the face that the police show when they think there are no cameras on them.

LK

Ahhh crime.

[Qatz]

Theft, destruction of private property, destruction of evidence, assault, and I'm probably missing a few.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Soilworker]

Is the US trying a new way of social reinsertion by giving policemen jobs to prisoners with clear psychopath behavior ?

Re:Ahhh crime.

[jra]

I'm fairly certain this gent has a 42USC1983 claim against all of the individual officers involved, and I *certainly* hope he's taking advice on that point.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[hduff]

Theft, destruction of private property, destruction of evidence, assault, and I'm probably missing a few.

It's OK because it's the police, so you have nothing to fear, citizen, unless . . . you have something to hide.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to continue until people start shooting assholes, regardless if they're cops or not.

I mean really, how long are thugs allowed to continue their... thuggery, until they get shot?

Re:Ahhh crime.

[danbuter]

None of which will be used against the cops. Unfortunately.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, think before you go castrating the public's protective services just because you want to be a dick to a cop and not get punched.

Videotaping cops or anyone else in a public place is not "being a dick." It's not even illegal in a two-party state like Florida unless there's a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The cops should not be disempowered from performing their duties, but they should always be mindful that there are serious consequences for breaking the laws they're supposed to be enforcing.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[NatasRevol]

New?

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Man On Pink Corner]

If you're a US citizen, one estimate I've seen is that you're subject to 40,000+ pages of Federal, state, and local laws. You may absolutely rest assured that you have broken more than one of them today, probably before you even got out of bed this morning. As have I.

Now, who has "something to hide," and who doesn't?

Re:Ahhh crime.

[mvdwege]

So, filming a public servant in public doing his job is 'being a dick to a cop' and deserves a punching.

Good to know that the Gestapo would have had a nice informant in you.

Mart

Re:Ahhh crime.

[bmo]

That's OK. I will be sure not to record your beating or shooting when it comes to you.

Fair enough?

--
BMO

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Lehk228]

ok fine, but make the penalty for ANY crime by a police officer against a citizen life in prison if non-violent and death if violent

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Dahamma]

You can't make it more against the law such that they won't do it.

You absolutely can. "Against the law" has nothing to do with convictions and punishment. We entrust (and pay) these police officers to enforce the law, and yet when they clearly break the law it's a LOT harder to get anyone to prosecute, let alone convict them. They'll probably get suspended WITH pay, and at best fired, more likely fined. The chances of them getting convicted of an actual crime are pretty low...

Make destruction of potential evidence of negligence or abuse by a police officer a felony with mandatory jail time (ie. worse than the original crime) and you will make them think twice. In fact, make felony crimes by police officers equivalent to laws that double sentences for crimes committed with a gun. They have a gun, and if they committed and are convicted of a crime, what's the difference?

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the guy who filmed Rodney King receiving a kicking was being a dick? Well, glad to know where you stand on the matter, Officer.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[cgenman]

Does anyone know of an iphone or android app that automatically uploads video to a remote server while it is being taken? Therefore things like smashing a phone would be useless, as it would already be publicly available.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[PyroMosh]

I had trouble Googling the incident myself until I added "Raymond Herisse" (the name of the man who died) to my searches.

It turns out he's been IDed as the suspect in an armed robbery attempt from earlier in the weekend and police tried to pull him over (no idea if it's because of the robbery or another reason), but rather than stop, he rammed a police cruiser and tried to run over at least one officer on foot.

So considering him a threat? Sure. I buy that. If what they say is true he demonstrated that he was a threat.

But from the video I saw, it seems that they shot at him on a crowded street. The car stops, and cops approach it. Then a few seconds later the 6 or so officers I could see all appear to not just fire, but unload their guns into the car.

Did the suspect draw a weapon? That would explain that kind of action, but the video I saw doesn't show that.

I can imagine a scenario where the cops do everything right and bystanders get hit when shots are fired. I can perhaps even forgive them for unloading their weapons. Adrenalin, and all that. I've never been there. Still, all the stars have to be aligned perfectly for me to believe that 4 bystanders got hit and it happened with the cops doing everything right.

Nothing however explains the confiscation of cameras and assaulting of bystanders. There *is* no reason I can dream up that is anything other than a criminal act on the part of the police.

The ACLU is investigating apparently, and rightly they should.

Even more troubling, is I can find no evidence that any officers have even been suspended. Though apparently there were officers from multiple departments involved.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're making it too complicated. Any crime by a police officer should be death. On duty or off.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[dr2chase]

Fascist. Often enough, someone is just filming, and then the cop starts "doing his job". Like this guy.

Here, some "dick" mounted a camera on a building.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[CrazyDuke]

I'm willing to consider moving. But, could you kindly point me in the direction of an English speaking country that is, well, not going in this direction or already there? Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand all seem to be in varying states of going down the loo. I know broken bits of French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. But, nothing I can get by on.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Ariven]

Yes, http://qik.com/ Qik supports android and iPhone.. it worked well on my 3g and works fine on my android.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[HungryHobo]

"Arresting someone if you aren't a police officer would be kidnapping. If a speeder simply could escape by driving 10 mph over the speed limit and the cop never being able to catch up then it would be all but impossible to enforce speed limit laws."

which would be a fine argument if they weren't explicitly allowed to do those things.
Police are granted a great deal of additional rights and powers to enforce the law.
It's only sensible that they should be punished more severely if they abuse that power.

this isn't "whoops, I lost control of the police car during a high speed chase and hurt someone" or "damn, I aimed at the bad guy but missed and hit some poor sod"

this is explicitly attacking someone and trying to destroy evidence.
That isn't a little mistake.
That isn't something that just happens when you're trying to enforce the law.

You can give your witness report 10 minutes later somewhere private, on the other hand if a cop was beating the shit out of you for the crime of being black then you'd probably welcome the guy with the video camera.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Officers like this need to be made examples of. If not by judges, then by citizens.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Lord Kano]

Seriously, think before you go castrating the public's protective services just because you want to be a dick to a cop and not get punched

Fantastic idea. Castrate all cops!

LK

Re:Ahhh crime.

[JWSmythe]

Actually, the way Florida law reads (and probably in other states), anyone injured during the commission of a crime will be found at fault for that injury.

    This is the way it was explained to me in law enforcement school.

    If Suspect A were robbing a bank. The police show up, secure the area around it, and the situation escalates. Suspect A realizes he doesn't have a chance, and comes out of the bank, gun held above his head in a submission manner. SWAT is going to be in full battle gear (body armor, assault weapons, etc).

    IB 1 (Innocent Bystander 1), a 90 year old gentleman, see the commotion, realizes what's happening and has a heart attack and dies. Not a shot has been fired yet.

    SWAT1, a member of the SWAT team determines that the submissive manner isn't submissive, but aggressive, and fires. Because of the shot, every officer on the scene starts firing. we'll assume for this argument, that none of the officers shots hit their target due to the distance from the police line, and the inaccuracy of their weapon.

    Random shots ricochet and hit IB 2 through IB 10, people who were standing at another police line (on the other side of the street, or an intersecting street, it doesn't really matter).

    The shooting stops, ambulances come and collect the injured. Here's the summary.

    Injured: Suspect A
    Fatality: IB 1, IB 2 - IB 4 (3 dead from gunfire injuries, one from heart attack)

    Who did it?
    SWAT1 injured Suspect A.
    Other officers injured IB 5 - IB 10
    Other officers killed IB 2 - IB 4

    So when the charges come down, who gets charged?

