The Courage of Bystanders Who Press "Record"

HughPickens.com writes Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that in the past year, after the killings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, many police departments and police reformists have agreed on the necessity of police-worn body cameras. But the most powerful cameras aren't those on officer's bodies but those wielded by bystanders. We don't yet know who shot videos of officer Michael T. Slager shooting Walter Scott eight times as he runs away but "unknown cameramen and women lived out high democratic ideals: They watched a cop kill someone, shoot recklessly at someone running away, and they kept the camera trained on the cop," writes Robinson. "They were there, on an ordinary, hazy Saturday morning, and they chose to be courageous. They bore witness, at unknown risk to themselves."

"We have been talking about police brutality for years. And now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is," tweeted Deray McKesson, an activist in Ferguson, after the videos emerged Tuesday night. "The videos over the past seven months have empowered us to ask deeper questions, to push more forcefully in confronting the system." The process of ascertaining the truth of the world has to start somewhere. A video is one more assertion made about what is real concludes Robinson. "Today, through some unknown hero's stubborn internal choice to witness instead of flee, to press record and to watch something terrible unfold, we have one more such assertion of reality."

Comments

Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

But it does kinda call into doubt all of this officer's prior cases, right? And how long has he been on the force?

And how many of this type of officer exist?

These stories of police corruption come from north and south, from many different cities and neighborhoods. This video shows something they have been claiming has been happening all along while every single police department has vehemently denied it. So ... your cheap "groupthink" rhetoric aside, this video is certainly putting the possibility out there that this is a systematic and widespread problem -- isn't it?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

It's hardly a statistical analysis(no surprise for a sentence-long chunk of text that doesn't even have any numbers in it); but there's a fairly strong cause for suspicion: We know (actually, we surprisingly frequently don't, because apparently nobody bothers to track this very hard) approximately how many police/public interactions occur where the public side ends up dead; and we know that those have historically been deemed either justified or minimally culpable virtually all the time. Now, we have access to independent video in a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases; and it turns out to differ from the official story fairly frequently.

Given the poor quality of the overall records, and the difficulty of characterizing the distribution of independently videoed encounters compared to encounters as a whole, it would be quite a trick to come up with any reasonably precise "Number of past justified uses of force that were actually murder" number; but a great deal easier to support the hypothesis that it isn't a small problem if it shows up in such a limited sample.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Mr D from 63]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

I think there is a counter argument to that point. There is a lot of video being shot everyday of police encounters. It has become the 'thing to do', and there are very often bystanders with the ability to take video. But, we only see those videos if something exceptional happens. The vast majority of them never get distributed. So how 'systemic and widespread' would it appear if we saw 500 videos of cops white cops helping black citizens, cops handling a violent situation properly, and even cops putting up with abuse of citizens for every 1 bad cop video?

In the end, having video records of this stuff is a good thing, but we need to keep it in perspective.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, we have access to independent video in a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases; and it turns out to differ from the official story fairly frequently.

But are these videos widespread because they exist, or because of the disparity between stories? Are there videos that show justified shootings that don't make national news because there's no story other than "cop defends life of self and/or others"?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[jellomizer]

The problem has always been, who polices the police.
We take kids out of high school (More often than not, the personality is someone who wants the power and authority, vs wanting to protect and serve), give them military like training which can curve some of their impulsive tendencies... however at the same time insure if they need to use force it is more affective.
We give them extra power and authority, however we pay them civil servant salaries.
We place them in areas where day to day they see the worst of humanity, and they are usually without a partner.
Because the local governments don't want to raise taxes, they make laws that force citizens to be criminals, so they must pay high fines, to balance the budget. Then they pressure the police to keep the quota up.

In general they are placed in an environment where crossing the line gets really easy.

The other police will sympathise, even the good ones. So they will more often than not protect themselves (keep it in the family). So bad behavior will not be discouraged to a useful extent.

So who is to police the police? Well it is up to the citizens to keep vigilance on the police. And the citizens now have technology to do this. So just like that patrol car behind a bridge is ready to pull you over for speeding, there could be a citizen with a camera making sure his actions are just.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

In answer to your question: yes, ALL prior cases he was a primary LEO on will be called into question (IF the defendant has a decent lawyer or time to work on this). What that means is anyone who is incarcerated on a case that he worked on will have a free appeal process (The LEO has been shown to be corrupt) and possibly a get-out-of-jail-free card if they had proclaimed innocence and planting of evidence (As now there is video evidence that he does this). That adds a reasonable doubt. It doesn't matter how guilty or violent the incarcerated person is.

As for legality of videotaping officers (AC posted this below): It is legal to videotape officers, but in some jurisdictions they can charge you with wiretapping if there is sound on the video, but it's another thing to make that stick (It's mostly a tactic to get and destroy the evidence). This is why you should set your phone to back things up on the cloud, so if the phone is destroyed, you keep all your data (I *love* cloud computing).

Not all LEO's are bad, but the few bad apples give the rest a really bad name. Although there are some systems that are so corrupt, through and through, it will take a lot to clean them up.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

500:1? If it were 5000:1 or even 50000:1 ratio of showing cops doing good deeds vs police butchers, it would still be irrelevant.

It is completely relevant to the question of whether it is "systemic and widespread," which was the thread of conversation that you're replying to.

Nobody has said that cops are justified in brutality and murder. They are, however, entitled to be innocent until proven guilty.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Applehu Akbar]

Meaning that cops have literally gotten away with murder in places ranging from the poorest neighborhoods (the Garner case) to the wealthiest (the Olin case). Bystander photography, mostly using "incidental" devices like cellphones, has been key in exposing this problem.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Required Snark]

The police destroy cellphone video evidence when they get their hands on it. After they get away with this typically nothing happens, which is why you don't hear about it. The cover up works.

Here is a recent real world example from Bakersfield Calif. A suspect was beaten by police outside of a local hospital and died an hour later. Two people called 911 and said they were video taping the event. The cops showed up at their door and took their cell phones. When they were returned the videos had been deleted. This happened in May 2013 and there seems to be no further news on the matter. Case closed.

Police accused of erasing cell phone footage of fatal beating.

She says she saw six sheriff's deputies hitting a man with a club and kicking him.

She took out her cell phone and told the deputies what she was doing. It's unclear whether she thought this might get them to stop. If that was the case, this doesn't seem to have happened.

She says the man screamed and cried for help for a total of eight minutes. He finally fell silent, and the police then allegedly tied him up and dropped him twice on the ground.

It was only then, Melendez said, that they enacted CPR. David Sal Silva, 33, died less than an hour later.

Melendez said that she and her daughter's boyfriend both filmed what happened. She also said that police confiscated both their phones without a warrant being served.

The sheriff's department disputes this version, insisting that everything was done legally and the phones have been handed to the Bakersfield Police Department.

Melendez and her daughter's boyfriend both said that police officers paid them a visit at their homes and demanded the phones.

Worse, there are now accusations that some of the cell phone footage has been deleted. A report from the Los Angeles Times says that the FBI has now been called into the investigation.

This move was prompted, said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, by the fact that one of the two confiscated cell phones seems to have no footage on it at all.

"Our credibility is at stake here," he told the L.A. Times. More witnesses have come forward to support the essence of Melendez's claims that the police were overly zealous.

"They must have gotten rid of one of the videos," Melendez's daughter, Melissa Quair, told the L.A. Times.

Some might conclude from incidents such as the one in Bakersfield that if you're of a mind to film the police and believe wrong has been done, post it to YouTube as soon as you can.

There was no legal justification for the police to confiscate the phones. They broke the law in doing so. The FBI examined the phones and couldn't find the videos. There have been civil suits, but no charges or administrative actions against any of the officers.

In the current incident the video was turned over to the lawyer for the family. If the police had gotten their hands on it first it would have disappeared. If you deny this happens you are condoning lawless police violence that can and does result in murder.

If you think this is an isolated case, to to Photography is Not a Crime. They have a lot of examples of how police are caught breaking the law and illegally stopping people who video their bad behavior.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

These stories of police corruption come from north and south, from many different cities and neighborhoods.

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue. I have friends and family members who are police officers, the lion's share of them are decent people, but knowing them and the small handful of their colleagues who aren't decent people I can proffer a few opinions on what drives behaviors such as these:

1. There's a siege mentality in modern law enforcement, manifested as "I'm going home to my family, no matter what it takes." Do you have to worry about getting shot at your job? Probably not. LEOs have to worry about that every single time they pull someone over. Is it a soccer mom, a businessman, or a three strikes felon who doesn't want to go back inside? They don't know.

2. Modern media reinforces #1, by making line of duty deaths/injuries more accessible than ever before. Follow the "Officer Down Memorial Page" on Facebook; there's a line of duty death in the United States nearly every day of the week. Statistically speaking law enforcement is safer today than it has been in a long time, but in a large country statistically rare occurrences happen with distressing frequency and modern media ensures that we know all about them.

3. The War on Drugs provides such a profit motive that criminals are encouraged to arm themselves and resist violently, which in turn drives the militarization of law enforcement while reinforcing the siege mentality. The War on Drugs also alienates the police from our poorest and most vulnerable communities. The same thing happened during prohibition, this is not a new societal phenomenon. Nor can you blame the police, they enforce the law, legislators write it.

4. There are a handful of people in law enforcement who have no business being in law enforcement, or any other field that requires them to interact with human beings as a matter of course. They have chips on their shoulders, the stereotype is the kid that got bullied a lot in high school, now he has a badge and a gun, so don't you dare fuck with him. These people are a minority, out of the dozens of LEOs I know I can only name one that falls into this category. Short tempered and thin skinned are bad personality attributes for LEOs.

5. Reinforcing #1, the media and body politic never make a story out of LEOs doing their jobs correctly. They only make the news when they screw up. There was a police shooting captured on body cam a few months ago. It was a clean shoot, so naturally it got perfunctory treatment by the national media, not the 24/7 coverage that we would have seen had it been unjustified.

Regarding racism, I haven't met any genuinely racist LEOs, even from category #4 above. I have encountered a certain level of cynicism, best demonstrated by a quote I heard from a LEO friend, "Law enforcement is a customer service orientated business; unfortunately, all of the customers are assholes."

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Mr D from 63]

I agree, you can't justify the bad behavior with a lot of good behavior... but you can assess just how 'systemic' the bad behavior is... that was my point, nothing other.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

Are there videos that show justified shootings that don't make national news because there's no story other than "cop defends life of self and/or others"?

Yes.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[g0bshiTe]

Your "widespread" rhetoric aside, what is widespread to you?

It's most likely still a minority of the total law enforcement population, which would still not make it "widespread".

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[AntronArgaiv]

It's easy to edit a video.

It's almost impossible to do it in a way that can't easily be detected.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Mr D from 63]

My point had nothing to do with this specific video or this particular cop's actions.

You have a point about behavior when being recorded, but they don't always know they are being recorded, and there are also many, many instances of cops doing good things when NOT being recorded.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[rmdingler]

Spot on.

Much like the American educational system, salary considerations and other incentives for employment minimize the likelihood that law enforcement will attract the sort of candidates we might prefer in the vocation as a society.

My two cents: law enforcement and education are often thankless jobs, and my hat is off to the many, many folks who give their best in these positions I wouldn't care to work.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[tinkerton]

If you see how the police released a video of the killing of 12 year old Amir Rice thinking it would show up the cops in the car as innocent, then it's systemic.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[CrimsonAvenger]

It's hardly a statistical analysis(no surprise for a sentence-long chunk of text that doesn't even have any numbers in it); but there's a fairly strong cause for suspicion: We know (actually, we surprisingly frequently don't, because apparently nobody bothers to track this very hard) approximately how many police/public interactions occur where the public side ends up dead; and we know that those have historically been deemed either justified or minimally culpable virtually all the time.

Hmm, a few minutes of google-fu shows the number of "civilians" killed by police in 2013 (to pick a year as close as possible to today, and far enough back to be sure the statistics have all been gathered together) to be 320.

Total number of police killed by "enemy action" in LOD (not accidents) was 29 that year.

A bit more shows that there are about 900,000 police officers in the USA.

So, in any given year, maybe one police officer in 3000 shoots a "civilian", maybe 1 in 30,000 is shot by a civilian.

Is this a problem? You betcha!

Is it evidence of "systematic and widespread" abuse? Not hardly....

PS. With any luck, this butthead will hang (figuratively or literally, depending on how SC handles that sort of thing), pour encourager les autres....

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Bonzoli]

Do you think body camera's would help the small percentage of officers that do fall into, the bad apple catagory, restrain themselves from the bad behaviour?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[sribe]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

It is systemic and widespread, but also locally varying, not ubiquitous. That is to say, there are many departments like Ferguson where it is accepted, even promoted, by those in charge and thus systemic and widespread. And there are many many departments where it is absolutely not. Speaking as someone who's lived in a number of different areas of the country, I've lived in areas where the cops were awful, and even a white male would be wise to dread any contact with them, and I've lived in areas where they were highly professional.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[sribe]

That happened with this one as well. It doesn't show the previous action which led up to the officer and the suspect being out in the middle of the grass after a traffic stop. It doesn't show where the officer and the suspect were involved in a tussle as claimed by the officer, during which the suspect reportedly took the officer's stun gun.

NOTHING justifies shooting an unarmed fleeing man in the back when he's already 10 yards away.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[meta-monkey]

And the anger is placed at the feet of all police because they rally around the bad ones. Why? Why do this?

When a cop is found to be breaking the law, the cops should treat him just like any other citizen accused of a crime. Innocent until proven guilty, but he should be given no special treatment and the other police should fully cooperate with prosecutors (and other law enforcement). And once the bad cop is convicted, they should vehemently denounce his actions and abuse of authority. "Asshole, you're making us look bad!"

The citizenry would cheer. People want to like cops. Protect people! Catch bad guys! Be upstanding people pursuing justice!

Instead, 99 times out of 100, when a cop is found to be doing horrible things, the other cops rally around him and defend him. "Dude, you're letting everybody know what we're really like!"

It's not so much that a bad apple ruins the bunch. Eliminate the bad apple and the rest of the bunch is fine. But instead there's a bad apple, and the rest of the apples are totally fine with it. WTF is wrong with the rest of you apples?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There's no market for video of 'banal interaction between officer, person, goes boringly', except possibly as stock footage; but there would definitely be an appetite for footage of people getting shot by cops under justified circumstances. The broadcast media are a little squeamish about showing kills, so they'd be a little more circumspect; but online? hell yeah. It's not as though Russian dash-cam footage is newsworthy in the slightest, and that's a youtube phenomenon. Lovingly curated collections of perp snuff film would be like candy.

If you were running a comparison based on media hits, you'd have to compensate for the fact that justified shootings would tend to be boring local news, while especially lurid unjustified ones would be national; but online video availability and local news crime blotter coverage would reflect the availability of video in either case.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[avandesande]

Falsifying a police report and planting a weapon on someone you just killed is corruption.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue

The corruption is the denial, cover-up, and preservation of status quo which come after the brutality.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

No, it isn't relevant. That's like countering a claim that poison ivy is systemic and widespread with "But look at all the pretty flowers! There must be hundreds of pretty flowers for each poison ivy plant!"

No, it's nothing like that. In a discussion of whether something is "systemic and widespread," the rate at which it occurs is relevant.

You said:

No matter what good things cops do, it can never justify police brutality and murder - at any ratio.

While true, that says absolutely nothing about whether or not something is "systemic and widespread." That is the definition of "irrelevant."

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hate to reply to myself, but it just occurred to me that, based on that 320 killings of civilians by 900,000 police officers and the 10K-odd murders by the general population, the murder rate for police is about ten times the national average.

In other words, you have about ten times the chance of being killed by a cop than by anyone else....

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

Recent events in New York City suggest that they won't; that asshole had to see the person aiming the cell phone at him and continued his verbal abuse nonetheless. An officer with anger management issues and a sense of entitlement is not going to discover self-control just because a camera has entered the equation.

I got pulled over once upon a time, by a bloody railroad cop (did you know they have Statewide jurisdiction in NYS? I did not) who took exception to my passing him on the highway. He pulled me over just to scream at me how dare I pass him, even though he was going 55 when the flow of traffic on this particular highway is 65-70. I don't know if he fell into the asshole cop category or was just having a bad day, but I do know I was being disproportionally screamed at for a non-violent speeding offense that wouldn't even have gotten me pulled over by a real cop. NYSP doesn't pull people over on this particular stretch of highway until they exceed 70, which was why I was genuinely surprised when his lights came on.