    SWAT 1 - no charges.
    Officers - no charges.
    Suspect A - 4 homicides, 6 attempted homicides, all without firing a single shot.

    The logic goes like this. If Suspect A had never been robbing the bank, the police would not have responded. The scenario would have never happened, and therefore it's all Suspect A's fault.

    The same applies to the real case in question. The blame *WILL* be laid on the driver who is now dead. The IA investigation regarding the shooting will likely find that it was a good shooting. There may be some misconduct charges for the threats to bystanders and destruction of private property. That'll result in a nasty note in their file, and maybe a few days of paid vacation.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Opportunist]

The problem is: Where to go?

That's also the reason why you're still free to go wherever you want. There's nowhere to run. Back when the Soviet Union still existed, the US had to keep up the facade of a liberal, free country where you may be what and how you want to be, where your privacy and your rights are protected by the government and not trampled on. Which of course meant that whoever could rub two brain cells together in the East wanted out, towards the free West. That way, as odd as it may sound, the Soviet Union protected us from our own government. Because the very last thing any country could want is that its best and brightest have nothing in their mind than plotting how to leave.

What we need today is a US for us. Some place to go to.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Opportunist]

I'd already be happy if there was a chance that this would get him some punishment at all. What sickens me is that the word of a policeman is still worth many times that of a normal subject when it goes to court. Not to mention that suddenly every cop within 10 miles was there and will testify gladly that everything transpired exactly as he said, and all of them are very credible, unlike your three buddies that dragged your carcass to the hospital which are clearly lying for you.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Man On Pink Corner]

Back when the Soviet Union still existed, the US had to keep up the facade of a liberal, free country where you may be what and how you want to be, where your privacy and your rights are protected by the government and not trampled on

To be fair, though, this was also the era of Hoover's FBI and the Red Scare. We had no business claiming to be any better than the Soviets as long as we had institutions with names like the "House Unamerican Activities Committee."

There's plenty of stupid fascist bullshit going on today in America and I'm never reluctant to bitch about it on Slashdot... but honestly, I suspect things were even worse for most of the country's modern history. Don't let a misplaced sense of nostalgia obscure the progress that has been made over the last several decades.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[IonOtter]

2. When I do break the law, I generally don't get caught.

I'd say "We can fix that for you," but I pretty much think you did it yourself, dude. You get +1 Darwin Award.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[JWSmythe]

    I'm sure they'll wrap it in a better sounding decision, but essentially, yes.

    The job itself isn't really all that fun. You're dealing with people from the beginning of your shift, to the end of your shift, who all hate you. Everyone from traffic cops writing tickets, to special crime units, their job is to enforce the law, which means someone you encounter is going to get the shit end of the stick.

    I have never heard anyone sincerely say "Well thank you for stopping me officer. I wasn't aware that I was going 5 miles per hour over the speed limit. I really appreciate it that you have given me this $150 reminder to slow down. Have a beautiful day." Nope, it's more like (either verbalized or in your mind) "Fuck you, I wasn't speeding, if I wasn't running late already, I'd back my car over you, but I don't want to have to stop again to wash the blood off."

    And that's the easy shift.

    Try showing up to do a preliminary interview on a murder suspect.

    If they're innocent of the murder, they may cooperate. They may say "fuck you, call my lawyer", or shoot you, because you might find the 100 kilos of heroin in the spare bedroom being sorted and bagged by illegal aliens you had smuggled into the country for just that purpose. But the crime doesn't always resemble the reaction. They may just shoot because there's an outstanding speeding ticket that wasn't ever paid. And, that's just the innocent people.

    If they're guilty, that changes the playing field, sort of. Some think they can talk their way out of anything. Some don't. And when they realize that the conversation is going towards "you have the right to remain silent", out comes Uncle Glock to finish the conversation.

    I, by no means, am implying that any of it is right. Law enforcement, rent a cops, and ... well, whatever the TSA is suppose to be (we are not law enforcement, but we are the government, and you surrendered your rights the moment you thought about buying a plane ticket, you terrorist scum). They all pick and choose the laws the enforce. And frequently enough to make the news every day if you look for it, they just plain make up the laws. Yes, you are allowed to film on a public street. You need model releases if it's for commercial purposes. And no, anyone at any level (outlined at the beginning of this paragraph) cannot just decide "Fuck you, you can't do that. I'm going to smash your shit and arrest you for whatever I feel like, after I get done kicking you and your girlfriend a few dozen times. That'll teach you to talk back to me." Ok, they may not say all those words, but by about the 5th swift kick into your ribs, or trying to kick your head like a soccer ball, the implication is there.

    And no, nothing that we can say or whine about is going to make a bit of difference. There's one route that will change it, and that is significant change. But I am not advocating the change that can be implied, because those who start it will not survive to see the end of it.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[Sabriel]

Living in Australia, one of the bigger differences here is that (so far) we still have a political system where the smaller parties, independents, etcetera, actually matter.

The US has two utterly dominant and remarkably similar parties, and a "first past the post" system to help ensure it stays that way.

Re:Ahhh crime.

[thejynxed]

Actually, it does apply to regular cops. I guess you missed the NYPD setting up the "Constitution Free Zones" and "Free Speech Zones" under direction of the DHS during the Republican National Convention a few years back.

Very showy at the time, with hundreds being arrested, put in Riker's Island until after the convention was over, not being charged, and then released. Anywhere from 8-14 days after the end of the convention was the average.

There was even articles in Newsweek, Time, etc about it.

Any laywers here?

[Threni]

I mean, I'm not from the USA, but surely even that is illegal there?

Re:Any laywers here?

[hedwards]

It definitely is and assuming that this is a somewhat accurate description of what happened, the police officers involved could easily find themselves behind bars for witness tampering, destruction of evidence amongst other things. And police officers do get sent to prison from time to time for this sort of behavior.

Re:Any laywers here?

[skywire]

Of course it is illegal. What difference does that make? Oh, you must be from a place that still has the rule of law.

Re:Any laywers here?

[skywire]

When pigs fly.

Re:Any laywers here?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the police have helicopters.

Re:Any laywers here?

[Arker]

It's not legal.

The problem is that we have a fascist minority in the populace, and a fascist majority in government, who believe that government employees, police in particular, are above the law. For a shockingly high percentage of the population, the whole concept of law and order is absent or incomprehensible, and instant subservience and obedience to the uniform is substituted instead.

This belief is, unsurprisingly, strongest amongst the police themselves. So they break the law, what are you going to do? Call the police?

You cant even get a prosecutor to file charges against them with clear proof of the crime. I remember one prosecutor that did try to discharge her duties faithfully by prosecuting a cop, and found herself unable to function in her position at all because the entire damn police force made a point to louse up her cases and refuse to work with her. Every time someone says 'it's just a few bad apples' I have to think back to her. It seems closer to the truth, today, to say as Adam Kokesh recently did "it's a few bad apples that give the other 5% of cops a bad name."

Now to be fair, police pay is relatively low, and the ability to kill and/or abuse their fellow citizens with impunity is the only clearly exceptional perk they get. Given that, it shouldnt be a surprise that the bad-apples come to outnumber the good ones over time.