He got the "Yes sir, no sir." treatment, because there's nothing to be gained and everything to be lost by arguing with a pissed off LEO. Fucker wrote me a ticket too, 62 in a 55, which was later thrown out of court because he neglected to do the required supporting deposition in a timely manner. I enjoyed that "win" a great deal and might have made a snide comment about him being better equipped to catch graffiti artists than speeders when I walked by him in the court house lobby. :)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Steve B]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

It's an inference derived from newly available evidence, which is the exact opposite of a preconceived notion.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Reinforcing #1, the media and body politic never make a story out of LEOs doing their jobs correctly.

Of course. You don't get a medal if you're a doctor who makes it through the day without killing a patient; or a teacher who gets through the week without molesting a student. Do you want a parade and a raise simply because your code complies?

Re: Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the deaths of cops should be equal to the number of deaths caused by cops? That's a load of crap. Not every police shooting is justified, but the idea you put forth is absurd.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with much of what you say, but really you're doing as most Americans have been conditioned to do and that's avoid the real fucking problem here because it's been turned into such a touchy vitriol filled subject making it a no go area - America's gun culture.

I say this because you said:

> The War on Drugs provides such a profit motive that criminals are encouraged to arm themselves and resist violently

This is where I disagree. Other countries also see the exact same profit motive but it doesn't result in an arms race, the only thing that does that is America's love of and easy access to guns. America is exceptional for a first world country in the level of threat it's cops face and you can't pretend it's because of something that other countries suffer but don't see the same effect from.

You're right it's not corruption, you're right it's probably not even about racism most the time, but what it's about is what you've almost hit upon but just about glossed past. It's about the fact that in America the gun has become the default option when it should be the last resort. I'm not surprised in the confusion of the moment that this cop pulled his gun and fired, he's been conditioned by your society to do that, to think it's acceptable, to think it's right. It's a hard ask, because some cops are going to die in the interim, but in most neighbourhoods American cops should really be leaving their guns locked up in their cars and taking a taser at most out on patrol. When they don't have a gun on them it can't become the default response, and it would never have been used in a situation like that videoed here.

American cops desperately need to learn how to police without resorting to the gun, and American society needs to change to allow and support that.

Otherwise please, just stop telling the rest of us how you've had a horrific shooting, we know what you have to do, we've told you what you have to do, you just need to do it, and if you wont, why the fuck would you expect us to keep giving a shit each time one of you gets shot? If you wont do the necessary then it's effectively what you've asked for, it's the society you've chosen, so just live in it and put up and shut up until you're ready to grow up and get past your immense paranoia that makes you believe having a gun somehow makes you safer. Just about every relevant metric going shows that that is most definitely not the case. You cannot on one hand support the continuation of business as usual on your gun front, and on the other keep feigning shock and horror at the fact that someone got shot. Of course they fucking did, that's the society you've built. You can't have it both ways, you can't demand continuation of guns everywhere for everyone, all the time, and also expect that to somehow not end in people getting shot.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

That happened with this one as well. It doesn't show the previous action which led up to the officer and the suspect being out in the middle of the grass after a traffic stop. It doesn't show where the officer and the suspect were involved in a tussle as claimed by the officer, during which the suspect reportedly took the officer's stun gun.

It does show some of that where there is something that gets knocked from the officers hand long before the shooting that the officer picks up and places near the body after the shooting. After all you do need to show that the guy took your used, single shot Taser to justify shooting him in the back.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[arth1]

No, it's nothing like that. In a discussion of whether something is "systemic and widespread," the rate at which it occurs is relevant.

Yes, and the rate at which other things occur, like cops being good, or flowers sprouting roadside is irrelevant.
All that is relevant is how often cops go bad. Not how often cops do good things or eat donuts or change underwear.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Jiro]

You can't compare the two because the average person is exposed to a different proportion of criminals than the average police officer, so the increased rate for police may be explained by the police being more likely to run into criminals.

Also, the rate for the general population is driven down because it includes babies, children, old people, and the handicapped who would have a hard time killing someone and would not be eligible to become police.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Daemonik]

1) Yes, the police have a siege mentality. Is it justified? Not by these statistics http://www.nleomf.org/facts/of... Officer fatalities are down, and have been down and in fact are not appreciably higher than they were 100 years ago.

2) Yes, modern media and CERTAIN POLITICIANS reinforce the siege mentality, because it benefits them. From selling military class hardware to police, to privatized prisons, policing is big business and is marketed to justify big ticket expenses just as aggressively as the next iPhone.

3) The war on drugs provided the POLICE with a strong profit motive as well, as their policy of seizing property disproportionately benefited police agencies to aggressively pursue even the smallest of drug cases.

4) The police make little to no effort to weed out the irresponsible officers, and in many cases actively pursue programs to recruit them. They defend these known disruptors to the ends of the earth and will do anything rather than admit fault. They no longer attempt to be members of their communities, just the biggest bullies in the community.

5) The media and body politic never make a story out of the DMV doing their jobs, or the garbage men doing their jobs or a hell of a lot of people DOING WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM!!!! Why should the public have to stroke LEO's egos for obeying the damn law and their own procedures???

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Daemonik]

Are there videos that show justified shootings that don't make national news because there's no story other than "cop defends life of self and/or others"?

Yes, it's a TV show called Cops, maybe you've seen it.

The police have no lack of cheerleaders who will always dismiss public and especially minority complaints against them.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[operagost]

4. There are a handful of people in law enforcement who have no business being in law enforcement, or any other field that requires them to interact with human beings as a matter of course. They have chips on their shoulders, the stereotype is the kid that got bullied a lot in high school, now he has a badge and a gun, so don't you dare fuck with him.

Actually, it's the BULLIES who seem to keep slipping through the vetting processes we allegedly have in place. Now their aggressive behavior is backed up by authority.

"Law enforcement is a customer service orientated business; unfortunately, all of the customers are assholes."

That's what you call a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drinkypoo]

And the anger is placed at the feet of all police because they rally around the bad ones. Why? Why do this?

If they rally around they bad ones, they are the bad ones. Stop giving them a pass. Stop asking this question. They're doing it because they are bad cops.

As for the specifics of why they do it, it's because the cops are a gang. It's got a top-down hierarchy, colors and codes, and even secret games and handshakes (although they're not that secret... but then, they're not that picky.) And the penalty for acting out against the gang is severe. Again, not as severe as if you're part of a more clandestine organized crime ring (insert obvious examples here) but still real, and beginning with loss of employment.

And it's not that every cop is an idiot, but you don't need to be particularly smart to be a cop and in fact at least some departments do deliberately screen out not just the free thinkers, but the deep ones as well. That's why some wanted the right to deny employment based on intelligence. If they accidentally hire an intelligent policeman, they either fire him or promote him to detective and get him off of patrol duty.

WTF is wrong with the rest of you apples?

The barrel is designed to spoil the apples.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[jythie]

The systemic and wide spread part has been shown by data for decades, but that tends to be dull academic type stuff so it does not have much impact on the public imagination. On the other hand, videos of events register with people, so they are helping to convince people emotionally of an already known (but often discounted for ideological or emotional reasons) issue.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[DigitAl56K]

Corruption is not only a problem when someone actually dies.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

Yes, and the rate at which other things occur, like cops being good, or flowers sprouting roadside is irrelevant.
All that is relevant is how often cops go bad. Not how often cops do good things or eat donuts or change underwear.

Assuming a finite number of cop-citizen interactions, the ratio of good-to-bad interactions is relevant to the rate at which bad interactions happen.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[jythie]

But.. but.. the person did not respect their authorata! If people see that it will lead to the downfall of society!

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Trailer Trash]

These stories of police corruption come from north and south, from many different cities and neighborhoods.

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue. I have friends and family members who are police officers, the lion's share of them are decent people, but knowing them and the small handful of their colleagues who aren't decent people I can proffer a few opinions on what drives behaviors such as these:

1. There's a siege mentality in modern law enforcement, manifested as "I'm going home to my family, no matter what it takes." Do you have to worry about getting shot at your job? Probably not. LEOs have to worry about that every single time they pull someone over. Is it a soccer mom, a businessman, or a three strikes felon who doesn't want to go back inside? They don't know.

Police are safer than they've ever been. The job isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. Yes, there are people who shoot at an officer who pulls them over. There are also people who shoot at the guy working the 2AM shift in Mapco. But I don't walk into Mapco at 2AM and have the guy pull a gun on me "just in case".

2. Modern media reinforces #1, by making line of duty deaths/injuries more accessible than ever before. Follow the "Officer Down Memorial Page" on Facebook; there's a line of duty death in the United States nearly every day of the week. Statistically speaking law enforcement is safer today than it has been in a long time, but in a large country statistically rare occurrences happen with distressing frequency and modern media ensures that we know all about them.

Right. In other words, a big part of the problem is cultural, both within law enforcement and from without. I know cops, too, and they're always talking in hushed tones about how it's just becoming so much more dangerous. A big part of why is that they don't feel they have as much support from the community as they used to. And a big part of that is a) municipalities using cops for revenue enhancement (see Ferguson) and b) cameras are now exposing just how much corruption there is in law enforcement and the justice system as a whole. See recent videos of a judge asking a prosecutor if she's going to charge a police officer with perjury after he obviously committed perjury as a good example.

3. The War on Drugs provides such a profit motive that criminals are encouraged to arm themselves and resist violently, which in turn drives the militarization of law enforcement while reinforcing the siege mentality. The War on Drugs also alienates the police from our poorest and most vulnerable communities. The same thing happened during prohibition, this is not a new societal phenomenon. Nor can you blame the police, they enforce the law, legislators write it.

Research shows that most raids on "drug houses" either turn up "no weapons" or a handgun. There's very little violent resistance.

4. There are a handful of people in law enforcement who have no business being in law enforcement, or any other field that requires them to interact with human beings as a matter of course. They have chips on their shoulders, the stereotype is the kid that got bullied a lot in high school, now he has a badge and a gun, so don't you dare fuck with him. These people are a minority, out of the dozens of LEOs I know I can only name one that falls into this category. Short tempered and thin skinned are bad personality attributes for LEOs.

Let me give you an example of why you're wrong. And I could come up with a hundred (literally) but I just need one. Take the David Bisard case in Indianapolis. You can look it up in Google, but short version: Bisard got stone drunk before work one day, jumped in his squad car, someone mentioned that they were doing a simple drug arrest on the radio, Bisard said he'd be right there, they said they didn't need him,

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[kilfarsnar]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

It isn't groupthink. Is the federal investigation of the Ferguson PD not data? Is the history of the NYPD's relations with minority communities not data? Video footage is now forcing people to confront the reality that many in these communities have had to live with for decades if not longer.

These days I think it takes a special kind of willful blindness to not see the systemic mistreatment of citizens, especially the poor and minorities, by the police and those above them. You have to really identify with authority not to see it.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drinkypoo]

1. There's a siege mentality in modern law enforcement, manifested as "I'm going home to my family, no matter what it takes."

To protect and serve, no matter what it takes.

Do you have to worry about getting shot at your job? Probably not.

I don't know, I am getting browner these days but at 6'7" nobody suspects I'm a Mexican at first sight. However, I do often drive around in a Chevy Astro...

Nor can you blame the police, they enforce the law, legislators write it.

Yes, of course you can blame the police, because selective enforcement. See, our system of law does not require that the police make an arrest when they are aware of a crime, nor does it make them liable for the ongoing commission of that crime if they fail to make an arrest. So yes, I can very much blame the police if they know they are making unjust arrests, and if I don't, then I'm really not thinking clearly. I can also blame the politicians who made it possible for their part, but "just following orders" has never been valid excuse for wrongdoing, especially the obviously illegal kind, and double-especially when done by a person on a position of power and trust.

the media and body politic never make a story out of LEOs doing their jobs correctly.

What the mainstream media often does is endlessly parrot the official line about how we are meant to feel about something. When they endlessly repeat some nonsense about an unrelated event as if it had bearing, for example a nearby crime unrelated to an incident which is the matter at hand which is being discussed, then they're leading the discussion. People who even have heard his name think Snowden sold secrets to Wikileaks and endangered our forces because that's what the talking heads said on the telescreen.

I have encountered a certain level of cynicism, best demonstrated by a quote I heard from a LEO friend, "Law enforcement is a customer service orientated business; unfortunately, all of the customers are assholes."

Ah, what a fine attitude. Surely that is the best way to approach people, in order to get the best possible response out of them. Just start out with the belief that they're an asshole, fundamentally different from yourself. From there, you can justify basically any treatment of such scum.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drinkypoo]

But the fact is, there's nothing wrong with busting people for illegal activity in plain view of police who have legitimate reasons to be where they are. The fact the pot smoker is in jail is not a problem with the US justice system.

Not inherently, the question is whether the law that they're enforcing is a good one or not. In a Judge Dredd future in which the cops are required to dispense justice when they observe the commission of a crime, then you would be correct. There would be nothing wrong with that. But when the cops are busting people for victimless crimes, or even just busting people in ways which make situations worse period, I don't care whether they discovered the crime in a legitimate way or not. If throwing someone into the system for the commission of a crime will make the world a worse place by any rational measure, which is the typical outcome, then doing so is a reprehensible act and not one which is worthy of praise.

Obviously, there is some point at which the value of inserting someone into the "justice" machine to be folded, spindled, and mutilated rises above the value of letting them roam free. I'm not proposing anarchy. But I'm also proposing that people be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. Often, this differs from the law's purpose; often it is simple revenue generation, or other times a law is a deliberate attempt to maintain an unbalanced status quo. They're not all diamonds. Many if not most of them are just more turds.

So the anger in that situation is misplaced. It's not the cop's fault. It's not a failure of the justice system.

Like it or not, they're part of that system. They don't get a free pass just because the law says they get one. That will get them out of a courtroom, but there's no reason that should get them out of our consideration. They're where the rubber meets the road, as it were. They're perhaps the second line of defense against bad laws, once they become law anyhow. The first might be civil disobedience.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[itsenrique]

Are you kidding me on #5? My local news often has stories about LEO "doing their job right". Everything from horse and dog training, to helicopter training, to crime scenes. The thing is no one cares. No one cares if anyone does their job right. That's just the news. Most of us have "thankless" feeling jobs.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

Blacks are more likely to be pulled over, more likely to be searched, more likely to be harassed, etc. Something's not right.

Blacks commit crimes at rates higher than whites. Any public policy that ignores this fundamental fact is doomed to failure. If you want to address this problem I suggest you start by tackling the socioeconomic factors that are responsible for this disparity in crime rates. That means you have to address poverty, broken families, the war on drugs, and the disparity in the quality of public schools.

Of course, doing those things is a lot harder than screaming "RACISM!"

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[itsenrique]

Can they start them much higher though? They already start higher than educators and fire fighters where I am. They can move up the ranks, and then side to side in the private industry making some pretty comfortable money.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you still believe that laws on paper are 'good' on their own right. Lets say the 2nd crime wasn't cannabis related, but this was an on-the-books anti-buggery law. 2 homosexuals get busted for doing the dirty (or you and your wife having illicit carnal relations). The point being that not all laws are created equal, and arresting people for private acts in their own homes (cannabis related or not) is stupid... and the cops that enforce those laws are using violence when they should be using discretion instead.

"And the cop is just doing his job." Ahh - the ole Nuremberg excuse. The point is that 'Yes' - it is up for the cop to decide what s(he) participates in. If he kills a jew because its the law, he is responsible. If he catches an escaped slave because it is the law, he is responsible. If he beats up a druggie because its the law, he is responsible. The law doesn't matter - you are responsible for your actions and we aught to treat them as such.

The anger is not misplaced. Stop blaming your neighbors for the actions of cops.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Electricity Likes Me]

Body cameras would go a long way to providing hard, tangible evidence that would let us get rid of the "few bad cops". Because trying to have the police self-police based on heresay absolutely does not work (high school is a sad prototype for life: everyone knew who the bully was, but guess what's always worse and dangerous: being the guy who tries to call him out on it).

On top of that, all trials of them show that the actual rate of false allegations against police plummets when they're used - it's a win-win.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[T.E.D.]

Hmm, a few minutes of google-fu shows the number of "civilians" killed by police in 2013 (to pick a year as close as possible to today, and far enough back to be sure the statistics have all been gathered together) to be 320.

...but the problem is that number, like most numbers about this, is complete BS. Nate Silver's website has several articles up about how hard it is to get legit numbers about police shootings.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[poetmatt]

Without any example, you are basically lying with your post. It's just as easy to obfuscate information by providing no example and asking people to prove a negative.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[dryeo]

But if you change the crime of the homeowner from "child rape" to "had a bunch of weed out on the table in plain view of anyone entering the home" the Internet will explode with rage about the horrible violation of the poor innocent cannabis enthusiast who was just minding his own business, eating some funyuns, not bothering nobody. "Asshole cop! Police state! Barging in to somebody's home like that! He should be free to go, the cops should apologize and give him back his weed!"

There was a similar case here a while back, cops entered a home with an unrelated warrant, spotted a bunch of pot plants, and then left and while keeping the house under surveillance went and got a warrant for searching for pot plants. Then returned with a proper warrant to search for pot plants which led to an arrest.
Your rape scenario would allow the cops to act because some one was in imminent danger. The pot one doesn't work because it was off topic to the reasons for the cops to enter the home though it does give them probable cause to get a warrant.
Canada instead of the States but similar rights and justice system.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Copid]

This. And it's way scarier than brutality. If the cops don't cover for each other and they can't file false reports, you can usually avoid getting roughed up or shot by not getting physical with them (although recent videos show for certain that even that's no guarantee--it just protects you from malice, not incompetence). Once they start filing false reports and backing up each other's lies, they're effectively beyond any control. They can do literally anything and get away with it, and a force that has unlimited power and no oversight will attract and eventually be dominated by people who will abuse it. That kind of culture is what turns healthy democracies into pre-industrial hellholes and keeps pre-industrial hellholes from ever developing into healthy democracies.

I'm willing to cut the officer a (very) small amount of slack here. People are calling it a "cold-blooded" shooting. It looks like more of a hot-blooded shooting. They'd been struggling and he was amped up. Hitting the guy with the TASER and having him not fall probably scared the hell out of him. He wasn't able to handle himself properly and he did a very wrong thing. He should answer for that just as any of us would answer for it if we shot somebody after a fight. But falsifying the report? That's fucking cold-blooded. Planting evidence (if that's what that object is)? Terrifying. I watched the video and was distrubed by the shooting, but casually dropping an object next to the body and calling in that he had a weapon? That gave me chills. That's the sort of thing that should be a capital offense if anything should. That's a direct, premeditated attack on civilization. None of us are safe.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MachineShedFred]

Regarding #3 - the criminals aren't arming themselves to resist police, they're arming themselves to resist other criminals*. Many drug dealers don't give a shit about being arrested and doing a little time - they have friends and cohorts already inside, and they aren't so stupid as to recognize that 6 months on a possession with intent isn't nearly as bad as a best case life without parole for being a cop killer. Also, shooting at cops only brings lots more cops, and the cops that come in after that are far more likely to tune up anyone that looks at them sideways than some cop trying to make it through his shift who spots a poorly hidden stash.

Shooting at cops means the whole business has to take a time out for several days until the heat dies down, which means everyone makes less money when the customers go to other parts of town where they aren't so stupid as to shoot at cops.

*obviously this depends on locale and disposition. Yes, there are some truly bad criminal enterprises out there, and really stupid violent people, which is a fantastic combination.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MachineShedFred]

Well, it's brutality first, and then perjury and corruption afterwards.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

I'm generally supportive of body cams but there are legitimate concerns that will need to be addressed. In no particular order:

1. They can intimidate witnesses to crimes or the victims thereof, particularly the victims of sex crimes.

2. Certain agencies may be tempted to use them as supervisory tools to remove officer discretion, which means instead of a warning you're now getting a speeding ticket in all instances. Officer caught your kid with pot? Maybe without the camera he takes the weed, scares the hell out of the kid, then sends him on his way. Now he's going to arrest his ass.

3. Who controls when the camera is on or off? Can you imagine working at a job where your every moment was recorded? Say the officer makes a personal phone call to his wife during a quiet moment, should that be recorded? What about the officer's piss break? Seems to me like the officer has to have the ability to disable the camera, but then how do you respond to the tin-foil hat crowd that's going to scream about cover ups?

4. Who decides which recordings go into the public record? It can't be all of them, see Item #1 above. Very few people are voyeuristic enough to claim that a rape victim's interview with the police should go into the public record. My State (NYS) keeps 911 recordings out of the public record, which I tend to think is a good thing, but we're definitely in the minority there.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[blue9steel]

That happened with this one as well. It doesn't show the previous action which led up to the officer and the suspect being out in the middle of the grass after a traffic stop. It doesn't show where the officer and the suspect were involved in a tussle as claimed by the officer, during which the suspect reportedly took the officer's stun gun.

And if he shot the guy during the altercation I'd be totally fine with that. Shooting him as he's running away isn't proper police procedure nor is it justified. The officer's life was no longer in danger. Tasering him as he was running away would have acceptable though.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[blue9steel]

I agree with much of what you say, but really you're doing as most Americans have been conditioned to do and that's avoid the real fucking problem here because it's been turned into such a touchy vitriol filled subject making it a no go area - America's gun culture.

The problem wasn't that he had a gun, the problem is that he used it inappropriately. You can use a billy club to kill someone, that doesn't mean cops should be prevented from having them. I would however support a ban on lethal ammo for patrol officers, they should be packing rubber bullets.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

Maybe you should have kept reading my post before you clicked "Reply," because I acknowledged exactly what you're saying. Statistically speaking, policing has never been safer. That doesn't exactly matter though, does it? Police are human beings, just like the rest of us, and human beings are prone to treating their perceptions as reality. Follow that feed I mentioned on FB and you'll understand how it reinforces the perception that policing is an extremely dangerous job.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do understand that, while the event that lead up to the arrest is similar, those are two extremely different legal circumstances, right?
In the first circumstance there wan an actual, identifiable victim.
In the second circumstance, the issue is more that the government is criminalizing what someone puts in their own body, in their own private residence, with no identifiable harm to anyone. I would add "other than themselves", except that even the DEA admits it has valid medicinal uses.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[JimFive]

Most of your concerns are addressed by ensuring through law and policy that the purpose of the camera is to act as a witness to the actions of the officer, not the public. To respond to each point:
1) I doubt the cameras are more intimidating than all of the rest of the trappings of a witness interview.
2) Don't allow access to the videos without a specific complaint and legal process (subpoena, etc).
3) Allow them to turn it off, but if a complaint is made and the interaction is not on video then it is presumed that the complaint is valid, just like any other destruction of evidence.
4) The recordings would only become public record if there was an investigation and associated subpoena/warrant activity to get the video into court.
--
JimFive

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[jacksdl]

We can keep the argument going indefinitely using anecdotes and preconceptions. Or we can gather and increase the reliability of the data.

In this case, I heard some official state that there was no reason to question the cops version until the video came forward. It would be interesting to gather the other cases of officer involved shootings where the justification on the report was similar and dig a little deeper.

More cameras on the streets might also be useful (ducking and running...)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Maritz]

He dropped the taser next to him after shooting him in the back. He made no attempt to check on the guy's condition. He tried to frame/set up a guy lying dying on the ground, and you're defending him, well done you.

Thank goodness it was a white on black action or we would not have even heard about it.

Are you seriously suggesting that the real problem with police racism is the other way around? LOL.

Your motivated reasoning is painfully, painfully obvious. If you're trying to come across as reasonable (you aren't) you need to try harder.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Maritz]

Perhaps they won't change their behaviour; but perhaps their behaviour will be noted and they'll go work in another industry with less responsibility to the public.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fustakrakich]

They are, however, entitled to be innocent until proven guilty.

Cops and politicians no. We have to hold them to a much higher standard if we are going to authorize the power we give them. The Sword of Damocles must hang over all their heads. We don't put a high enough price on power.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[nehumanuscrede]

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue. I have friends and family members who are police officers, the lion's share of them are decent people, but knowing them and the small handful of their colleagues who aren't decent people I can proffer a few opinions on what drives behaviors such as these:

I too have friends and family in LE ( and have my entire life ) so I offer some counterpoints for you to consider.

The problem is actually both brutality and corruption. When you beat the sh*t out of someone, it's brutality. When you do it wearing a badge, it's corruption since you're abusing not only your authority and trust, but that of the LE community as a whole. No one views incidents like this as Officer so and so did X. Rather it is remembered as " Did you see what the Police did ? "

1. There's a siege mentality in modern law enforcement, manifested as "I'm going home to my family, no matter what it takes." Do you have to worry about getting shot at your job? Probably not. LEOs have to worry about that every single time they pull someone over. Is it a soccer mom, a businessman, or a three strikes felon who doesn't want to go back inside? They don't know.

The " seige mentality " as you put it, is a mental construct of their own design that, in their mind, justifies their attitude and behavior to anyone not wearing a badge.

Let's use an animal analogy. Animals aren't typically looking to harm anything. ( Unless they're hungry, or protecting their young, different issue ) Typically, if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. However, if you threaten one or scare it, they can become VERY dangerous. Over time, assuming you continue threatening or scaring them, the animal will fear you. From that point forward, every encounter with the animal becomes a dangerous one. The funny thing is, it's not the fault of the animal, rather the one who continues to threaten or scare it. The police are in the same boat. Folks are scared of police now. Many no longer look to them as protectors or someone they turn to when they need help. The police are to be avoided at all costs. When cornered by one, many will act irrationally based on personal or learned knowledge ( truthful or otherwise ) of what they are likely to expect from the encounter.

Here's the fun part: The actions of a few idiots with badges jeoprodize the lives of ALL Law Enforcement because once the trust is lost, it's very, very difficult to regain. Of course, that pendulum swings both ways. While the vast majority of folks are decent, the thugs are what the officers see every day. After a while, officers simply view everyone without a badge as a thug. Which starts the cycle of mistrust.

2. Modern media reinforces #1, by making line of duty deaths/injuries more accessible than ever before. Follow the "Officer Down Memorial Page" on Facebook; there's a line of duty death in the United States nearly every day of the week. Statistically speaking law enforcement is safer today than it has been in a long time, but in a large country statistically rare occurrences happen with distressing frequency and modern media ensures that we know all about them.

I think it would be rather eye opening to post similar numbers of folks unjustifiably beaten and / or killed by police. ( assuming we can every get accurate numbers on that ) Want to place bets on which list is larger ? :D

3. The War on Drugs provides such a profit motive that criminals are encouraged to arm themselves and resist violently, which in turn drives the militarization of law enforcement while reinforcing the siege mentality. The War on Drugs also alienates the police from our poorest and most vulnerable communities. The same thing happened during prohibition, this is not a new societal phenomenon. Nor can you blame the police, they enforce the law, legislators write it.

Pfff. The War on Drugs is merely the excuse the police use to arm themselves better

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Sarius64]

You raise some good points. But in fairness to the issue, this is not the Bible and all crimes are not equal. Possessing some weed is nowhere near the same level of violence to people and society that child rape carries. Shooting someone in the back with no apparent concern for your life or safety takes a higher bar than simply being a police officer.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[nehumanuscrede]

Those numbers are also difficult to compare because we don't have full statistics on the number of folks who are shot / beaten or killed while in police custody.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[nehumanuscrede]

Wouldn't it be nice if the police extended that same idea to those they continue to abuse and / or kill :|

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[nehumanuscrede]

You should see the pay scale at the Federal level. Agencies like the DEA or US Marshals can easily exceed six figures.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[IgnitusBoyone]

The first rule of totality club is the first rule of totality club.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Ravaldy]

But it does kinda call into doubt all of this officer's prior cases, right?

Why does it matter? This incident alone is enough for him to never be allowed to hold a firearm and certainly justifies him going to prison

And how many of this type of officer exist?

It's long been known the blue protects the blue. Body cameras is the ultimate tool to make these officers think twice before abusing their power. It also will deter corruption which we know is happening in some cities and states.

This video shows something they have been claiming has been happening all along while every single police department has vehemently denied it. So ... your cheap "groupthink" rhetoric aside, this video is certainly putting the possibility out there that this is a systematic and widespread problem -- isn't it?

You didn't need the video for that to be proven. There have been enough incidents for most people to believe there is abuse. The biggest challenge is defining how broad the issue is. People who broke the law and had to deal with the authorities are in a very poor position to comment on them. It is in said criminals best interest to diminish the reputation of authorities.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[rsierpe]

These stories of police corruption come from north and south, from many different cities and neighborhoods.

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue. I have friends and family members who are police officers, the lion's share of them are decent people, but knowing them and the small handful of their colleagues who aren't decent people I can proffer a few opinions on what drives behaviors such as these:

Isn't brutality a form of corruption? brutality is simply to shape rules in a way they see fit, with no regards for consequences. Ok, there's no profit, but brutality is a form of corruption anyway.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Ravaldy]

What weapon?

I see a pair of sunglasses. Is that not what it is?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Coren22]

As for legality of videotaping officers (AC posted this below): It is legal to videotape officers, but in some jurisdictions they can charge you with wiretapping if there is sound on the video, but it's another thing to make that stick (It's mostly a tactic to get and destroy the evidence). This is why you should set your phone to back things up on the cloud, so if the phone is destroyed, you keep all your data (I *love* cloud computing).

Except that the Supreme Court already shot down the wiretapping offense unless you are attempting to conceal that you are video taping.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[chiefcrash]

NOTHING justifies shooting an unarmed fleeing man in the back when he's already 10 yards away.

Except, legally, the fleeing felon rule does just that:

The Fleeing Felon Rule permits the use of force, including deadly force, against an individual who is suspected of a felony and is in clear flight. In some jurisprudence failure to use such force was a misdemeanor which could result in a fine or imprisonment.

Under U.S. law the fleeing felon rule was limited in 1985 to non-lethal force in most cases by Tennessee v. Garner. The justices held that deadly force "may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others."

Granted, this doesn't mean the fleeing felon rule applies in this case (especially considering the seemingly false statements made by the officer), but saying NOTHING justifies it isn't quite accurate...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[crtreece]

LEOs have to worry about that every single time they pull someone over. Is it a soccer mom, a businessman, or a three strikes felon who doesn't want to go back inside? They don't know.

Sorry, but any LEO that gives this line is flat out wrong. Since 1980, there have been only 2 years, 1980, and 2001, where there were more than 200 officer deaths. In 2013, there were 100 deaths, and 51,625 assaults, and 14,857 assaults with injury. Last year, out of over 900,000 sworn officers, there were 117 fatalities (didn't find the assault numbers). Of those dealths, 49 were related to a vehicle crash, 20 of which involved 1 vehicle. It sounds like driver training might be what they are lobbying for.

Top 10 deadliest jobs by death/hr worked include things like logger, fisherman, construction, farming/ranching, powerline techs, miners, and truck drivers.

there's a line of duty death in the United States nearly every day of the week. Statistically speaking law enforcement is safer today than it has been in a long time,

hmmm, the math doesn't seem to add up there. If there was one every day, then total officer deaths should exceed 365, which hasn't happened since...ever. 1930 was the last time the number was over 300.

The War on Drugs also alienates the police from our poorest and most vulnerable communities. The same thing happened during prohibition, this is not a new societal phenomenon. Nor can you blame the police, they enforce the law, legislators write it.

I'll give you the first two, but not "I only enforce the law" part. Police unions, owners of private, for profit prisons, and prison guard unions are the largest contributors to campaigns intended to roll back drug prohibitions. There is also a profit motive, at the department level at least, on the law enforcement side. Civil Forfiture allows police to confiscate personal property with no trial or conviction.

These people are a minority, out of the dozens of LEOs I know I can only name one that falls into this category. Short tempered and thin skinned are bad personality attributes for LEOs.

You have the beginning of a point there. The rest of the point is, the so called "good" officers won't cross the blue line of silence by reporting and testifying against the problem officers. Instead, you get the opposite. Just this week in South Carolina, officer Michael Slager shot and killed an unarmed man, Walter Scott, who was originally accused of trying to take the officers taser. Another officer statement confirmed this report. But wait, independent video later showed that Scott was unarmed, running away, and didn't have the taser. Well, he didn't have it until officer Slager dropped it near the dead body.