I've known some very good people who were cops - note the past tense. They had a very rough time of it. I also knew a guy that told everyone he was going to join the police so he could kill someone and get away with it when he was in high school. Last I saw him he was wearing a blue uniform and a big smile.

Getting rid of bad cops is probably going to continue to be an intractable problem until and unless we as a nation realise that police should, yes, be held to very high standards - but they should also be paid commensurately for their services. No, poor pay in no way justifies lawlessness in the uniform - but if the police were actually held to the law, most of them would be in prison in short order and the people that we really want to take their place will be somewhere else, making more money and dealing with less stress.

Re:Any laywers here?

[Luckyo]

Technically many people who work in government or organisations performing certain roles are exempt certain parts of the law. This is essentially a requirement for proper functioning.

For example, I used to work as a campus network admin in my local university. Under the privacy legislation, about half of what I had to do for maintenance would have been illegal for an average person to do. However, as an admin, I was exempt from these parts of the law, enabling me to perform necessary maintenance.

Police are allowed similar exemptions, but to a greater degree as they need certain freedoms to enforce the law. I'm not certain how this works in states (judging by comments in this thread, badly), but around here police even have a right to search your house without a warrant on reasonable suspicion of a crime that has a sentence of over 6 months in prison. This is mainly used for drug searches (guy gets caught with drugs, police raid his apartment pretty much immediately).

The reason this is allowed is because in most civilized countries there is an balance between police powers, police ethics, and finally a bond of trust between the police and general population. Around here police officers are generally considered ethical, respected by the general public, and in turn police officers generally respect the public and do not abuse their powers. This is clearly not the case in USA, which is probably the biggest source of the problems.

Re:Any laywers here?

[St.Creed]

The amount of force wasn't justified. How many people beating up one guy on the ground? And while an arrest would not have been the issue, the beating they gave him certainly was an issue. And from there on it was a classic case of the loaded powderkeg meeting the proverbial spark.

Re:Any laywers here?

[Arker]

Here in the US we fought a very bloody and painful war which all the oddsmakers gave us absolutely 0 chance of winning to gain our independence, and one of the major reasons we did that was because of warrantless searches. We have a fourth amendment for a reason. If a law is impossible to enforce without warrantless searches (laws attempting to regulate peaceful private behaviour generally are) then it's a bad law and it shouldnt be enforced anyway.

Re:Any laywers here?

[MrHanky]

He's not taken as an example of an innocent victim, he's an example of a victim.

Re:Any laywers here?

[russotto]

Look into it, get the full story. He was driving while drunk, refused to pull over (a DUI would violate his robbery parole), gave chase, resisted arrest, and tried to attack the policemen.

That's what the police said. By the testimony of the police he was also doing 110-115mph in a 1988 Hyundai Excel (top speed 95mph). And was a superman high on PCP (drug tests were negative for PCP)

Re:Any laywers here?

[Arker]

Reliable statistics would obviously be very difficult to generate, if you can find anything approximating such I would love to see it.

But just to be clear, I am not in any way implying that 95% of cops in this country are actively corrupt as in going out shooting people just because they can or the like. What I *am* saying seems to be true, is that 95% of cops WILL comply with the 'blue line' nonsense and refuse to do their duty and/or actively obstruct justice to defend the bad cops. I have seen how this is deeply encultured in our law enforcement officers, and even though I can understand and even sympathise with those officers, the fact is that it is THOSE officers - not the handful of hard-core bad apples, but the masses of 'thin blue line' believers who may do little or nothing wrong otherwise, that make the problem so intractible.

Think about the story behind this article. From reading both the links, it seems that it was mainly a single policeman who was the active culprit here, committing a number of crimes under color of law (assault, battery, destruction of property, evidence-tampering, just at a glance) and it might be tempting to jump out and claim he is just one bad apple and it doesnt reflect on the rest of the force. But there were a large number of police on the scene to witness his crime!

It was the large number who stood by and did nothing effective to stop the 'bad apple' - who in a true law and order state would have placed HIM under arrest on the spot, but who, in our world, will instead look the other way and claim afterwards not to have seen the incident - without those supposedly good cops to enable him, the bad cop wouldnt last long at all. That was what I was trying to point out.

Re:Any laywers here?

[Omnifarious]

It definitely is and assuming that this is a somewhat accurate description of what happened, the police officers involved could easily find themselves behind bars for witness tampering, destruction of evidence amongst other things. And police officers do get sent to prison from time to time for this sort of behavior.

Every once in a great while when there is a massive public outcry and there are no other politically viable alternatives, yes, they do. This is far, far less often than it should happen. Of the instances of police overstepping their bounds I have heard of exactly one police officer being fired, and that was for a clear case of murder that was committed on camera and the victim was a homeless person who was well known and liked. The officer's excuse was that the man (who was known as 'the woodcarver' by locals) had a knife, and he did not put it down in the 2.5 seconds between the time the officer told him to and the time he fired. The man made no threatening gesture with the knife.

I have never heard of a police officer going to jail.

Re:Any laywers here?

[HungryHobo]

The wood carver was also partially deaf.
The officer in that case wasn't fired if I remember: he resigned.

Re:Any laywers here?

[jaypifer]

No, poor pay in no way justifies lawlessness in the uniform - but if the police were actually held to the law, most of them would be in prison in short order and the people that we really want to take their place will be somewhere else, making more money and dealing with less stress.

Poor pay?? I will never understand why this misconception cannot be stamped out. That concept was true decades ago, but not today. Many Miami Police Beach Patrol Officers make well over $100K.

Re:Any laywers here?

[houghi]

I understand the USofA is very proud of of their war to gain independence as you only had one that lasted only 7-8 years.
Perhaps it is time for a new one.

Bad cop, no donut

[russotto]

By the time our porcine "protectors" figure out that smashing up the instrument rarely destroys the recording, we'll all have real-time internet-connected video cameras.

Re:Bad cop, no donut

[russotto]

If you can't trust the police, how can you trust the cloud? Back it up to your own computer, which should ideally create a torrent automatically...

I think the cloud is safer, actually. In a case like this it doesn't matter, but if you're recording police misconduct occurring at your own home, they're likely to destroy and/or confiscate all your electronic equipment. They can't take extrajudicial action to get at information held by large multinational companies; this is the police we're talking about, not the NSA.

Re:Bad cop, no donut

[s0litaire]

Already here!
QIK.com
Online realtime streaming and archiving from your cell/mobile phone.
Been around for years!
Had it on my old Nokia N95 worked a treat!!

Re:Bad cop, no donut

[Danieljury3]

Given how small a microSD card is in comparison to the rest of the phone, there is a decent chance that the microSD card will remain intact and functional so unless they actually remove the card or take the entire phone the recording will probably survive. Maybe the police should carry radio jammers for when the public pull out their internet-connected cammeras.

Re:Bad cop, no donut

[mysidia]

I think the cloud is safer, actually. In a case like this it doesn't matter, but if you're recording police misconduct occurring at your own home, they're likely to destroy and/or confiscate all your electronic equipment.

Don't let them know you are recording it. The first they will hear about it is when you file a formal complaint about the officers.

Re:Bad cop, no donut

[mysidia]

This guy probably didn't go out of his way to make his recording obvious...

He was probably holding up a smartphone, which he had pointed at the officer.

From a sufficient distance, the smart phone is still visible but looks like a little black box, that could be confused for a gun. This must have been high enough profile to upset the officer, whose life is on the line.