Until the LEO community is willing to apply the law to themselves, they will continue to have a reputation as corrupt thugs.

the media and body politic never make a story out of LEOs doing their jobs correctly.

They also never tell a story about a positive outcome from drug use, citizen use of a firearm in self defense, and plenty of other stuff. So how does that make the police shooting case much different?

Law enforcement is a customer service orientated business; unfortunately, all of the customers are assholes."

So LEO have just as many stereotypes as the general public? If your friend doesn't want to deal with types of people and situations that come up in that job, they should look for something di

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[ahodgson]

All of those examples are murder. You, and the police, are only permitted to use lethal force if you are in immediate danger. Or against an intruder in your own home, in some states.

Not saying those cases wouldn't be morally justifiable, but they are definitely not allowed.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[liquidsin]

I'd be willing to agree that blacks are much more well represented in arrest records and the prison populations, but do you have any evidence that they COMMIT CRIMES at a higher rate than any other racial group?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

if a complaint is made and the interaction is not on video then it is presumed that the complaint is valid, just like any other destruction of evidence.

That's not how the burden of proof works in the American judicial system. Not collecting evidence (i.e., the camera was turned off) is light years away from the destruction of evidence (i.e., deleting footage after its shot) and even in the case of the latter it does not change the need for the State to prove that a crime was committed.

In any case, since my example of a need to be able to disable the footage was piss breaks, the hypothetical makes itself. Officer stops at roadside rest stop to take a piss, disabling the camera prior to entering the bathroom. Officer is then involved in a use of force incident within the bathroom. Suspect claims that the use of force was unjustified. Officer claims that it was. You're going to automatically side against the LEO because the camera was disabled?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

I'd be willing to agree that blacks are much more well represented in arrest records and the prison populations, but do you have any evidence that they COMMIT CRIMES at a higher rate than any other racial group?

You're asking me for evidence that people who go to prison have committed a crime? Seriously?

Incidentally, a better correlation can be found between poverty and crime than race and crime; poor whites commit crimes at higher rates than middle class or rich blacks. Unfortunately, there are more poor black people than white people, for reasons that are beyond the scope of a Slashdot post.

The point is, people who are serious about addressing crime need to attack the socioeconomic underpinnings thereof. But that's hard and doesn't win votes; much easier to play the race card and rile up the base that way, or to blame the guns/drugs/fluoridated water.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[microbox]

The fundamental problem is "who watches the watchers?". The courts, apparently, yet bring charges against the police is nigh on impossible. Reforming the law could easily put good cops in more dangerous positions. Yet we know there is a problem, because, according FBI/Police internal investigations, police never make mistakes: the officer is always exonerated. Internal affairs has every incentive to do this. And people respond to incentives, ya know? But suddenly with the appearance of body cameras, people report far less harassment from police. Perhaps the cameras put people on good behaviour, or perhaps the police are behave better, or probably both. But the fact that charges against police _increase_ leaves a clue that something was rotten. I'm all for cameras if people behave better around them.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Shakrai]

The fact that the departments refuse to cull their bad fruit and, occasionally, even protect / defend them is a HUGE part of the problem. Point of fact: If you did something to publicly embarrass your employer, they would likely fire you on the spot. Yet, it happens daily with LE and only rarely do they get more than a slap on the wrist because of it.

They're public unionized employees in most jurisdictions, which in means it's very difficult to fire them. The number of police agencies that operate under "at will" rules of employment is exceedingly small. To discharge a police officer a municipality typically needs to prevail in an adversarial hearing. In order to do that they need to meet a burden of proof (typically greater than preponderance of the evidence but less than beyond a reasonable doubt) that the officer committed misconduct or was grossly negligent.

The astute observer will note that the same complaint has been made against tenured public school teachers.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[microbox]

Most problems happen because people have different interpretations of events as they unfold. The "bad cop" really isn't the specific problem. (They may, for example, tamper with the camera, or turn it off before doing something illegal.) The thing is that the video feed gives a strong defense against false complaints, and also ensures that cops who get to "crazy" will get their asses handed to them in court. Everyone responds to incentives, and the camera is an incentive for everyone to be on their best behaviour.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drerwk]

It is a little more extensive in Texas - you can use deadly force against a fleeing robber to recover property that could not be replaced.

Sec. 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property: (1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41; and (2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary: (A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or (B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and (3) he reasonably believes that: (A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or (B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[roc97007]

My thought also. On the other hand, although the labels of "systemic and widespread" might be wild exaggerations, perhaps even for political purposes, this might be a case of doing the right thing, albeit for the wrong reasons. The salient point being, it's still the right thing. So I'm going to hold my nose and support.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

It is already too late to go through the judicial process.

Where the hell do you live that there's an SoL on murder?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Calydor]

but in a large country statistically rare occurrences happen with distressing frequency

These people are a minority, out of the dozens of LEOs I know I can only name one that falls into this category.

I felt a certain need to point out these two parts of your well written post just to remind you of your own words when it comes to the second quote.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MSG]

Just in case that comment is taken as hyperbole, the video of Walter Scott's shooting was released only BECAUSE of police corruption. The officer lied, and the department backed him.

http://www.mediaite.com/online...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

No, not short memory, there wasn't nearly the widespread coverage of that incident that we see every time a white cop shoots a black man. It is just a likely that tompaulco had knot heard about that incident until reading that article after you linked to it. I know this is certainly the first I'm hearing of it. FO it to be a case of short memory, one would have to have prior knowledge.

And it's not even a race issue, it's a media issue. The media is trying to make it into a race issue by over-reporting white-cop-on-black-victim violence and under-reporting black-cop-on-white-victim violence. I'm not sure what agenda they're pushing, but there's no way it will lead to anything positive. We also never hear about police violence involving other races, with the exception of Luis Rodriguez last February; if you specifically search for "mexican beaten to death by police" you do get a few results, but none of them were prominently featured anywhere.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

Are you seriously suggesting that the real problem with police racism is the other way around? LOL.

No, I don't think that was tompaulco's intent at all. In fact, police on the US are trained to believe that they,themselves, are a superior race. The racism is cop vs non-cop, not black vs white. Seriously, if you personally know any cops it becomes quite clear. For reference, my sources for this information include a retired cop, a retired dispatcher, and a US customs agent.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

Your first paragraph is spot on (as is your second, but I have no commentary on that at this point) and this is the exact reason s corrupt cop is a bad cop even if he puts away the right guy 99.9% of the time. When a cop is following proper procedures and puts away the wrong guy, all of his prior conviction-bearing arrests hold up and the criminals stay behind bars; but, when a corrupt cop puts away (or kills) the wrong guy and gets found out, all of his prior arrests are called into question and criminals go free.

That's actually how the system should work, though; it's a good thing, in a way. People should only be punished when they're proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, to be guilty, and nobody arrested by an evidence-planting corrupt cop can be proven guilty to that standard. Even if the arresting officer is one of the majority of good cops, simply having a corrupt cop involved in the investigation puts the whole case in jeopardy. This is the real problem with police corruption.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality

No, it was both. You did see him plant the stun gun on the guy after the fact, right?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[cbiltcliffe]

Lunatic pulls a gun on you, and you're just going to stand there, rather than trying to get away?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

Cops and politicians no. We have to hold them to a much higher standard if we are going to authorize the power we give them. The Sword of Damocles must hang over all their heads. We don't put a high enough price on power.

I vehemently disagree. Human rights, including the right to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, should not be waived because of someone's occupation.

The problem of guilt being difficult to prove is one that extends far beyond just police or politicians; it applies to anyone accused of committing a crime, and it means that we know that we allow some of those guilty of crimes, even heinous ones, to walk free. We have made a lot of progress in that area, and will continue to do so. It is appropriate to introduce new technology, procedures, or policies that can help make it more difficult for people to hide their guilt, but at the end of the day, a policeman is a man and deserves the same protections that you or I do.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Hmm, a few minutes of google-fu shows the number of "civilians" killed by police in 2013 ... to be 320.

Your google-fu is weak ( just going with the theme - assume bad lip sync). You found an artificially-depressed number. The FBI even refuses to keep track (google that!) so a new person looking at the field should hardly be expected to find good data.

This site has the simplest, and best methodology available to date, and therefore the best data set. It does not try to assign any kind of blame or degree to the homicide, just reporting the incidents. If anything, it's an under-reporting as it relies on media coverage.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fustakrakich]

Sorry, if he wants the power, we have to keep them honest, and let them know that we are watching. Those have to be the conditions. Simple removal of that power on the slightest suspicion will be sufficient 'punishment'. I'm not asking for jail time for the small shit. It will keep out the riff-raff the permeates the system today.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

All of those examples are murder. You, and the police, are only permitted to use lethal force if you are in immediate danger. Or against an intruder in your own home, in some states. Not saying those cases wouldn't be morally justifiable, but they are definitely not allowed.

For an odd reason I had a minor amount of law enforcement training in California in the 90s. I wasn't to be carrying a weapon but the classes I took included those designed for law enforcement officers who would be. The use of force including deadly force was covered. To summarize, in liberal left wing California, it is (was in the 90s) perfectly legal to shoot a fleeing violent felon, even unarmed, if there was a reasonable and immediate and likely threat of death or severe bodily injury to others. Note immediate is different than imminent. An imminent threat can end when someone turns their back, an immediate threat does not.

Its an extreme example and is not an example of the level of threat necessary but the Boston bombing is a clear example. Unarmed and fleeing the suspect identified as the bomber could be fired upon.

That said, except in the most extreme cases it is still a judgment call and a very risky thing for an officer to do even when seemingly legal given circumstances. There will be no shortage of armchair warriors to second guess the officer.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Trailer Trash]

In Ferguson we see that blacks have "contraband" in their vehicles at a lower rate than whites, yet black cars still get searched more. I agree that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they tend to be lower income than whites. They're also scrutinized more as you can see in Ferguson. Note also in Ferguson we find that blacks are more likely to be ticketed when pulled over, etc.

The bottom line is that blacks who commit the same crimes are more likely to be convicted and get harsher punishment.

Note that doesn't invalidate what you say. The answer is far more complex than a simple fix.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cacadril]

4. There are a handful of people in law enforcement who have no business being in law enforcement, or any other field that requires them to interact with human beings as a matter of course. They have chips on their shoulders, the stereotype is the kid that got bullied a lot in high school, now he has a badge and a gun, so don't you dare fuck with him. These people are a minority, out of the dozens of LEOs I know I can only name one that falls into this category. Short tempered and thin skinned are bad personality attributes for LEOs.

DING! DING! DING! I think this is the real answer right here. I can think of one or two times I have encountered a LEO who made me think to myself "Ya know, maybe law enforcement is just not your thing, sir". I didn't say it out loud, of course. Instead I just gave him the "yes, sir, no, sir" treatment. Luckily, I'm a lily-white male from suburbia, so that usually mollifies them. I can only imagine how much grovelling a black male would have to do to get through an encounter with one of those assholes.

It's not just a few bad apples among the LEO, it's the system and a mentality that has so far protected them and allowed them to develop a culture of impunity. In many countries the police officers do not even carry weapons. If a situation arises, they are first supposed to withdraw, then call reinforcements. This means they don't always win at first. Yet, that is not a problem, and it saves countless lives.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Trailer Trash]

I don't think you know what "hyperbole" is.

His blood wasn't really an alcoholic drink, but at .20% a person is stone drunk. There's video of him standing around talking closely with other officers who would later claim that a) they didn't smell alcohol and b) he didn't act drunk. Neither claim is remotely credible.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

Sorry, if he wants the power, we have to keep them honest, and let them know that we are watching.

That's fine with me. Watch them. If you're watching them, then you can prove it when they abuse their power.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[chiefcrash]

An unarmed suspect can certainly still meet the definition of someone who poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others. Hence why you yourself said "almost by definition"...

Scribe's point was that NOTHING justifies shooting an unarmed fleeing man in the back when he's already 10 yards away. The fleeing felon rule, when properly applied, does exactly this. Think of it as a "never say never" point. Because, just as cops have been found not to be justified in shooting armed suspects approaching them while brandishing, other cases have found cops to be justified in shooting fleeing unarmed suspects. So, legally speaking, something DOES justify shooting an unarmed fleeing man in the back (at least some of the time), despite Scribe's statement...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[SternisheFan]

http://i.imgur.com/DTYSXXC.gif

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Ravaldy]

Sunglasses it is then.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

It doesn't show where the officer and the suspect were involved in a tussle as claimed by the officer, during which the suspect reportedly took the officer's stun gun.

If we're still talking about the officer Michael T. Slager case (I'm so /. hardcore, I don't even read the comments let alone TFA!), then part of the reason he's been charged is because the video shows him placing his Taser beside the victim after he'd been shot.

Not disputing your point about videos not showing the entire context though!

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fustakrakich]

And when we can't, we have to assume the worst, using precedence and circumstantial evidence. Authority is adversarial and those that want it must be treated that way.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[gweihir]

And even more important, who though a psychotic, remorseless killer had any place in a police uniform?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

In fact, police on the US are trained to believe that they,themselves, are a superior race. The racism is cop vs non-cop, not black vs white. Seriously, if you personally know any cops it becomes quite clear.

You are wrong, you misunderstand. They are not trained that way. Some develop an attitude of I can't trust anyone not in uniform through repeated exposure to the worst of civilian society. That is something very different from what you claim. They are warned of indulging is such beliefs.

The fact is a certain amount of paranoia towards ordinary civilians is entirely justifiable. For example domestic violence calls are some of the most dangerous. One reason for this is that the person you are there to rescue is somewhat likely to turn on you and attack you. The person in need of rescue just wanted you to talk to or threaten their abuser, when the handcuffs come out and you are to arrest the abuser that is when your partner should have moved into a position where he/she can clearly observe both the victim and the abuser and be ready for either to attack.

Another classic danger is the ordinary traffic stop. Yeah, the cop saw only a minor infraction but sometimes the guy behind the wheel is actually an armed fleeing violent felon. An officer in the sheriff's department I worked for at one time took 3 rounds in the chest when walking up to a car one night. Fortunately the suspect continued his flight while the officer crawled back to his car and radioed for help before passing out. Getting hit in body armor is not like the movies. The officer was hospitalized for days and had bruises the size of softballs at the points of impact.

Officers are in fact trained and reminded not to develop an us-vs-them (uniform vs non-uniform) attitude. Some unfortunately do, many do not.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[amber_of_luxor]

>." Do you have to worry about getting shot at your job? Probably not

Law Enforcement does not even rank in the top ten list of occupations where being killed on the job is an occupational hazard. Nor do they come in the top ten, where getting injured by a gun is an occupational hazard.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[amber_of_luxor]

>You're going to automatically side against the LEO because the camera was disabled?

Yes.

If the LEO was properly trained, they could walk into the rest room naked, and if there was an incident, walk out, with the other person under arrest, and neither party being injured.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Darinbob]

It calls into question the common notion that the older complaints were merely isolated incidents.

For example, if we focus the microscope and see lots more pathogens than we did before, most scientists will not conclude that this was merely a statistical spike that occured at that moment, but rather the logical conclusion is that the pathogens were there all along. Occam's razor.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[OhPlz]

Not ahead of a trial, they wouldn't.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[amber_of_luxor]

>Many drug dealers don't give a shit about being arrested and doing a little time

I've known drug dealers deliberately get a little time in county lockup, to retain their street cred.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[HiThere]

Well, you're accepting that legal precdent equals justification, which, given some of the precedents that have been set, I find unacceptable. There clearly *are* cases that would be justifiable (as in the invader in the armory mentioned above) but legal precedent doesn't qualify, in and of itself, as justification. You need to explain why it's relevant, applicable, and should be accepted. (Actually, for "justifiable" you don't need to do any of those things, but rather need to do the justifying rather that say [effectively] "legal precedent".)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[bugs2squash]

Gun laws do keep guns out of the hands of criminals, all over the place. They can be effective and that's why the FUD is spread about them.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[SgtAaron]

That happened with this one as well. It doesn't show the previous action which led up to the officer and the suspect being out in the middle of the grass after a traffic stop

I don't think that was an edit. The man who recorded the video on his cellphone said he was walking to work and saw the beginning of the altercation, then got out his phone and started recording. He got in touch with the family and their lawyer, and handed over the video to them, which they then gave to the NY Times. If he had caught the start of the thing on his phone we would have seen it by now.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

Just in case that comment is taken as hyperbole, the video of Walter Scott's shooting was released only BECAUSE of police corruption. The officer lied, and the department backed him.

If there was no evidence of wrongdoing then backing their officer and initially giving him the benefit of the doubt is not corruption. Corruption would be a failure to properly investigate the shooting (takes days) or to hide/destroy/manufacture evidence. If the taser was found near the victim and if there were no witnesses other than the officer what should the department have done?

You could make an argument that any department should not investigate itself but that is an issue for politicians. As the laws currently stand that's a department's responsibility. It should be noted that once evidence of wrongdoing came to light the department did call in another agency. Given current laws there was nothing inherently corrupt about doing the investigation themselves until that point.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cacadril]

There is nothing in this video that justifies killing the suspect. There is also nothing suggesting the victim is armed. This is not "cop defends life of self and/or others".

The killing was wholly unnecessary, the cop already had the face of this man on his camera, and they could have gotten back to him later. Publishing the picture in the papers and getting the public to tell who he is and where he is, is not too much bother to save his life.

If they absolutely had to shoot, they could hav aimed for the legs, not the torso.

And once the victim is lying lifeless, the friend was desperate to be allowed to give some first aid, stem the bleeding or whatever, but the cop has everything else higher up on his list.

If anything, this video is a means to instill fear of the police and to teach people to accept willy-nilly handcuffing.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[HiThere]

Yes, if the officer has the ability to turn off the camera, and it is off, then I'm not only going to side against the officer, I'm going to declare that he was actually off durty for the entire time it was off.

If it is under the control of the officer, then if it is off, I'm going to assume he turned it off intentionally, and because he didn't want something recorded.

Additionally, if his camera is broken, then he should either get a replacement or not be allowed on the streets. The reason for the demand for cameras is that a significant number of officers cannot be trusted to be honest, but the DA and Judge automatically believes them anyway. (I have no idea of what the percentage is among your acquaintances, or whether you honestly know. But the police where I live have been under orders to clean themselves up by the Feds for over a decade, and have made little progress. I suspect because putatively "good" cops are covering for the bad apples.)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Woeful Countenance]

In Ferguson we see that blacks have "contraband" in their vehicles at a lower rate than whites, yet black cars still get searched more.

Happens in Illinois, too, according to on-going reporting by the ACLU. "Statewide in 2013, black and Hispanic motorists were nearly twice as likely as white motorists to have their vehicles consent searched during traffic stops. Specifically, black motorists were 95% more likely, and Hispanic motorists were 89% more likely. There are similar disparities every year such data has been collected starting in 2004. ... On the other hand, when police in Illinois performed a consent search in 2013, white motorists were far more likely than minority motorists to be found with contraband. Specifically, white motorists were 49% more likely than black motorists, and 56% more likely than Hispanic motorists. Again, there are similar disparities every year such data has been collected starting in 2004."

I agree that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they tend to be lower income than whites. They're also scrutinized more as you can see in Ferguson. ... The bottom line is that blacks who commit the same crimes are more likely to be convicted and get harsher punishment.

That is one of the problems with interpreting statistics. As an example, suppose someone looks at prison records and find that the proportion of Black inmates is double the proportion in the population: that is, there are twice as many Black prisoners as there should be. Does that mean Blacks are inherently more criminal, or does it mean they get, on average, sentences twice as long for the same crimes? Either interpretation is valid, given only that one piece of information.

Another example: in Ferguson, the proportion of Blacks pulled over for traffic stops is higher than the proportion of Blacks in the population. Looks like selective enforcement -- unless you know that Ferguson is also on the main path between the airport and St Louis. How many of the people pulled over actually live in Ferguson compared to the number just passing through? I don't know.

Getting to the truth by way of statistics is a long, hard, winding road.Consequently, I sometimes feel rather testy toward people who make assertions like this: "Blacks commit crimes at rates higher than whites."

There's also a long distance between "convicted of committing a crime" and "inherently criminal", with a lot of confounding variables: exposure to lead is a big one, which has mostly been fixed in the US; also poverty, disparities in education, employment, diet, pre-natal care, child care, exposure to violence, differential policing (more scrutiny of poor neighborhoods); selective enforcement (do the police arrest both drug seller and drug buyer?); racial bias in sentencing, whether direct or incidental (such as the difference in mandatory sentences for powder cocaine as compared to crack); and many others.

In some cases, the law itself is biased: to borrow from Anatole France, in The Red Lily: "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." (Wikiquote)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

You can go on and tell me I'm wrong, but at least quote me identifying my sources while doing so. The training programs might teach them not to develop that mentality, but the job instills a different message (much like your examples describe). I don't think we disagree at all about what the job is or what it entails, it's just that you seem to think the training stops once a cop hits the street and doesn't start again until they re-enter the classroom. As with any other occupation, this is not the case and what is taught in the classroom very often differs from what is learned in the field.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[shutdown -p now]

I think the reason why people call it cold-blooded is that his behavior in the very few seconds immediately after the shot doesn't mesh well with the general idea of a person in panic. His hands don't tremble, he walks straight with no wobble, and his stroll is rather leisurely and not at all rushed. Obviously, I'm not a psychologist, and perhaps all these can be accounted for by other means, but to the naked eye it looked like he was acting with cold, intentional precision from the moment he pulled the trigger.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MightyYar]

There are more white cops than black cops. Blacks are way overrepresented in high-crime areas that require a large police presence. Combine and you have the overwhelming likelihood that shootings are going to be white cop, black criminal/victim. There may be some degree of media fault, but the numbers are going to favor you hearing about far more white cop shooting black stories than the other way around, even if there was no police profiling at all.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cacadril]

There should also be no death penalty for having an anxiety disorder and panicking.

How many people have gotten away with running from the police? It is hardly a clever strategy, even for a criminal.

People respond irrationally so often, that it is hardly evidence of much more than being humans.

You may consider it probable cause for an interrogation, but not for an execution.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[JimFive]

That's not how the burden of proof works in the American judicial system. Not collecting evidence (i.e., the camera was turned off) is light years away from the destruction of evidence (i.e., deleting footage after its shot)

Turning off a camera can be treated in the same way as destruction of evidence if that is how the law is written. There's nothing magic about it, if evidence should (In this case "is required to") exist and doesn't then we presume that the evidence goes against the person that should have it.

You're going to automatically side against the LEO because the camera was disabled?

Yes. They can turn the camera back on if they are interacting with the public.
--
JimFive

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[aardvarkjoe]

Nope, I'm still not buying it. You haven't presented any compelling reason why those in authority should lose their human rights. If you want to introduce ways to make it easier to obtain that proof, I'm all for it, but those in authority should have all the rights that anyone else has. Dehumanizing a group of people is not the answer.

Who watches the watchmen? It has to be us. That means that making sure that the guilt of those who abuse their power -- as well as the innocence of those who don't -- is partly our responsibility.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

I have refrained from listing sources because you would lose any such comparison.

I've had formal instruction on this topic, I've had informal off the record verbal only instruction on this topic from formal instructors, I've had numerous casual discussion on the dangers of the us-vs-them mentality with family and friends in law enforcement. It is especially bad when one works corrections, some departments send new hires on such a temporary tour. I've seen people cautioned about this ahead of time, I've seen them called out by family/friends when later displaying such an attitude. I've seen people take extra tours in corrections for seniority based training reasons and decide to transfer out to patrol when they recognized such an attitude developing, feeling a need to interact with the general public more.

Developing such an attitude towards the public is considered bad and is not encouraged. Don't confuse such an attitude with being cautious and suspicious of a civilian under certain circumstances. Also don't confuse such an attitude with the trust you will show a stranger merely because they are in uniform. Its not the same as viewing those not in uniform as the "enemy".

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cederic]

Tasering him as he was running away would have acceptable though.

Ooh! Can I use potentially lethal force to torture you because you wont obey my every command too?

How about letting him fucking run away? Or chasing after him. What exactly is it about 'running away' that causes such severe danger that it justifies electrocuting someone?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cederic]

You're asking me for evidence that people who go to prison have committed a crime? Seriously?

No, he was asking for evidence that crime rates vary by race.

Given that black men in America are incarcerated at higher rates than white men on a per-identical-crime basis the prison population is already a skewed sample anyway.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cederic]

Blacks commit crimes at rates higher than whites. Any public policy that ignores this fundamental fact is doomed to failure.

22% of residents in New York are black.
33% are white.

So lets check actual stop and search statistics, from 2014:
24,777 black people stopped and searched - 55% of the total
5,536 white people stopped and searched - 12% of the total.

So in a city of over 8 million, if every stop is a different resident (a flawed assumption), 1.3% of the black residents were stopped and searched, and 0.2% of the white residents were stopped and searched.

With some crude rounding, this means black people in New York are over six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.

By your logic then, public policy based on logical crime prevalence rates would indicate that black people commit six times as much crime as white people.

I don't believe this.

Incidentally, given that 82% of people stopped and searched are innocent, even if every single guilty person were black three times as many innocent black people get stopped and searched as the total number of white people.

That sounds like a fundamental fact to me.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[harryjohnston]

Not relevant to your point, but seriously - the limit is 55, the flow of traffic is 65-70 and the cops don't do anything about it? What's up with that?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[blue9steel]

Using non-lethal force to subdue a suspect who just assaulted a police officer and is now fleeing the crime scene seems pretty reasonable to me.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[harryjohnston]

The one will inevitably result in the other on occasion, no matter how high the quality of the personnel involved. Being human means making mistakes.

It might be possible to make the failure rate acceptably low, but you'll never get it to zero.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[chiefcrash]

No, I'm simply limiting my comments to legal justification, since otherwise it's a subjective ethical debate that I don't have a particular desire to engage in. Seeing as you yourself admitted there clearly are cases that would be justifiable in an ethical sense, it would appear that you agree with my point in an ethical context as well.

Clearly, there are situations where shooting an unarmed fleeing man is legally justifiable. As you stated, there are clearly situations where shooting an unarmed fleeing man is ethically justifiable. Therefore, my point that Scribe's comment is inaccurate seems to be correct in both a legal and ethical context...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Cederic]

The irony is that I agree with you without changing a single statement that I made.

Non-lethal force could be reasonable. Electrocuting them still feels excessive.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

Again it's not about the number of reported incidents, it's about hoe heavily each individual incident is reported. That is most certainly entirely within the media's control, and the fact is they report white-cop-black-victim shootings much more heavily. Unless you watch the news or read the paper daily, it's unlikely you'll hear about any other police shootings unless you actively seek them out.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

We're still not in disagreement here, no matter how much you think we are. Just because many officers are able to resist the on-the-job training (which defies their formal training in many ways) does not negate the fact that their interactions with the general public do, in a way, train them to have that mentality.

Saying that is not the same as saying all cops hold the belief that they are a superior race, or even that most do. It is true that the majority to hold to their formal training and reject the mindset the on-the-job training tries to impose. You even said it yourself, though in a roundabout way; the tendency is toward an us-vs-them mentality and it takes serious (and ongoing) formal training to prevent that tendency from taking hold.

This isn't an argument and it is no way intended to be disrespectful to the men and women who put their lives on the line for us on a daily basis. It's a mere statement of fact; the psychological stress of the job itself leads to that mentality in weaker and/or unstable individuals. Unfortunately, the screening process for becoming a cop doesn't do enough to weed those individuals out, and that's where the problem lies.

Keep in mind, I never claimed that cops received formal training teaching them that they are a superior race. Again, that's all the result of on-the-job interactions. It's also something you can't really see from the inside without serious and thoughtful introspection; if you don't want to see it, it won't appear, even if it's there. The cops who don't take the time to examine their mental state periodically and take necessary corrective measures are the exact ones who end up with the mentality I described, and they'll never know it happened because they simply aren't looking for it.

Which again, is why the formal training, as you said, warns of it.

The behavior doesn't manifest itself out of nowhere. It's learned, which, you guessed it, makes it entirely a training issue.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[harryjohnston]

You can't change people's behaviour with statistics, though. I really don't know whether there is any effective way to train police officers not to see themselves as at risk.

If the statistics support it being safe enough, you might be able to prohibit them from carrying handguns while on routine patrol, I suppose. I can't see that flying, though, to be honest.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MightyYar]

I haven't seen any data on that, but I'd be interested in seeing that if you have it.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

Haven't seen any data on what? How heavily reported each incident is? The data is the reporting, itself. As a casual news follower, while I know that cops of all races shoot civilians of all races, I only know this through intuition because the events that get enough coverage to catch the eye of a casual new follower such as myself are always white-cop-black-victim. Yet a quick check of Google reveals that yes, reports of other shootings do exist, in the small papers and on the small affiliate stations in the localities where the shootings happened, but completely lacking any form of national coverage that we commonly see afforded to white-on-black police shootings, or to white-on-black shootings in general.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MightyYar]

Certainly you are aware of the existence of confirmation bias? I don't trust myself to judge when something is over-reported without looking at some kind of objective data. I certainly don't trust your judgement. (No offense meant.)

Google can be a source of objective data, but like I said black-on-white police shootings are more rare than white-on-black police shootings... naturally the latter will be more common on Google.

I'm not dismissing your claim completely - it's certainly conceivable that mainstream media would have an agenda, or at least a narrative that draws viewers. But without data, it's just a claim.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

I'm well aware of confirmation bias. It's not a matter of me feeling that black-on-white police violence is less reported than white-on-black, it's a matter of me having seen reports of white-on-black police violence make national headlines on numerous occasions, with program-interruption coverage, while having no recollection black-on-white police violence ever being reported in the same way.

If my argument were merely that a higher percentage of white-on-black incidents see national coverage and excessive fanfare than their black-on-white counter-incidents, I might be inclined to agree that confirmation bias is at play. Some -vs- none, however, can not be a result of confirmation bias. If the media isn't biased toward reporting white-on-black violence, you would expect the black-on-white stories to get the same fanfare as the white-on-black stories; perhaps even moreso, as there are fewer such stories to report on.

As I said, the reporting is the data. It's not like you need specialized lab equipment to gather and analyze it.

At the end of the day, it boils down to readership (for papers) and rating (for tv news). When a black cop shoots a white guy, nobody thinks twice; even white people assume he must have been breaking the law because (according to general consensus) white people don't generally have negative interactions with police otherwise. There are no eyeballs to be had by reporting those incidents with the same vigor as the racial-pot-stirring white-on-black incidents.

I'm not saying that's an accurate world view; in fact, I'm positively adamant that it is not, but the media knows what draws eyeballs and that's what they show us. I alluded to a possible ulterior motive (aside form gaming the ratings, that is) only because the ratings game doesn't entirely rule that out, either. Why would the media want to drum up racial tension when there are other, more effective and less destructive, ways of catching eyeballs?

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

Google can be a source of objective data, but like I said black-on-white police shootings are more rare than white-on-black police shootings... naturally the latter will be more common on Google.

I meant to address this directly in my previous reply, but got caught up in my rant about racism in the media.

It's really simple to affirmatively rule out confirmation bias here. Simply gather a few dozen individual reports of different police shootings (if you want to get really nit-picky about it, find actual statistics on police shootings by race and try to keep your representative samples proportionate to that ratio) and sort them by the race of the officer, then by the race of the victim. Now, find as many different reports of each incident as you can. Who gets the most coverage? The white cop shooting the black guy.

As much as I enjoy a good racist joke once in a while, actual true racism disgusts me to no end so, I'll be happy to be proven wrong about this if you're up to the task.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Gryle]

Looking at the GS base-scale, six-figure incomes don't start until GS-14 Step Six. At that point in their career, a GS-14 usually has responsibilities commensurate with a military colonel.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MightyYar]

I'll be happy to be proven wrong about this if you're up to the task.

I'm not going to do any original research, I'm afraid. Even if I had the time, I'm certain that I'd do a crappy job as it is not my area of expertise. If you are aware of any research supporting media bias in this regard, I'd certainly read it.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

The research would be easy, but time consuming (which is why I also will likely not be doing it. It's all good.

Also, you still have a lot of twos in your UID. I'll accept the off-topic moderation (though I didn't get it the first time), I just had to point that out again.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[MightyYar]

I think all sixes would have been cooler :)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

In short my principal disagreement is with any suggestion of a belief in superiority. I believe that to be a quite erroneous misrepresentation.