What we really need are super-low-profile smart phone cameras that aren't visible or look benign, even at a few hundred feet away.

Pinhole cameras embedded in clothing or sunglasses, with a base station/DVR/cell phone uploading content in real time, in the pocket, seem like a good idea.

UNacceptable

[markdavis]

Yet another example of a government agent stomping on the Constitution. What type of country has this become? One where the government can track, monitor, record, and harass citizens, yet citizens can't even record a public event without being treated as terrorists. Just disgusting.

Now they should sue and we can all pay for it with an ever increasing tax burden.

Re:UNacceptable

[markdavis]

>"Why does everyone have to bring up the Constitution in cases like this??"

Oh let's see:

Freedom of assembly
Freedom of press
Freedom from unreasonable search or seizure
Right to due process
Freedom from unusual punishment

Stuff like that seems to apply in such cases, even if it is also covered by other laws that protect from police brutality or destruction of private property. ALL our rights spring from the Constitution.

This is not a police state.

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. is much better than China. We are free.

Re:This is not a police state.

[betterunixthanunix]

We are free, except for the millions of people who are behind bars; in fact, the US imprisons more people than any other country, including China, and the only countries to even imprison more people than the US were the USSR and Nazi Germany. As if that were not shameful enough, we also imprison a higher proportion of our black population than South Africa did during Apartheid.

Shameful.

Re:This is not a police state.

[hjf]

Well, of course China has few prisoners. They just execute the "bad apples", even if they didn't actually commit the crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China#Crimes_punishable_by_death

Re:This is not a police state.

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that they are talking about thousands of executions per year. The United States increased its prison population by hundreds of thousands in 2008 alone:

http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2009/02/03/america-on-lockdown-new-facts-about-america%E2%80%99s-prisons-prisoners/

Yes, China is the world leader in executions (but per capita, Iran is the leader), but we are talking about orders of magnitude difference in terms of how many people the United States imprisons. The United States does not arrest people who did not commit any crimes; the United States simply defines so many things to be crimes that it becomes difficult for people to live their lives without being criminals.

Re:This is not a police state.

[DrBoumBoum]

From the very interesting text:

The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear.

Crooks chasing crooks...

[MaskedSlacker]

...and cops wonder why we hate them?

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[hduff]

...and cops wonder why we hate them?

They know.

They just don't care.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[MaskedSlacker]

You sure seem to have assumed a whole lot of shit about me based on nothing.

For all you know I'm an african-american lesbian. So fuck off.

Of course, I agree with you about supporting fundamental liberties for everyone. I'm just rather irked at your bullshit assumption that I somehow ever supported doing anything like this to anyone you prejudicial fuck. The only one in this thread ever talking about this having ever been ok is you. Don't go accusing me of what bigger assholes than you (surprising that such could exist) have said.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[DesScorp]

...and cops wonder why we hate them?

The criticism and complaints against these officers is completely justified... they should face charges at a formal hearing for this... but a blanket statement about "we hate cops" makes you look silly and juvenile. Government... federal, state, and local... has become far too powerful. But they're not yet the Nazis you and other perpetually outraged Slashdotters make them out to be.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[The Dawn Of Time]

I guess we should wait until they are the Nazis, huh?

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[Lehk228]

just a neverending string of isolated incidents and coverups

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[BoberFett]

When these incidents happen, how often do the pigs face real punishment? That doesn't mean desk duty, or leave with pay. I mean life in prison, the kind of thing the rest of us would do for blatantly murdering someone then trying to cover it up by assaulting and threatening witnesses.

The whole system is corrupt and needs to be flushed.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[k8to]

Generally speaking, police culture is corrupt, and has been for generations. The question is just to what extent it's taken. Are they murderers for hire? or just take money to not report crimes? or do they just take free gives as effective bribes to cover some areas better than others?

Police corruption at all levels is a problem, low level corruption is a smaller problem than enormous misdeeds like what is seen here. But that the enitre culture has this diesease is a good reason to not trust police. It's not paranoia, and it's not based on nothing. It's a well documented phenomenon, and no amount of apologies for the institution will fix it.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[UriahZ]

They are ABSOLUTELY just as fascist and evil as we make them out to be. You can pooh-pooh it all you like, but you're just deluding yourself to excuse your inaction. And besides, we don't hate cops, we just hate the ones that trample our rights, like the ones that serve no-knock warrants for minor drug crimes, and the ones that don't bother with warrants, and the ones that taze you for a 'bad attitude', and the ones that shoot first and ask questions later, and the ones that threaten and harass citizen journalists, and the ones that beat protesters exercising their democratic rights, and the ones that kick people out of their homes when they get a letter from the bank, and the ones that target the poor for harassment, and the ones that dress up like SS officers for fun, and the ones that hate minorities, and the ones that escape corruption charges out of police solidarity, and the ones that tamper with evidence, and the ones that think they should not be held accountable for their actions. Really, it's just the 95% majority of cops that we hate. The rest are awesome, and bravo for standing up to a culture of pure, unmitigated evil.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[LordLimecat]

No, but calling them nazis, porcine donut eaters, and crooks (blanket statements all); comparing us to WW2 Germany and Communist China; and calling the majority of cops "psychopaths" (all of these, from this very thread) is certainly a bit much.

I have to say, all this foaming mouthed hyperbole really contributes to a reasoned discussion.

Re:Crooks chasing crooks...

[blackraven14250]

I think we should be honest that they're not Nazis, and work to prevent them from becoming the SS.

police brutality....

[wired57]

sounds like those police need to be taught a lesson.

he says he kept the SIM card in his mouth?

[YesIAmAScript]

The HTC EVO is a Sprint phone, it doesn't use SIM cards.

Also, video isn't stored on the SIM card.

Maybe he means the memory card?

Removing the memory card requires removing the battery first on an HTC EVO. It's somewhat unlikely he did that discreetly.

Re:he says he kept the SIM card in his mouth?

[Briareos]

Depends on how smashed up the phone was - after a good police trampling I wouldn't be surprised if the battery was already missing and the sd card slot was bent...

Re:he says he kept the SIM card in his mouth?

[camg188]

He probably took out the memory card after they put the smashed phone back in his pocket.
But who knows? If the reporter screwed up facts like 'SIM cards don't store video', who knows what other facts they got wrong in this story.

Once again, news reporting appears to the be the most technically clueless profession. (and if this video actually exists, I guess the police would be the second).

Re:he says he kept the SIM card in his mouth?

[s0litaire]

Think the reporter meant that:
The person who recorded it does not want to post it till he gets compensation
but morally the reporter feels the person should release it NOW for everyone to see...

Fucking pigs.

[Hatta]

Fucking pigs.

Phone's gone, followed by cops' innocence.

[sethstorm]

If there's enough of the phone to recover images, then the cops have made their situation worse. It looks like that's the case, but it's from an SD card, not a SIM card - given how Sprint's phones work.

Another point - how about apps that instantly stream to an offsite location? The cops would still be thwarted, and still have to pay.

Hopefully the cops end up paying tons of cash to replace the phones, along with whatever criminal penalties come from their actions.

Re:Phone's gone, followed by cops' innocence.

[hduff]

Another point - how about apps that instantly stream to an offsite location? The cops would still be thwarted, and still have to pay.