I also reject the "on the job training" metaphor, another misrepresentation of things that has erroneous connotations attached.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

I want to say "Amen" to that, but I fear there may be consequences if I do.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[BronsCon]

In short my principal disagreement is with any suggestion of a belief in superiority. I believe that to be a quite erroneous misrepresentation.

And the retired cop and dispatcher (a husband/wife team), as well as the customs agent (a relative of mine) disagree with you on that point. Again, it's not all cops, it's not even the ones I know, but a general observation they have made and relayed to me. I'm not even the one you're arguing with, here, and they aren't here to defend themselves.

I also reject the "on the job training" metaphor, another misrepresentation of things that has erroneous connotations attached.

It's not a metaphor, it's a reality. Unless... hold on... are you saying that cops stop learning once they hit the street?

We'll have to agree to disagree then, I suppose.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[fustakrakich]

I didn't say anything about their human rights. They just must give up the power when under suspicion, nothing more.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[rmdingler]

Can they start them much higher though?

Probably not, with many municipalities being forever cash-strapped by poor local political decisions. A brief internet search shows the income average/mean split as approximately $47k/$52K per annum.

They already start higher than educators and fire fighters where I am. They can move up the ranks, and then side to side in the private industry making some pretty comfortable money.

An even less well researched internet factoid has median annual US household income at just under $52K, so yes... comfortable. Still, IMHO, that is a compensation poorly matched with being shot at, running into burning buildings, or teaching in an average high school.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[david_thornley]

I believe I am legally justified in using lethal force when necessary to protect another person from imminent and grievous bodily harm, although it's been a long time since I read that statute through. (Fortunately, I've never been in a situation anything like that.) The police probably have slightly more leeway.

Not that this justifies any shooting of a fleeing unarmed person who is not posing an immediate threat to anybody (except on a battlefield; the laws of war are different). That is first- or second-degree murder, no matter who does it.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[david_thornley]

You're getting the levels of proof mixed up. We need positive evidence to convict a police officer of anything, and a turned-off camera is not positive evidence. If a citizen files a complaint, and asks for some sort of recompense, we can accept the complaint as valid for purpose of asking for compensation or dismissing charges or whatever, without presuming guilt on the officer's part.

Let's compare the Miranda warnings*. If somebody is arrested and interrogated, and is not reminded of his rights, that can screw up the whole case. It's not that any police officer did anything wrong (except not following procedure) but we rule in favor of the suspect anyway.

*For people who don't already know,.. Miranda warnings: that a suspect has the right to remain silent, that anything said can be used against him or her in court, that the suspect has the right to get a lawyer, and that a lawyer will be provided if the suspect can't afford one. I'm not sure at what stage they're required, but certainly before a formal interrogation.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[david_thornley]

I disagree. Police should have effective weapons, and almost never use them. There are times when nothing less will save somebody.

Issue them guns and bullets, and if they misuse them throw the book at them. If we have a class of people who are expected to go armed and get special privileges, we should keep them on a tight leash.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[blue9steel]

I disagree. Police should have effective weapons, and almost never use them.

Police should indeed have effective weapons, however unlike the military, the primary purpose of weaponry for the police is subdual not killing. If there are non-lethal or less-lethal options that are sufficiently effective to accomplish their mission they should be using them. The SWAT team probably needs lethal ammo, but I fail to see why patrol officers do.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[partofthepuzzle]

Here's a very interesting article about research into police abuses nationwide and the Justice Department's responses (or lack of them):

http://www.politico.com/magazi...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Byrel]

This is typical on a lot of US highways. The main highways through Chicago (94, etc.) have a 55 speedlimit, but average speed is 65-70. With quite a handful of 80+ drivers.

Crowd sourced cop-avoidance (like Waze) is part of the reason, but part of it is that that road is really a 65-70 mph road from an engineering perspective, and so cops don't really WANT to fix it.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Byrel]

This is where I disagree. Other countries also see the exact same profit motive but it doesn't result in an arms race

I don't think police officers carrying handguns similar to the ones they've been carrying for a century (with essentially only convenience upgrades as technology progresses) qualifies as an arms race. I don't think criminal organizations using fewer full-auto weapons than 50 years ago counts as an arms race.

What arms race? There's absolutely no escalation!

It's about the fact that in America the gun has become the default option when it should be the last resort.

This is so far from true. It's hard to get solid country-wide stats on officer gun usage, but NYC publicizes their Firearm Discharge rates. Last year, their officers fired 105 shots. Of those, 21 were accidents, and 24 were aimed at attacking animals. So, there were 60 officer shots fired in a city of 8.4 million. That's a damn sight closer to a 'last resort' than a 'default option'

...get past your immense paranoia that makes you believe having a gun somehow makes you safer.

Is it still paranoia when most academic research agrees with you? I mean, it's like saying that people are 'paranoid' about anthropogenic climate change. There's an international correlation between gun ownership rates and violence. A negative correlation. Check out actual statistics and research before you blame America's violence problem on gun ownership. There's a great journal article from the Harvard Journal of Law on this: http://www.law.harvard.edu/stu...

In reality, violence in America isn't driven by gun ownership, any more than violence in Russia is driven by their lack of gun ownership. Violence is driven by socioeconomic factors. People aren't violent because they have guns. People have always been violent, when operating in certain cultures and situations. Guns are a force multiplier for both victims and violent people, and don't end up having a huge impact on violence rates.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[ToddInSF]

And other officers were also involved, they submitted a report that was false, and they will never be held accountable for their role in attempting to cover the officers ass.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

> But it does kinda call into doubt all of this officer's prior cases, right? And how long has he been on the force?

Yup. It's going to force a review of his _entire_ career.

This is one of the reasons police departments cover such things up - hundreds of millions of dollars of ensuing liability.

> And how many of this type of officer exist?

Bad cops exist because "good cops" cover for them.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"To summarize, in liberal left wing California, it is (was in the 90s) perfectly legal to shoot a fleeing violent felon"

Yes it was, also in NY. The laws were changed because of public outcry over police shooting various unarmed fleeing people and because some of the families of shooting victims won 7-8 figure awards in civil lawsuits.

What this and other videos show is that cops never really stopped doing it. They just made up stories to cover it up and discredit anyone who claimed differently.

Now that dashcams and personal cameras are ubiquitous, it's showing that there are enough criminal thugs wearing blue uniforms that universal suspicion is justified. If USA police want to be regarded without suspicion then corruption in their midst (and make no mistake, this IS corrupt behaviour, as is covering for it) needs to be rooted out and exterminated.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[niftymitch]

Do you think body camera's would help the small percentage of officers that do fall into, the bad apple catagory, restrain themselves from the bad behaviour?

One important perspective here is, when a citation is issued or an arrest made the weight of the law is
heavy on the the side of law enforcement. Citizens and officers alike are equally protected by a quality
record that documents the actions of both sides.

Both citizens and officers would do well to have body and dash cameras.
It is true that Google glasses were a bust but the world learned a lot.

However once an officer turns on his lights or exits his vehicle in the prosecution
of his charter there should be no restrictions on recording including voice.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"Ooh! Can I use potentially lethal force to torture you because you wont obey my every command too?"

Well you can, but if your cruiser's dashboard cam records you doing it there's every chance that your department will find itself making an extremely large payment to the man you arrested and you find yourself in jail.

Most such cases have been white cop white victim.

UK http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

US https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"This isn't police corruption, it's police brutality, which is a separate issue. "

No it's not. Brutality is merely one aspect of corrupt behaviour - and it tends to only occur once significant corruption is already entrenched.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"We need positive evidence to convict a police officer of anything, and a turned-off camera is not positive evidence"

It's enough evidence for a civil case and more than enough to generate levels of civil liability for the employer to make it a "immediate firing offence"

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"another industry with less responsibility to the public."

A lot of bad cops end up as armed security guards. Statistically in the USA that group poses one of the largest dangers to individual members of the public than any other cause.

Published figures in the 1990s were a factor of around 500 times more likely to rape or murder the people they are supposed to be protecting than unarmed guards, who in turn were signiificantly more likely to the culprits of violence than the people they were supposedly guarding clients against.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"Gun laws do keep guns out of the hands of criminals, all over the place."

That's pretty much a fantasy story.

I'm in no way a defender of the USA's utterly bonkers gun culture, but criminals who want firearms in the UK can obtain them fairly easily despite some of the strictest gun control laws around. The same applies in Australia and New Zealand (which are well isolated so importation is able to be tightly controlled)

Gun laws for the most part keep accidental shootings, family massacres and suicide rates down and would be more effective if mental health assessments and compulsary safety training were part of the requirements.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[stoatwblr]

"That's the sort of thing that should be a capital offense if anything should."

Sorry, I disagree.

Capital offences are an easy way out for this kind of criminal behaviour under colour of authority. Life in a maximum security prison without possibility of parole (preventative detention) is a greater punishment and deterrent for the corrupt.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[davester666]

Yes. Yes, I do. 0.5% per day will be fine.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Jack Griffin]

I did a security course once led by a ex cop (not USA). I remember he asked the class when was it appropriate to draw your gun? After all sorts of whacky answers he stated, only when you intend to use it. A gun is not a device to threaten compliance, it is a tool to kill. This was followed up by instructions on once your gun is drawn, where to aim it. Always the heart, every single time. A gun is not used to disable or injure, it is only there to kill people, and should only be used as such.
From this, a gun should only ever be drawn when someone's life is at risk and the only way to stop it is to the kill the person making the threat. Unlike all those cops shows where cops use their guns as a do what I say stick.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Jack Griffin]

How did the videos get deleted? Seems odd that any one with half an ounce of skill in IT couldn't recover a "deleted" file (since we all know delete really means remove the index, not the actual data.)

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[drnb]

You are confusing two different things. Shooting a fleeing felon and shooting a fleeing violent felon. A supreme court ruling said no more shooting of a mere fleeing felon, that it was necessary for them to be considered violent. If considered violent it was not required that they be armed at that moment. Only that they represent a reasonable and likely and immediate threat. That depends entirely on the history and/or recent actions of the specific felon.

There is another thing that comes into play, department policy. Department policy may impose further restrictions not required by law. Often policies designed to avoid lawsuits. As it was explained to me, violating department policy is not illegal, you won't be prosecuted if your actions were legal, but it will still get you fired and sued.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[Sardu821]

Falsifying a report and planting evidence is technically not corruption. If the individual received something of material gain from another by his actions that would be corruption. Is he corrupt? May be he is. I'm not in a place to look at the real facts on the case. However, unless he was directed to fabricate evidence by someone that had influence over him it is simply falsification of official documentation.

Re:Systemic and widespread?

[RockDoctor]

3. Who controls when the camera is on or off?

There's an assumption in your discussion below that there is only one recording device which records both sound and vision simultaneously. Many of the "turn the camera off" situations you discuss are ones that can be perfectly adequately addressed by turning off the sound on some occasions (personal phone call) or turning off the camera on others (piss-stop).

David Brin predicted this years ago...

[fruviad]

Read the book "Earth" to see that David Brin predicted that ubiquitous cameras would have a major effect on society.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[BarbaraHudson]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will guard (watch) the guardians? Now we know - us!

PINAC

[drinkypoo]

I follow Photography Is Not A Crime on G+, and boy is it ever chilling. If you feel like you need more of that cold feeling in your belly, just follow those guys.

Re:PINAC

[gstoddart]

Yup, we live in a world where the police increasingly either don't know, or don't care, what the law says.

They've been told repeatedly they don't have the right to stop photography, confiscate cameras, or insist on deleting of images. But they do it anyway.

Which means we've reached the point where every cop needs to be wearing a body camera, and we need to stop taking their word for the outcomes of things. If your camera was magically not working you better have someone else who was there to support your version.

Far too often the police outright lie about what happened, and you simply can't trust them .. maybe not all of them, but since there's no way of knowing which are crooks and which aren't, it's time to assume they're all potentially dishonest.

Police need to understand they are there to enforce the law, not make up their own damned law. And if they can't do that, they need to be fired, or arrested depending on what they do.

These days it's hard not to arrive at the blanket conclusion of "Fuck the Police". Because enough of them are saying "fuck you" to us and totally ignoring what the law is.

There have been far too many incidents in which the police give a version of events, only to have that proven completely false when the video/pics show up. And yet we never seem to fire them or charge them with perjury, and they always seem to clear themselves of wrong doing.

The police have guns and the ability to screw up lives, which means they damned well need to be held to a very high standard.

We don't know???? Yes we do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? The one who shot the video was Feidin Santana. It was all over the news yesterday evening.

e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

We have no idea who shot the video

[watermark]

Yep, we have no idea who shot the video. When slashdot cannot keep up with the TV news...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

Re:Please....

[chfriley]

Well, this shooting is likely murder, and I AM "sure" I would NOT "shoot him in the back as he ran away".

Says the Cop in the video...

[Grog6]

nuff said.

Re:Please....

[BarbaraHudson]

So, a cop who recklessly shoots 8 times (and hits 5 times - where could those extra bullets have ended up) and then walks back and picks up his taser that he dropped and plants it beside the dead guy, then radios in that he had to shoot the guy because the guy had his taser, isn't a threat?

Feidin Santana is "a hero"...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. for exposing illegal behavior by agents of the state. Edward Snowden is "a traitor" for doing the same. Just goes to show..

Hero?

[rlp122]

Holding a camera and recording video while in no direct danger does not make someone a hero. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Re:Hero?

[Neil Boekend]

IMHO in this case it is. The person with the gun probably does not agree with you filming them.
These people appear to have only little better moral code than your average bank robber. Thus when you film them you are kinda heroic.
I don't consider them to be cops by the way. The badge does not make the cop. A good cop makes the badge worth more than it's scrap metal price.

Re:Hero?

[Dog-Cow]

How can you say he's not in direct danger after he filmed a cop kill someone in cold blood? Think of it, the cop's story of having to shoot would have sounded a lot better if he had to fend off two assailants!

Re:Hero?

[weilawei]

When you live in a culture where police brutality is a thing;
When you live in a culture where merely taking notice of the police is a revolutionary act;
When you live in a culture where turning a blind eye to those in need is the norm;
When you live in a culture where merely questioning the state can lead to arrest;
When you live in a culture where an officer can shoot someone in the back while running away and get off scot-free;
When you live in a culture where an officer can shoot small children without notice;
When you put your own ass and assets on the line to take notice, holding a camera and recording video is indeed a brave act. The person holding the camera is a hero.

Re:Hero?

[arth1]

Never attribute to heroism that which can adequately be described by stupidity.

I think he was just too dumbfounded by what he saw to consider running (or, smarter, sneaking away, giving that running from this cop might not lead to a good outcome).
Check his background exclamations, for example. And how he repeatedly obstructs the camera, or tilts it - it seems clear that heroic filming wasn't at the top of his mind, being struck dumb by what he saw.

But that's okay - we don't want heroes. We want the average Tom, Dick and Harriet to be themselves, and be able to be themselves.
It's the police that are supposed to be the heroes, laying down their lives for the innocent. And they not only aren't - they're at the opposite end of the scale.

Re:Hero?

[T.E.D.]

Holding a camera and recording video while in no direct danger does not make someone a hero.

If the video you are recording is a murder, and your video will have a direct impact upon the murder's ability to get away with the crime, it most certainly does make you a hero. If the cop had noticed, he could easily have made it two killings, "accidentally" smashed the phone, and got away with both. Afterwards, the videographer's got a murderer and an unknown amount of his buddies pissed off at him. And these are people skilled in investigation with the full power and resources of the state behind them. They WILL find out who he is and where he lives.

I had a relative who reported a cop for assault once. For her troubles, she got to suffer months of pointless traffic stops, parking tickets, and car vandalism. If a murder was involved...I don't know that I'd want to expose my family to what could happen.

This person was either amazingly brave or amazingly stupid.

Re:Hero?

[oobayly]

1. Police brutality is a thing - it's debatable how endemic it is, but it does exist
2. Semi-hyperbole - however recording the police has been shown to get you in trouble, even if it is not illegal
3. Most of us have seen videos of people merely watching some unfortunate bastard getting beaten up/robbed, but noone steps in - again fortunately it doesn't happen often.
4. See two - some police do seem to believe that recording them is questioning their motives, and they are acting on behalf of the state
5. I don't know of any instances of this happening - it's possible this has happened - and in this case the man has been fired and is being charged with murder, so hyperbole
6. Even less likely than 5, so hyperbole
7. See 2

So, 5/7 are at least somewhat valid.

Re:Hero?

[Steve B]

Holding a camera and recording video while in no direct danger does not make someone a hero. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Under these circumstances, it certainly does. The perpetrator cop showed by his behavior that for him the police uniform is just another set of gang colors. Photographing a gang-banger doing something the gang-banger would prefer to be kept secret is dangerous for obvious reasons.

Re:Hero?

[Anonymous Coward]

Victim had outstanding warrants for child support, that's all that's been reported so far. Officer stated victim took his tazer (he didn't and is shown to be unarmed on the video) and ran. Officer shot fleeing victim 8 times in the back, then while being watched by another officer officer planted the tazer by the victim's body. Other officers stated that CPR was performed on the victim, however no life-saving attempts are shown on the video or witnessed. So basically you have a cop shooting someone down, planting evidence, and others are covering for him.

Re:Hero?

[drinkypoo]

Holding a camera and recording video while in no direct danger does not make someone a hero.

Holding a camera and pointing it at a cop in the USA puts you in direct danger, unless you are very well-concealed. And keep in mind, they have thermal cameras on their cruisers and helicopters, radios on their persons, and radio repeaters on their vehicles. The radios are increasingly encrypted, and access being given only to the most "trustworthy" of journalists.

Re:Hero?

[operagost]

The suspect was unarmed and the only warrant on him was for unpaid child support. I'm sure some neo-feminists think that calls for the death penalty, but here in my world that's only worthy of reasonable less-than-lethal measures to apprehend. He could have let the perp go and picked him up later. Think about it-- now that man's children get no more support. It's a loss for everyone.

Re:Hero?

[Bugler412]

you are failing to take into account the risk of a negative response from a cop that just shot an unarmed fleeing person and planted evidence to justify the crime. You think there's no risk of negative outcomes for the camera operator in that situation?! What sort of dreamland do you live in?

Re:Hero?

[nehumanuscrede]

On the contrary. . .

Holding a camera and RECORDING A POLICE OFFICER puts you in quite a bit of danger.

Re:Hero?

[oodaloop]

And apparently the officer was immediately fired and is under investigation? So I guess he didn't get off scot free as the OP suggested.

Re:Hero?

[sexconker]

Killing the goon would be heroic.

Re:Please....

[mean pun]

If said authority shows absolutely no concern for the wellbeing of "those people", as demonstrated by incident after incident, including this one, it is pretty damn hard to respect it. Fear it, yes. Respect it, no.

And calling someone a thug for (a) having, allegedly, a broken light on his car and (b) being too afraid to obey orders, is more than spinning the truth, it is a violent assault on the truth.

Re:This cop is clearly wrong

[Attila Dimedici]

and unfortunately that requires police with guns and military gear now due to the influence of the NRA.

In the U.S., the police have always needed guns (at least to some degree). I am not sure how the influence of the NRA can be held responsible for the police "needing" military gear, considering that police began using military gear as laws restricting gun ownership increased. It is worth noting that when it was legal for the common citizen to own automatic firearms, the police were perfectly satisfied to be armed with civilian weaponry.

That confirms it

[Gonoff]

That video confirms my unvoiced preconceptions about your country. They may not remain unvoiced now.

It is good to see people recording events like this. Whether that is from bravery, curiosity or prurience does not matter. The watchers are now being watched.

Re:That confirms it

[Gonoff]

I

suggest you go read some crime statistics and maybe just open your eyes to the world. And if you just think its America I invite you to look at what the peaceful people of central africa are doing to each other.

Comparing your country, or here in the UK, against somewhere in Africa or the former Soviet empire is invalid.We both are supposed to have some sort of legal system. Both need work but we don't shoot our citizens so often. (I did not say never!).

Nobody said it is just the USA. It is just that the USA has less of an excuse than a country without the freedoms that we are supposed to have.

Re:That confirms it

[Gonoff]

A single video confirmed all your biases?

No. My impressions have been formed by a lot of things, including previous news articles, books, talking to human beings and so on. This item has just convinced me that there has been enough "benefit of the doubt" given already.

Any biases I might have about the US are largely about your government, big business and misplaced notions of personal freedom. They are different.

Re:Bullshit

[ledow]

It doesn't matter what the majority do. It matters what the police officer in front of you is doing.

Gunning down a person who is running away from them means they are a high-risk to your self, especially if you're filming, especially if you're providing evidence against them, especially if they could perceive you as a threat.

I have absolutely no fear of police in my country. The average man on the street is infinitely more dangerous to me. I have never had a run-in with police that wasn't amicable, friendly, and a few ended in laughter on both sides - even when I could see their reasoning and could be a risk to them. I've never had cause to be arrested. I've only ever seen weapons on the only armed officers I've ever seen in the UK, who work in airports. Those officers scare me and I stay away from them out of some kind of natural self-preservation. I don't have any reason to be a threat to them, but what they perceive as a threat may differ from my intention. I've never spoken to one. I don't find them approachable. I would not ask them directions, or joke, or even greet them as I would an ordinary police officer.

But to film a police officer of any type (armed or not)? That puts me into their scope (sometimes quite literally in the US!). Though in doing that I'm morally sound, it's also adding tension to the situation and if the guy I'm filming *is* corrupt, murderous, etc. or just having a bad day or thinks he saw me have something else in my hands, then that's my reputation/life at risk too. UK people have had their cameras confiscated and even evidence destroyed in the past (the chief police officer did put out a clarification to all their officers that they are NOT allowed to do that, but that just scares me more - they should already know that they are NOT allowd to do that).

I'm not saying I'd film, or wouldn't do it, but it still needs to be recognised as a risk to the person doing it, whatever the situation, and however good the majority of police are.

And, I'm sorry, I would have to think before I did something like film a police officer deliberately, or ask for their number (which identifies them and which they are required to give on demand and which generally means you intend to report them). I'd probably still do it, out of a sense of moral judgement, but millions of people would not. It's not as simple as it being safe in a "safe" country, and the UK where I live is much safer than the US when it comes to dealing with police.

Remember kids, sync to cloud.

[xtal]

Don't turn it off, either, until the event is long over.

I've had police in my face before, and there is no democratizing tool quite has powerful as a lawyer on retainer and/or a recording device.

Tools like Meerkat and other live streaming services are going to change the world, and not necessarily in the way their authors intended.

Re:Remember kids, sync to cloud.

[Catbeller]

But if you sync to the cloud, that is, transmit your incriminating video from you registered phone through a cell provider who has your credit card information to a storage provider who also has your credit card information, the cops can show up at your door, follow your car, and get "in your face" until they find something to hang you with. The method of your "empowerment" is the means of your destruction by those who can access the unanonymous information embedded in the file, the video stream, the phone company, the NSA, and various app companies whom you agreed to share your location data with who in turn sell your location to thrird parties who sell it to anyone, including the cops.

All this doesn't factor in the Homeland Security efforts (coming soon) to grant authorities such as the police the ability to transmit a Kill All Cameras command in a geofenced area. That's coming soon, and the police really, really are looking forward to that.

Re:Remember kids, sync to cloud.

[Voyager529]

But if you sync to the cloud, that is, transmit your incriminating video from you registered phone through a cell provider who has your credit card information to a storage provider who also has your credit card information, the cops can show up at your door, follow your car, and get "in your face" until they find something to hang you with.

http://www.freenas.org/downloa...
https://owncloud.org/install/
https://play.google.com/store/...
http://portforward.com/english...
http://www.startssl.com/

Or:
https://www.getsync.com/featur...
https://play.google.com/store/...

Either way, secured, real-time, SSL'd upload to your own server. No cloud vendors, and no credit cards.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, in no state is it illegal! Stop being a FUD spreading troll!

Re:Please....

[Charcharodon]

Watch the video again on 1080p. He picks up the Taser and drops it next to him because he fired it and hit him with it, which is probably why he was running away so weirdly. You can see the wires a few seconds before he starts shooting his handgun.

Now the part I find strange is now all the youtube videos of the incident are now all 720p which makes it a lot harder to see the wires. Yesterday there were plenty of versions that were 1080p.

Re:And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[kuhnto]

Not according to this article... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Dins]

Agreed. GP is incorrect - it's not illegal to record police. Yet, anyway...

Re:Please....

[Sique]

Running away from a cop carries the death penalty?

Please, please show me the law that says so.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Trepidity]

The police do often act as if it is, though. Not under a specific "illegal to record the police" statute, but making bullshit use of other laws, e.g. "interfering with a crime scene". At the very least they can often stop the filming and arrest someone, even if the charges don't stick.

Re:Please....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with the "deserving to be shot" comment. But, it is INCREDIBLY STUPID to run from a cop over a broken tail light on your vehicle. Just take the ticket, go home, and get the light fixed. That's what most Americans do. When you've got a guy with a gun on his hip that pulled you over, call him "sir" and take the paper he gives you. Don't argue, shout, fight, or run. All of those actions increase the chances of violence, personal injury, and possibly more severe consequences. For what reason?

Re:This cop is clearly wrong

[XxtraLarGe]

I am not sure how the influence of the NRA can be held responsible for the police "needing" military gear, considering that police began using military gear as laws restricting gun ownership increased.

Stop it, you're ruining the popular leftist anti-gun narrative! The NRA has to be the responsible boogeyman whenever someone is killed with a gun.

It is worth noting that when it was legal for the common citizen to own automatic firearms, the police were perfectly satisfied to be armed with civilian weaponry.

Three words: War on Drugs. Sure, there were SWAT teams before that, but they were fairly limited to large cities like Los Angeles, and were originally used in response to bank robberies, etc. Ever since the War on Drugs began, it has become pervasive.

Re:Please....

[ledow]

"Stop means stop and get on the damn ground."

Does it? That's a pretty implicit assumption at the end you have there.

And, sorry, but people run from police EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR. Probably thousands of times. Running away is not EVER justification to shoot. The police are the ones who should know that the best. He might be running away because his rival gang member just appeared behind you and you haven't seen him. He might be running away because you threatened him. For all we know, the guy might have asked for his name and badge number and the officer refused to provide, shot him with a taser and then the guy was trying to escape from what someone he may have had genuine cause to believe was just trying to kill him by PRETENDING to be a cop.

Running "towards" something/someone, possibly. But running away, no. You give chase, you don't shoot.

There's a reason that police procedure manuals are HUGE. And why you can get out of actual crimes just by being arrested in an incorrect manner. Because at those critical points you play by the book because you cannot take account of every situation.

And I'm pretty sure that pulling your gun, firing indiscriminately (8 shots is overkill, and at least 2 went out into the ether where they could have harmed the public), etc. is pretty low down on the list of procedures you are expected to follow as a police officer.

Stop being presumptive. I, as much as anyone, agree that stop means stop and *I* would stop - because I think it's a police officer and they asked me to stop. But there are a billion unknowns and there are also factors which easily affect even the simplest assumption that just because someone yells stop you should stop.

If you're a police officer, the vast majority of people you deal with every day will not be happy to see you, not want to do what you ask, and may well be hiding something. That makes it a deadly situation in which you have to be careful, but also means that you have to evaluate risks at all point.

The risk of a guy you've (allegedly) tasered who is running away? That he might get away. There's no record of violence. There's no threat to the officer. There's little threat to the public. And, as you see in the video, your colleague is just down the road anyway with a vehicle in which you can quickly recapture him.

Even drawing your gun (as an armed officer) would be subject to a disciplinary procedure in that instance in some countries. Let alone actually firing it. Let alone shooting to kill. Let along killing. Let alone all the other alleged actions and inconsistencies in statements just afterwards.

As much as you don't like it, a thug, a thief, a murderer, a rapist have pretty much the same rights as you unless a court decides otherwise. Even if the guy was wanted for murder, armed and dangerous - he was running away and had no visible firearm. He wasn't a threat until he pulled something.

Re:Please....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you run away from a cop, you deserve to be shot no matter how innocent you are.

People like you tend to be the first against the wall...

Re:This cop is clearly wrong

[i.r.id10t]

Still legal to own full auto. Problem is the government closed new additions to the tax registry and so prices are artificially inflated to 10-20x real value.

Tax registry? Yes... tax. See, the NFA of '34 established a $200 tax on the transfer of full auto and short barrel rifles/shotguns and defined "any other weapons" which are also taxed. When a full auto weapon is made and sold, it is taxed on one of several forms - regular transferable, dealer sample, or LEO/military only. In 1986, the Hughes Amendment stopped *new* additions to the "transferable to civilians" registry. So an M16 that cost about $50 more than an AR-15 (plus the tax stamp fee) now costs $15,000 or so, plus the tax.

What I find sad is that in Miller vs US the federal government argued that since short barrel rifles/shotguns and full auto weapons were not "normal military items" (ie, what would be issued to your average grunt) they weren't protected by the 2nd Amendment, and so taxing them was OK. Of course, what has been issued to the "average grunt" since the 50s? Full auto, or at least burst fire, and the M4 as issued today is also a SBR w/ a barrel length of 10-14" depending on exact configuration....

Re:Please....

[arth1]

Allegedly he feared having to go to jail because of outstanding alimony, and that's why he ran.
That should not warrant being shot in the back.

Watch the Video in Question First

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just as easy to lie with a video as it is verbally. Remember that video of the police officer pepper spraying a protester in their car? It had purposely been cut so that it didn't show the preceding altercation that justified the officer's actions.

A couple years ago I sat in on a trial of an officer who was tried and convicted despite all evidence to the contrary, simply because of people blaming police for everything. That anger and frustration is completely misplaced - if people want change then they need to research politicians and make better voting choices.

It might behoove you to watch the video in question before you start to say something as arrogantly vapid as this comparing a situation you have no link to with this video.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Ravaldy]

The beginning of the video doesn't help the dead man's case. He appears to be reaching for the officer's gun and when he fails runs for his life. The items dropped at the body is no evidence, it's the man sun glasses.

Am I seeing this right?

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[amicusNYCL]

He appears to be reaching for the officer's gun and when he fails runs for his life.

The officer said the man was reaching for his taser, not his weapon. But, even so, is attempting and failing to grab a taser and then running away justification to shoot someone 8 times? I'll say that if a cop was trying to shoot me with a taser, and I didn't want to be shot, my natural instinct would be to try and grab the taser and point it away from me. That sounds like I should be tackled and arrested, not shot 8 times from behind. The guy was 50 years old and overweight and the cop had backup on the way, where was he going to go that the cops wouldn't be able to get him? The cop should have continued the chase, not pulled out his weapon and shot the guy 8 times while he's running away.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Ravaldy]

I'm not justifying the killing. I was just pointing out that particular part of the video because as usual social media makes it what it wants it to be. I'm ok with drowning someone in accusations as long as we do so with validated facts.

I hardly call moving sunglasses "planting evidence"

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[shutdown -p now]

No, you're seeing it wrong. The guy gets tazed and runs away (you can see the wires sticking from his body), yanking the Taser out of the officer's hand. The officer than shoots the man, approaches him slowly (but with no indication that he is alert or expecting resistance - it's just a leisurely stroll), handcuffs him while yelling at him, then strolls back to the Taser, picks it up, and drops it off near the guy. At no point he tries to render any medical assistance, and it takes him several minutes to even ascertain that the man is dead (by taking his pulse).

The official report from the same officer - backed by his PD (so none of the cops on the scene have said anything to the contrary, despite at least one being a witness to evidence-tampering, as can be seen on video) - is that the man was killed while trying to use the Taser against the officer, which is a blatant lie in light of video evidence.

It's such a clusterfuck on basically every measure imaginable, that I don't think there will be much discussion here. Other than at PoliceOne, maybe.

BTW, are you a LEO? You seem to be awfully defensive on this subject in general.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[amicusNYCL]

From the video alone it is not apparent that they are sunglasses. What the video shows is a police officer picking an item up from the ground, in a crime scene, and moving that item to another part of the crime scene closer to the man that he just shot. Regardless of what the object is, that alone is questionable.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Ravaldy]

BTW, are you a LEO? You seem to be awfully defensive on this subject in general.