That's how the Camden police thugs got caught.

Re:Phone's gone, followed by cops' innocence.

[log0n]

Check out ustream.

And this is why you livestream

[Zerth]

Record it online, not on your phone. Although I suppose it won't be long before cops carry cell jammers as a regular thing.

Re:And this is why you livestream

[cbiltcliffe]

It's also illegal to abuse a witness and smash their cellphone. What's your point?

Re:And this is why you livestream

[perryizgr8]

app called qik does just that. its available for symbian and android. dunno about iphone.

Re:And this is why you livestream

[geekmux]

...Although I suppose it won't be long before cops carry cell jammers as a regular thing.

Doubt that will happen unless law enforcement agencies get a ton more money in their budget. Most agencies don't issue cell phones, let alone special ones that would ride on a custom frequency immune to jamming. Besides, the irony of first responders causing a huge safety issue for anyone around them? Would be kind of hard to pick out that 911 call and allow it to ride the jammed frequency and nothing else.

As much as we want to demonize them(not that those involved here don't deserve it), they're human too, and want/need to be able to communicate/surf/text with their spouses/lovers/snitches in the exact same way that 99.9% of the rest of the world does.

I wish there were a law

[dachshund]

What we need is a Federal law with two components:

1. Establish that it's perfectly legal to film the police doing their job in a public place.
2. Make it a crime, punishable with serious jail time, for a police officer to intimidate a photographer, confiscate their camera, or return the camera without the images.

This law should have no exception for "accidents" like phones being smashed or evidence being lost --- any more than we tolerate "accidents" involving children being lost or killed. Police should know that the minute they confiscate a private individual's camera they are putting their careers and their freedom in the balance should anything go wrong.

Of course none of this would be workable; if Congress actually passed any kind of law it would almost certainly protect the police and not the citizenry; and half of Slashdot would probably object to this being a Federal law rather than a state law or would propose that we adopt a technological/market solution instead.

Re:I wish there were a law

[White Flame]

There's nothing that should be specific to police officers. Any public servant is accountable to the public for their actions, and has no claim of privacy from the public eye. This needs to be cast in stone, no matter which role the servant is in.

Re:I wish there were a law

[brillow]

It should be a crime, punishable with jail time, for an officer to intimidate anyone who is not committing a crime.

Law enforcement should defer to the citizen, not the other way around. An officer should not use their power to impede a citizen without damn good reason, and they should beg the pardon of the citizen if they are mistaken.

I've never understood why law enforcement officials are given special deferment when they say accidentally kill someone. I would expect the opposite. I would expect that its ESPECIALLY bad when a trained person who holds and guards the public trust fails at their job and considered criminally egregious when this is the result of gross negligence or incompetence.

It seems that violent crime goes down every year, yet police budgets go up and up.

Re:I wish there were a law

[The Dawn Of Time]

What we really need is an amendment to the effect that any powers granted to any government representative are also granted to any citizen. That's true equality.

Re:I wish there were a law

[hey!]

We have such a law. It's called the 14th Amendment, without which the states would be free to do all kinds of things that infringe on Americans' rights. Here's the relevant bit:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Now the police can arrest these folks. They can (in certain circumstances) even kick the crap out of them. But they can't kick the crap out of them with the intent of denying them liberty or due process. Suppose there were a law that forbade videotaping the cops. Even *if* that law were to pass 14th Amendment scrutiny, the cops can't act as judge, jury and executioner. They'd have to confiscate the video, then prove it is illegal in a court of law.

Re:I wish there were a law

[Travelsonic]

No, we also need a provision where when a cop abuses his position in such a way where enough circumstantial evidence is present [like the witnesses in this case] the persons being abused have full right to restrain him, defend, etc as if he were a civilian.

This may be a controversial idea, but fuck it - this putting cops on such a high pedestal that they can't possibly do wrong is EXACTLY WHY we are in this fucking mess in the first place - conditioned so when bad cops act bad we don't have any ability - psychologically, or legally - to properly defend ourselves. So much so that people will now, probably, accuse me of wanting to support assaulting cops likle morons. No, I don't advocate that, but if somebody is abusing their badge - and physically abusing others, why the fuck should they mot be physically restrained, etc like anybody else?

Re:The bright side...

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS completely legal to video record police officers.

Re:how how?

[jago25_98]

I thought this too. Looking into it though, how do we actually do it? The only way I can think of that's convenient on a Symbian phone is stickam, then viewing it on a computer already running somewhere... which isn't great. You want the whole thing to be as quick as pressing one button

Anothe video of the incident...

[pongo000]

...can be found here. Rather chilling.

Re:Anothe video of the incident...

[shutdown -p now]

Seriously.. 3 cops and it sounds like each of them emptied their clips in a matter of 5 seconds or less.

Cops (and, really, pretty much everyone with a gun) are trained that, once you reach the decision to fire - which is not supposed to be taken lightly - you keep firing until you're absolutely sure that the target is incapacitated. At that point, the safety of the target is simply no longer a concern. It's not like they shoot once and then check if the guy is not reaching for the gun anymore, and if he is, they shoot again and repeat. Nor do they shoot to wound.

In this case, if all three cops saw something done by the guy in the car that was clearly aggressive (e.g. he was raising a gun?), then it would make perfect sense for each one of them to start firing at the same time, and to fire several times.

Not an iPhone

[afortaleza]

When it says he removed the SD card, you know it's not an iPhone.

What we need are cops who aren't thugs

[msobkow]

It's not illegal to film them, so you don't need a law explicitly making it legal. What you need is for these thugs to be charged with assault and more.

Re:What we need are cops who aren't thugs

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's not illegal to film them,

It is in at least the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

Re:What we need are cops who aren't thugs

[russotto]

It is in at least the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

It's legal to film and record police in Maryland. The case mentioned in your link went to the Maryland Circuit Court for Harford County and was ruled not a violation of the law. "A law enforcement officer has no reasonable expectation of privacy in encounters with citizens in public places"

Re:What we need are cops who aren't thugs

[burris]

The laws you speak of do not apply to every conversation, only those where the participants have a reasonable expectation of privacy. They don't apply to people, including police officers, speaking on a public street.

Re:how how?

[rhook]

Qik does this quite well.

http://qik.com/

Lawlessness

[hackus]

Since I was born in this country I have never seen so much lawlessness by financial institutions, politicians and law enforcement.

If this continues the USA will break up. If the USA becomes politically unstable we could see civil war.

There are already indications of this as state legislatures ignore their constituents and yield to the criminals in Washington.

We have states desperate to save the currency Washington is destroying, by declaring new issues of monetary and economic rules in their own states.

Meanwhile you have Federal powers trying to make it illegal to put anything other than Federal Reserve notes and arresting anyone who dares try.

A confrontation is coming between those who have looted and stole everything in this country and those who have been stolen from.

Be sure you pick the correct side when the crap hits the fan, because it is going to get very very ugly.

-Hack

Re:Lawlessness

[Kernel Krumpit]

A confrontation is coming between those who have looted and stole everything in this country and those who have been stolen from.

Be sure you pick the correct side when the crap hits the fan, because it is going to get very very ugly.

-Hack

That's right. The US is lagging a bit behind those near-east citizens rising up against those who stole everything in their countries. Fuck the Pignorami. I know which side I'm on.

Re:Lawlessness

[0123456]

Why? Econ 101. Commerce comes to a grinding halt if I'm trying to pay you with chickens and you only accept widgets, and you need to pay somebody with gold. It doesn't work.

Wow. It's amazing that the human race managed to conduct commerce for thousands of years before the Fed came about. Or that we can build products today with components from numerous countries using numerous different currencies.

The value of the US dollar has always experienced mild inflation.

Losing 99+% of your value in a hundred years is not 'mild inflation'. Sterling pretty much maintained its value for several centuries before central banking was imposed. Since then it's fared even worse than the dollar.

The Federal Reserve has been around for almost 100 years, and in those 100 years, the US has had the most stable currency on the planet.

It's a funny old world when losing 99% of its value in a hundred years is considered 'stable'. And I'm not aware of any competing currency which is not based on fiat money backed by a central bank.

Re:Lawlessness

[gehrehmee]

Let's do the math.

Assume 5% inflation per year.

Every year, the dollar is worth 95% of what it was worth the previous year. That's 0.95*(value of previous year).

After 100 years, the value of a dollar is equal to (original price)*0.95^100. 1*0.95^100 = 0.00592052922, or about 0.6% of what it was worth originally.

It's funny how exponential trends work, and how counterintuitive the results are. But inflation really is the opposite of the classic "double the amount of rice on every square of the chessboard" analogy. Yes, "mild" inflation CAN mean you lose over 99% of your value in 100 years.

Re:Lawlessness

[roman_mir]

I have something for you, I compiled for myself, and I'll use here as an example of why it is wrong to allow government to inflate money supply (print fiat without having any backing by something valuable, like gold or at least real production, and government has proven enough times that it does not calculate production correctly, so it has to be commodities or monetary metals)

sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%

Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%

Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%

Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%

Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%

Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%

Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%

Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%

Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172%

Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130%

Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103%

Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51%

Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151%

Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25%

Pork Dec 2003: 48.68 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 92.06 cents/pound, price up by over 89%

Silver Dec 2003: 565.33 cents/Troy ounce, Apr 2011: 4,279.79 cents/Troy ounce, price up by over 657%

Alluminum Dec 2003: 1,557.78 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 2,667.44 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 71%

Uranium Dec 2003: 13.35 USD/pound, Apr 2011: 57.84 USD/pound, price up by over 333%

Iron Ore Dec 2003: 13.82 cents/dry Metric Ton, Apr 2011L: 179.26 cents/dry Metric Ton, price up by over 1197% (yeah, almost 1200%)

Gasoline Dec 2003: 0.89

Re:Lawlessness

[bye]

Just a warning to those who feel like replying to this "roman_mir" gold-bug troll, he's a serial liar here on Slashdot:

  He lied about US purchasing power.

  He lied about 19th century US economics.

  He lied about taxation levels of the country you supposedly live in.

  He lied about 19th century depressions.

  He lied about the current level of inflation.

  He lied about the consumer price index.

He just posts his lies and if anyone actually points out the inconsistencies in his arguments he runs away into another thread :-)

In the above post he compiled a variation of those lies: pointing out commodities bubbles (which were mostly caused by physical shortages on a finite planet with growing population, well before "money printing" began after the 2008 crisis) while not pointing out deflationary forces that balance out price bubbles. You can see how real aggregate inflation looks like, in the links I provided above.

His motivation seems to be that he's all invested into the current gold bubble (no diversification? Yikes ...), and wants to see it continue. He will accept no rational arguments that point out the inconsistencies in his belief system.

JFYI.

Re:Lawlessness

[roman_mir]

More idiotic stuff from bye (87770)

Fox New is anti government? On which planet? Fox News quite pro-government, as long as its their preferred government.

shortages of supply in commodities? On which planet? Not on this one, which is producing more and more of all those things, but with the government printing presses, the number of US dollars that are chasing even the increasing productive capacity grows much faster than those resources, since they don't even have to cut the trees down to add zeros to their Fed account on a computer.

Shills are not as smart as I expected them to be, they are proving to be quite idiotic.

Re:Lawlessness

[swalve]

If the financial institutions stole all this money, how come the shit hit the fan when people stopped paying their mortgages? They didn't steal money, they lent out too much.

Who did they steal it from, and where did it go?

Re:Lawlessness

[roman_mir]

More idiotic stuff from bye (87770), as the droughts and fires and floods, and hurricanes, etc., have always been a problem for production, the commodities have these fluctuations priced in, without having to hit any particular problem, the actual prices for all commodities have been steadily rising for decades only due to inflation.

The poor excuse for an idiot, the shill, who goes under the snick 'bye', can't understand that in the world where the legitimate demand is increasing, the supply is also increasing to meet the demand, because increase in demand literally means increase in amount of money chasing the supplies.

The idiot shill, under then nick of 'bye', doesn't seem a bit surprised, that the numbers are showing an increase of price for every commodity priced in USD, but in real money, the prices are holding steady enough, with slight variations, which actually do, reflect the legitimate changes in supply/demand, thus priced in gold, cotton did not move in real price since 2003, but priced in gold it is now over 4 times as expensive.

But shills have their agenda, and when they are idiots, they can't even make an argument that is difficult to rebut. Of-course they are not chasing arguments for the sake of truth, they are chasing arguments to create uncertainty in the message.

There is no uncertainty, here are the numbers once more.

sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%

Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%

Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%

Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%

Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%

Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%

Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%

Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%

Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172%

Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130%

Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103%

Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51%

Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151%

Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25%

Re:Lawlessness

[roman_mir]

Yet another pointless drivel, written by the idiot shill under the nick of bye (87770).

There are always floods and droughts and fires and everything pests etc., and everything goes wrong, and yet the prices for commodities have these things included into the market prices, it is nothing new. You are the shill, thus you are pushing government agenda, that these are extraordinary circumstances, similar to what the Communists of USSR were pushing in their newspapers, such as Pravda.

You are the idiot, thus you can't understand this simple truth - the entire world is not flooded and it's not burning and it's not dying from pests, yet prices for all commodities are on average over 80% higher today, than they were in 2003, and this includes metals and this includes energy, and this includes cotton and wool and skins and food and paper and whatever you can come up with.

The wheat exporters in Russia have suffered from the idiocy of the Russian PM Putin, but this did not do much to the world prices of wheat, as Canadian and US and Chinese and European wheat producers have covered this "deficit".

So you are the stupid, idiotic, lying shill, who will keep pushing forward the government agenda regardless of these simple facts:

sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%
Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%
Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%
Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%
Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%
Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%
Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%
Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%
Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172%
Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130%
Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103%
Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51%
Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151%
Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25%
Pork Dec 2003: 48.68 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 92.06 cents/pound, price up by over 89%

Re:how how?

[Soft Cosmic Rusk]

Dropbox?

Re:Been there, done that?

[JonJ]

Have you ever been in a high adrenaline situation that ended in you shooting and killing someone? Have you ever voluntarily ended someones life? Have you had someone film you whilst you do this? Unless the answer to all of the above is "yes", how about you keep your damning judgements to yourself.

If the police officer can't handle these situations, I highly suggest they go for an alternate career. Maybe as a garbageman or something that shouldn't involve weapons. Seriously, it might be an extremely stressfull situation when he's shooting at the alleged drug dealer, who allegedly shot back at them. But when this innocent bystander, only being guilty of having a camera, gets guns shoved up in his face, then you aren't fit to take care of justice. If your job as a public servant can't take the scrutiny of someone video taping you as you perform your job, then you have no business being in the line of duty. Please, let the people be able to weed out the bad cops. We need the good ones. So your arguments are basically not relevant, as criticism isn't dependant of having to be in the persons shoes.

Note to those cops:

[orkysoft]

Yes, stomping the phone will easily destroy the recording, which is stored on a very fragile medium. The act of giving the broken phone back, accompanied by some choice threats, really complements the boot-stomping nicely! There is absolutely no need to do difficult technical stuff in order to erase the recording, or to "confiscate" the phone. Breaking the screen of the phone is all it takes. Giving it back adds insult to injury so nicely! You deserve a sprinkle-encrusted donut for this brave and ironic act! Don't listen to those trolls talking about memory cards and other stuff, they're just trying to make you waste your precious time.

Re:I miss friendly NZ

[Stormthirst]

They don't (for the most part) carry them in the UK either where I grew up. I still feel a little nervous about the RCMP carrying. Would I feel any less nervous if I was allowed to carry? Not really. More guns just means more opportunity to get shot - accidentally or otherwise.

Re:The bright side...

[MaskedSlacker]

Yeah, but pointing that out to them is the fast track to testicular tazerdom.

Re:The bright side...

[ATMAvatar]

Not in all states, it isn't. In fact, in several states, it's a felony to record police (or anyone) without prior consent.

How is that being a "dick"?

[khasim]

Seriously, think before you go castrating the public's protective services just because you want to be a dick to a cop and not get punched.

Strange, I don't see anyone being a dick to the cops in that story.

A guy RECORDING cops ON DUTY during an action ON A PUBLIC STREET ends up with a cop smashing his phone and pointing a gun at him.

Yeah, blame other people for being dicks to the cops. That makes a lot of sense.

Re:I miss friendly NZ

[Professr3]

Regular Joes who carry are actually on average much better shots than the cops. We're also statistically less likely to commit a crime than a police officer, and all the other firearm carriers I've met have a much better understanding of their state laws than the police (at least in the areas of law that have come up during conversations with police).

Re:herp

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the police officers in question are appropriately punished, it's not the government but agents of the government acting contrary to their intended purpose. If the government does nothing, then the actions of their agents are condoned and the government becomes responsible. We can't expect our government to be perfect anymore than we can expect those that are a part of government to be perfect. We're all human, and the people in government are just as prone to misbehavior as those outside of government (more so, if you believe the "power corrupts..." theory.) What we can expect from our government is that it will hold those that do misbehave accountable for their actions. Until it fails in that duty, it isn't truly corrupt.

Note that the punishment may be no punishment at all as long as that is determined by a jury of civilians in a court of law.

Re:Been there, done that?

[The Dawn Of Time]

I didn't ask them to protect me. They took it upon themselves. They coerce their keep from my paycheck. They can damn well be held to the highest standards of conduct in those circumstances.

Re:Been there, done that?

[lexsird]

You sir, are a lemming traitor piece of shit. Its fuckheads like you that empower fuckheads like that.

Re:The bright side...

[Arker]

"The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statue, to be valid, must be in agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows: The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed." - Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 177.

Re:No.

[MagusSlurpy]

I will be very impressed if you can elucidate the "privacy laws" he violated.

Re:No.

[cbiltcliffe]

So I guess now, when some criminal shoots up an innocent bystander in the middle of the street, the cops aren't allowed to arrest him, because anything they saw is private?

WTF?

No expectation of privacy in a public street. Even at 4 AM.

Don't be a douche.

Illinois Law

[Nynaeve70]

In the state of Illinois it is illegal to photograph or video ANY policeman. It is a felony to do so. Just wanted to warn people what is coming.

Re:Four days to find a pistol?

[proverbialcow]

Aside from the obvious implication of planted evidence, how was the shooting officer threatened to the point of justified deadly force if the gun couldn't be found for four days? Did the dying suspect construct an elaborate hiding place for the gun and place it there only after brandishing it and getting shot?

There's Gandhicam...

[meldroc]

http://www.gandhicam.org/

Re:No.

[dr2chase]

Don't think he was.

Under the statute, consent is not required for the taping of a non-electronic communication uttered by a person who does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that communication. See definition of “oral communication,” Fla. Stat. ch. 934.02. See also Stevenson v. State, 667 So.2d 410 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996); Paredes v. State, 760 So.2d 167 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2000).

"Non-electronic", and on a public way.

From http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/florida.html.

Re:I miss friendly NZ

[Hazel Bergeron]

No-one who hasn't been propagandised into thinking that guns are as essential as air wants to carry a gun, including criminals. In a country where most cops don't carry guns and most law-abiding citizens don't carry guns, most criminals won't want to carry guns either. Once you shake off that primitive Wild West mentality you'll find that most people simply don't want to create a life-or-death situation for themselves or others, whatever their aim (unless their aim is to kill someone - but that's unsurprisingly rare).

Guns might have been a good protection against the tyranny of government gone bad... a couple of hundred years ago. The government has since so far outpaced the citizen in physical strength that much more sophisticated disobedience is required. Stop waving around your sidearms like yahoos, America, and engage in that sophistication. For your own sake. Please.

Qik

[Kral_Blbec]

Its events like this that are the reason I have Qik on my phone. I've never used it, but give me 15 seconds to get started and I'll be uploading live video to a remote server. Go ahead and take my phone. Its already in the cloud.

meh

[hellop2]

Sounds just like every run-in I've ever had with police. I've even videotaped the cops beating the shit out of my friends. The only thing that ever amounted to was my friends not being convicted of Obstruction of Justice, Disobeying a Police Officer, Resisting Arrest, Interfering with an Investigation. And, maybe a couple cops quit the force.

It was funny when they played the video in court and the Judge looks over at the prosecutor and said, "Don't you hate when that happens? Case dismissed."

But the cops were never convicted of anything. Not even the local lawyers in my town want to take on the cops.

p.s. I remember the time a cop, with his foot stuck in my door over a noise complaint, grabbed my arm and said, "That's it, you're under arrest." I yanked my hand back and said, "Fuck you, get off my property, you're trespassing." Oh there was also the time that same cop just busted into my house (also a noise complaint) with his arm extended pointing a can of pepper spray at me... I ran into the kitchen where there was like 20 people. The cop eventually put away the pepper spray and walked away... knowing he would have sprayed everyone. Oh there's also the time a cop said I did a 360 on my motorcycle going 50mph, and when I stopped put my hands on my head, and sat down Indian-style, he beat me repeatedly with his baton.. so obviously I got a resisting arrest charge... dismissed, thankfully. Oh and a few months ago when I got a ticket for driving on a learner's permit with no licensed driver... though there was a licensed driver in the car, and I haven't had a learners permit for 15 years... I appealed that and.... inexplicably, lost. I could go on and on.

Re:meh

[bye]

Just wondering, you said in your first comment that a cop came in over a noise complaint, and you also said:

I ran into the kitchen where there was like 20 people.

So the kitchen had 20 people already - were you partying? How late was it?

What I'm trying to get at, was the noise complaint, by any chance, justified?

Even well intentioned cops will do a lot of weird shit if they think they are rightfully protecting others from you .

SIM cards cannot hold video

[kriston]

The largest SIM cards today cannot hold even the smallest video. The authors of these articles surely meant an SD card or MicroSD card, but definitely *not* a SIM card.

Re:Bringing the third world attitudes home

[PyroMosh]

No, you misunderstand.

Yes, he was driving a weapon. But you clearly misunderstand the narrative that makes this not make sense unless he drew a weapon or made some other overt threatening action.

Here is the video:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef7_1306812064

The video sucks though, so let me explain what I see blow by blow. I may be wrong, about some of this as it's hard to see.

The video starts, and I can't even see the car.
At about 3 seconds shots ring out. The source of them is unclear, but there is on report of shots coming from anywhere other than the officers.

At about 5 seconds the car halts near the intersection on the right.

Men approach the car cautiously with guns drawn. Presumably they are the police.

The officers surround the car which is now stopped. There is no additional sign of activity. The car doesn't move any further.

Then at 1:13ish many, many shots ring out. Far more than the number of shots that rang out before. Definitely multiple officers discharging lots of rounds.

The question is why? What were they reacting to?

Reiterating what I said before: If what the suspect supposedly did is true, and the cops are telling the truth that he fled and tried to run them over and refused to stop one can make the argument that the shots at 0:03 could have been justified.

But no shots were fired again until 1:13, and then they unloaded. What changed? If he didn't draw a weapon or make an overt threat, there's no reason. He had been stopped. The shots at 0:03 either hit him, or scared him into stopping.

I have no idea what the first half of your second paragraph is talking about. Sadly, I suspect that there have been too many journalists killed in war zones recently to know which "Reuters guy" you are referring to.

That said, I suspect your analysis of why this happened may be pretty close to the mark. Something along the lines of:

Stressed cops from this big, hard to control event get confronted with a real threat: an officer is nearly run down in a motor vehicle stop. Everyone's on edge, and the suspect is trying to get away. A gunfight ensues. Everyone is keyed up. And bad calls get made.

Further evidence of this is that there was another shooting later in the same night. A female officer who claims a different suspect was trying to run her over too.

It's not an excuse, or a defense. But I think this didn't just happen. These cops were driven to an edge. They did what they thought they had to do, but then they took things too far. I suspect a lot of these things happen in similar ways.

Lawlessness is a long way off

[dbIII]

If the USA becomes politically unstable we could see civil war

I doubt it. You'll just get the military government that Bush and Kerry pretended was a good thing when they campaigned on their military credentials. You can look at a few countries in Africa for examples, or Argentina a few decades back. I can't see it happening for a long long though because it requires just about everybody to lose any respect for central authority before as loyal a military as the US military decides they have to step in and take control to save the country.
I think things are going to get a lot worse no matter what is done by anybody from the sheer inertia of more than a decade of Enron style management in public and private spheres. But still it's a very long way down from there to civil war or military coup.

Always Go Upstream

[dammy]

In a case like this, best solution would be to file a complaint directly with FL Dept of Law Enforcement. They punch a case number and there is no "losing" the complaint as FLDE will make sure the investigation is done properly and then move forward if any findings substantiate the complaint. It's one thing for Metro Dade to do it's on investigation and justify the out come with FDLE, it's another if FDLE is involved at the beginning if not conducting their own investigation.

Re:Bringing the third world attitudes home

[PMuse]

What the original suspect may have done is IRRELEVANT to whether destroying the recording / assaulting the recorder is OK. That stuff is never OK.

Either the recording shows cops doing their job right, in which case destroying it would be unproductive, or it shows cops doing wrong, in which case destroying it would be a cover up.

Destroying the recording is always wrong.

Re:What experience?

[swalve]

When the only people you interact with on a daily basis are scumbags and your fellow officers, you are going to start believing that the world only consists of scumbags and police officers. Especially when you are trained to "not get killed" on a constant basis, and your trainers, pals and cop-only internet message boards constantly publish real and phoney stories about any cop in the world that gets killed. When your pals, the media and the law reinforces the idea that your life is worth more than other people's.

Policing can be dangerous, but it isn't even in the top 10 of dangerous occupations. But, when a logger, truck driver, fisherman, etc., gets killed in the line of duty, you don't see every one of them in the city stuff themselves into their dress uniforms and engage in a mile long funeral procession. Nor do they get to blame scumbags for their loss.

It is easy to see how it happens.

This is what happened in Chicago in '68

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The real trick is to post everything directly to "The Cloud". ... Destroying the device doesn't destroy the data, and you also have a record of the destruction.

This is what happened at the Democratic Convention protests in Chicago in 1968.

Chicago was a machine-run city and the police were able to keep pictures of their misdeeds out of the newspapers by seizing and/or smashing the photographers' cameras. In preparation for the convention (and the pre-announced protests) the machine's unions had prevented the stringing of video cabling to likely protest sites.

But this was the first serious deployment of the "minicam" by the three networks' news operations. It was a massive shoulder-mounted camera, feeding a backpack full of electronics and batteries, radio-linked to a truck full of equipment within a block or two that relayed it to the studio. But it worked. And Chicago was a main switching/mixing/studio center for all three networks' transcontinental feeds.

So the police, with orders to keep things out of the media, did their standard smash-the-camera number (like they did when the local newsies got ouf-of-line and tried to report on them). And when the police batons smashed a camera lens the image, from the lens' viewpoint, was already out of the camera and into living rooms nationwide.

With the improvements in video camera technology - first the personal portable video camera, then the inclusion of cameras and video-record functionaltiy in most modern cellphones - the bulk of the population has been in a position to play Chicago News Cameraman. "Who watches the watchmen?" can now be answered "All of us!" Since the Rodney King incident the police have been hunting for ways to suppress this coverage. And this bunch seems to have settled on the pre-minicam Chicago Police approach. In this case the camara man managed to extract and protect the "film". But the real solution is the same as it was in '68: Real time upload to external archive and/or live publication. You hit it dead-on.

Fortunately the pieces of that are now available as stock products (minor assembly required). Smartphone plus applet for live streaming to archive and/or social-network/video publication. The readers' letters attached to TFA name at least two such applets: QIK (and QIK Plus) and Ustream.

Re:WAR ON DRUGS?

[flyneye]

I suppose there will come a time when people see cops for what they are; fraternal to the point of being hoodlum. A closed society of outcasts eventually turning their prime directive inside out, being both the protector and predator. As Democracy runs amok like kudzu through our government, the corruption it brings will eventually strangle freedoms, God given individual freedoms will dissapear for the convenience of a socialist nanny government.
      I do not wonder at remarks like the AC parent, they are the mark of those frustrated at the interruption of freedom promised at least during their lifetime. I personally would not suppress it as trollish flames, but rather dig it out and discuss it for the fruit it will bear. It represents a sentiment growing in our society that marks the end of 9/11 hero worship and ushers in the National Security Gestapo Enabling Laws.
      What shall we do to repair,replace or rebuild local law enforcement? What we have is broken, doesn't work and is becoming dangerous allowed to proceed in its current form. Like a riding mower with no blade guard or gas cap it is problematic and counterproductive.
        If a cop points a gun at me in this day and age, myself knowing I have committed no wrong, it is not against the expectations of nature for my fight for survival, however unlikely to guide me in taking as many down with me as I could. I see cops getting bolder and bolder in recent years, taking their frustrations out on the flock they tend. Is it just more focus from the media recently or cop-crime on the rise?
Answers? Enlightenment? WTF have we got on our hands?