What is a Leo? I'm not defensive about the cop being a murderer (that's pretty clear at first glance). I just hate when social media modifies the story based on one or 2 viewings of the video and no background information. The initial story that came out was a highly blurred version of the truth. I want this cop to pay the price just as much as anybody here that sees the nonsense that occurred. What I'm not willing to accept is that social media opinions and non factual information be used as factual information on initial posting of the news (that's what ticks me off). This has happened so much over the years that I've gotten to the point where news isn't news until it's 10 days old and the social media is no longer causing miss information. What's worst is that the non sense leaks into /. through attention seeking idiots calling themselves /. users. Add to that users who agree with their "opinion" without doing their own leg work.... jeez, now I'm blowing a gasket.

Since the posting a lot more information came out and the facts are finally coming to the surface which is what most people who value their time care about.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Ravaldy]

Maybe in his crazy mind the cop though he was ok and he was just going to return his sunglasses before being locked up.

Sorry for the bad humor there. :(

What I hope is that this man's sacrifice will change police and how we address their level of power.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[shutdown -p now]

LEO = Law Enforcement Officer. Police, or other agency operating under government authority that deals with similar things, like FBI, DEA, CBP...

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Ravaldy]

No I'm not. And I just want to say that in no way do I take the officer's side on this one although my original write up (after reviewing) doesn't appear to say so.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[stoatwblr]

"Despite at least one being a witness to evidence-tampering, as can be seen on video"

Had the other cop not been a cop, he'd be charged as an accessory after the fact for making a false statement.

One of the questions that should be asked is WHY he isn't being charged as an accessory.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Jack Griffin]

Part of the problem is cops are so fat and out of shape these days. You watch those cop shows, across the board they're all fat. Why are they so fat? If they want to play army then they should have the same fitness requirements. A fit person will look for reason to demonstrate their fitness, I used to play rugby and enjoy a good chase and tackle. A fat guy won;t run, they'll just push whatever buttons necessary to recover perceived loss of control, even if it is a gun pointed at an unarmed human being. There is a real mental state associated with being fat and our of control of your own body that contributes to this abusive power cops have.
Force fitness and BMI standards on these clowns and see how it affects their mentality.

Re:Watch the Video in Question First

[Jack Griffin]

One thing we can agree on is that cops are too fat. Fucking fat cops, lose some weight you fat fuckers...

What's in a name?

[Teun]

Police officer Michael T. Slager, the name Slager is Dutch for Butcher...

As an outsider, i.e. non-USA, I'd say the perfect example of a trigger happy 'culture'.
Around here a copper would be done for disproportional violence just for pulling his gun or Tazer on an unarmed man.

"lived out high democratic ideals"

[pecosdave]

"unknown cameramen and women lived out high democratic ideals"

What's recording someone being an ass-hat have to do with being democratic? Recording people is being used by people of every though process - right or wrong it's blackmail, in this case I consider it "good blackmail" - we're blackmailing those who "enforce the law" into complying with the law, the same way they record us to prove when we weren't. Blackmail is more or less a universal trait that bridges every political ideology, except maybe the most enlightened ones that will never gain traction because they lack the necessary evil to gain mass adoption.

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[Gaxx]

Recording someone doing anything is neither pro or anti democratic. However, the use to which such a recording is put can be supportive of democratic principals. If you assume that honest enforcement of law is fundamental to democracy (and many would) then using recorded footage in an attempt to bring about honest law enforcement could reasonably be considered to espouse "high democratic ideals" especially in circumstances where there is some risk to doing so. It is easy to consider "democratic ideals" to apply only directly to the process of election of officials etc. However, a lot more has to be in place for democracy to work and a broader definition is, consequently, more useful.

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[itsenrique]

How is it blackmail? In this case it appears as though the Police had no idea they were being watched by anything other than their own patrol dash cam (if it was pointed in that direction).

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[pecosdave]

Isn't that what video evidence is?

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[Whorhay]

No, blackmail is when one person of group has evidence of another person or group having done something either illegal or otherwise embarrassing that they would prefer to keep private, the person with the evidence has to threaten to release that information unless their demands are met, usually some personal profit is the demand.

In this case the person holding the evidence passed it along to other parties for use in legal procedings and possibly to the media. They did not try to use it to extort anything out of the person who was the subject of the video.

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[bill_mcgonigle]

Recording people is being used by people of every though process - right or wrong it's blackmail,

That's absurd. Blackmail is specifically a promise to keep something secret in exchange for consideration.

This is the opposite of that - the brave young man brought forward the video so that all may know it. That's called shining light on corruption.

You can't just call the opposite of blackmail "blackmail" and expect the effort to be recognized as anything but somebody trying to demonize a patriot.

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[pecosdave]

Even if they try to extort honesty?

Re:"lived out high democratic ideals"

[Whorhay]

I'm not sure what you mean by, extort honesty. I'm guessing you mean that the demand from the person holding evidence is that the other person come clean and reveal what they have done, thus negating the evidence? If that is what you mean, I don't know if it'd be considered blackmail or not, though I suspect it still would be. If the evidence being witheld is not directly related to whatever they want the other person to reveal then it would definitely be blackmail.

Examples of the above in order:
A. I catch a friend's spouse cheating and threaten to reveal their discretion to their spouse unless they do so on their own.
B. I catch a friend's spouse cheating and threaten to reveal their discretion to their spouse unless they admit to something else that they have done wrong.

I'm not sure that B makes any sense outside of a movie plot. For A I'm not entirely sure it would be called blackmail, but I suppose it still could as the outcomes of being outed for something, and coming out on your own terms for the same thing, usually bear very different consequences for the individual involved. Generally the judicial system looks very poorly on blackmail, even if it's done with good intentions, because keeping evidence of wrongdoing secret from it prevents the system from doing its job properly, or at all.

Re:Please....

[Charcharodon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I was just being paranoid. There are just a lot more low res copies so it made it harder to refind this one.

Right around 19 seconds you can see the wires tangled up in the officers hands, which means the taser was fired.

There is more going on than what this video shows.
Scott was puled over in a traffic stop. How far did he run from that? What did he do while fleeing? Why would he flee from the car, then again when the officer caught up with him, and then still keep going again after being Taser'd?

Re:Please....

[angel'o'sphere]

I might be generalizing a bit, but I'm pretty sure: all over Europe it is a crime to shoot an unarmed 'running away' susceptive or even known/convicted criminal into the back.

As a police man, you simply are not allowed to shot at one who is running away. And for fuck sake: right so! Why should a police man be allowed to play death angel on a random person about he knows nothing that is passing by? Even if that person was a convicted murderer there is no moral/legal/ethical reason to shoot him into the back just because he wants to run (away).

Does this happen anyway? Yes, it does. Every few years we have an incident. Often a real accident, sometimes an overreaction. And the police officer always is in big trouble, usually accused and convicted to man slaughter.

If you point a weapon at me, and I shoot you, that is self defense.
If you point a weapon at a police man (or some random bystander) and he shoots you, that is self defense.

If I shoot a random jogger I'm a murderer ... if a police officer does that he is that, too.

If I disturb a car thief and he runs away shooting him is murder, regardless if it is my car, your car, the presidents car. Regardless if I'm a civilian or an police officer.

Re:Please....

[jellomizer]

People get scared. When they are scared they will often do stupid things.
Fight or Flight kicks in. Lets say someone has some unpaid parking tickets (they can't afford them), they get pulled over, they know they are going to jail, going to jail will cause him to lose his job so he will be in more stress.... Having to deal with the police facing such stresses can cause Fight or flight to kick in... So they will either try to run, they are not thinking that they will get away, or that they will get caught, their body is just telling them that they are in serious danger and they need to run, the other option may be the person will fight the officer, still not thinking if they will win or not, it is their primal instincts kicking in.

Now when someone pulls over one of our middle class folks. We may have gotten the same parking tickets, but we paid them off, perhaps it prevented us from getting a new video game or eating out for a few nights. So when we get pulled over we are not stressing about getting arrested we are just annoyed that we got caught. So we are not in fight or flight, for the most part we are just calm about it.

What you call thugs, isn't thuggery, but the fact that we haven't done a good job at culturally integrating groups together. So there are distinct cultures going on, with unique mannerisms, and acceptable and inappropriate behavior. And for people who don't get that they will often see the other side as threatening.

Re:And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[SailorSpork]

I don't think it is illegal to record police in the open, but that doesn't stop a lot of cops from intimidating citizens into stopping and attempting to confiscate / delete said recordings, especially if the cop did what this guy did. And if it comes to it, it takes a lot more courage to respectfully decline an intimidating request from a man in uniform holding a gun who just shot another man in the back. It didn't happen in this case, but I wonder in how many similar cases police have deleted such recordings? It seems to be standard practice for certain cops.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Our scared-shitless terrorism reactionary laws allow the police to hold anyone for 48 hours without charge. That's more than enough for many (most?) people to lose their jobs. Submit or else, citizen.

Read again

[luis_a_espinal]

Now, we have access to independent video in a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases; and it turns out to differ from the official story fairly frequently.

But are these videos widespread because they exist, or because of the disparity between stories?

How can you ask if these videos are widespread when the OP is pretty much telling a few lines above that the videos represent (and I quote) "a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases"?

There is no reason to believe (nor data to back the belief) that people are filming only when a cop shots/hurts someone just upload them when the cop is in the wrong (and not uploading them the cop is in the right.)

So, without evidence that filming folks are displaying such a bias, then we have to consider the films as a really good random sample (of a small size, but it still random) out of a larger population of events (police encounters ending in confrontation, officially described "justified" on average.)

So now that we take a random sample (the videos), and we see that the expected properties ("justified on average") doesn't hold, then we have to re-examine the basic premise (that "justified" might not hold as common as it is officially trumpeted.)

Obviously, more evidence, more films (larger, more representative samples) are needed. But that doesn't deny the troublesome picture these films portray.

And to be honest, we all know this shit has been going on forever. We just like to pretend this shit doesn't happen, that them folk got it coming, and that the entire American experience is (and was) a mix of The Andy Griffith Show, Leave It To Beaver and Lassie.

It takes a couple of death people caught on film to get that shit of a notion a second look, doesn't it. That speaks volumes about a society's infinite capacity of self-deception.

Are there videos that show justified shootings that don't make national news because there's no story other than "cop defends life of self and/or others"?

Are you trying to prove a negative?

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Jason Levine]

And if they don't arrest someone, they can threaten the person with arrest for "crimes" unless they erase the photos/video. Which, of course, makes no sense because either:

1) The person actually did commit a crime in which case the photos/video is evidence and forcing them to delete it is destruction of evidence.

or

2) The person didn't commit a crime in which case, there's no reason to delete the photos/video beyond "police office finds them inconvenient" (which, obviously, isn't a legal reason for forced deletion).

Unless the person is actively interfering with an arrest (e.g. getting between the officer and the suspect to get some shots of the officer's face), the police have no grounds to interfere with someone photographing or videoing them. And no matter what (EVEN if the person is interfering with an arrest), the officer has no right to force someone to delete the photos/videos they took.

Re:Please....

[Shakrai]

If I disturb a car thief and he runs away shooting him is murder

That depends on the jurisdiction in the United States. Here in New York State (hardly a bastion of Red State Conservatism) it's legal to use deadly force against someone who has committed murder, rape, kidnapping, or robbery and whom is in immediate flight therefrom. It's legal for both civilians and LEOs to do this; there was a civilian in Buffalo who pursued a bank robber outside after the conclusion of the robbery and took several shots at him. He was not charged.

Re:This cop is clearly wrong

[luis_a_espinal]

and unfortunately that requires police with guns and military gear now due to the influence of the NRA.

In the U.S., the police have always needed guns (at least to some degree). I am not sure how the influence of the NRA can be held responsible for the police "needing" military gear, considering that police began using military gear as laws restricting gun ownership increased. It is worth noting that when it was legal for the common citizen to own automatic firearms, the police were perfectly satisfied to be armed with civilian weaponry.

And back then when cops were using wheel guns, they were still doing stupid shit. Should I remind everyone that SF and NY PD used to have "queer hunts"?

Re:Please....

[SecurityGuy]

This is incredibly stupid, morally wrong, and courts have established that it's also legally false. Merely running away does not give police the right to shoot you, nor should it.

Re:And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[reboot246]

It's not illegal, but it can be dangerous.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Anonymous Coward]

That has never stopped police from abusing people, destroying or taking public property and arresting people (who then "resist arrest" to ensure that the police officer had a "reason" to arrest them....).

Rules of the Road for Citizen Journalists

[kraksmoka]

Just in case you need them, read PINAC http://bit.ly/10rules2recordco...

Re:We don't know???? Yes we do.

[fche]

UK newspapers seem to consistently have high quality coverage of issues on this side of the pond.

Re:Please....

[zarthrag]

BS. Because making a tiny move that an officer doesn't like can get you shot, yet James Eagan Holmes can show up to a movie theater in full-assault gear, an AR15, a shotgun, and a glock ...yet was taken in alive and unharmed.

Yet, someone who looks a bit different can't sell cigarettes without being choked to death. Or run without being shot at, EIGHT TIMES. Or DWB in a nice car in Burbank

I don't think the problem is racism, I think part of the society has spent a LONG time being treated as less than human. My own few (positive) interactions with police tend to genuinely *surprise* me - due to the extreme fear that the (much more common) bad ones generate. It's.... who else worries about summary-execution over what would be a non-issue for anyone else?

Re:OK

[SternisheFan]

Bullshit! The person filming the incident turned the video over to the family of the deceased, he didn't care about youtube hits. So now, the cheif of police has ordered another 100+ bodycams for his cops, on top of the 100+ they'd already received.

To stand up for what's right does make that person a "Hero".

Re:Please....

[zarthrag]

Who says that's why he ran? The officer? If the man was tazed, then shot to death, I get the feeling it wasn't about necessarily about alimony/child-support) It just as easily could have been offering to put him in jail for some other trumped-up charge. We'll never know. And we *certainly* shouldn't accept a word from the officer as truth, in this case - he already appears to have planted evidence.

For those learning the English language

[dtmos]

. . . training which can curve some of their impulsive tendencies... however at the same time insure if they need to use force it is more affective.

should actually be written,

. . . training which can curb some of their impulsive tendencies... however at the same time insure if they need to use force it is more effective.

This uses curb with the definition of, "to check or restrain," and effective with the definition of, "producing a desired result" (as opposed to affective, which may be defined as, "influenced by, or resulting from, the emotions").

These types of errors (using similar-sounding words instead of the correct words) are called "malapropisms." The speaker knows which of the two words is correct, but somehow when speaking (or writing) the brain pulls the wrong word out of memory. It's an interesting neuropsychological phenomenon.

Re:For those learning the English language

[JimFive]

It should also be "ensure" not "insure".
--
JimFive

When did geeks/nerds become the new KKK?

[stoned_ritual]

I thought nerds were the blacksheep of their respective habitats? Shouldn't we band together to fight ignorance instead of promoting it? It seems that there are way too many backwoods rednecks on slashdot for any kind of rational dialogue to occur. Blame all of your problems on our president because of his skin color. Make claims supporting the actions of mass murderers and dictators. It only serves to prove my argument that the tech world is loaded with cavemen who don't actually understand the world, but would rather build technology to force the world to fit their twisted model of reality.

Re:When did geeks/nerds become the new KKK?

[operagost]

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:When did geeks/nerds become the new KKK?

[stoned_ritual]

I am talking about the over abundance of racist, backwards-thinking, knuckle dragging, paranoid, "they-took-r-guns" types on slashdot. The "news for nerds" website. It seems to be more of an outlet for angry straight men with psychoses that would make Freud blush.

Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[Catbeller]

The person may be keeping quiet, but the ID of that phone or camera is embedded in the video file somewhere, and if no one else can access that information, certainly the police can figure it out. If it is a phone, it is designed to identify the owner. For terrorism prevention, we've made it impossible to hide from the cops. Sucks if its the cops who are out to get you.

Re:Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[JustNiz]

>> the ID of that phone or camera is embedded in the video file somewhere

Do you have actual knowledge/proof that phones do this, or is this actually just your own guesswork?

Re:Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[Qzukk]

It's called EXIF. Easy to strip with tools designed for it. Hard to find phones that come with thisr tools.

Re:Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[nehumanuscrede]

Does that information survive a protocol or codec conversion ?

EG: .mov -> .mp4

Re:Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[Nidi62]

The person may be keeping quiet, but the ID of that phone or camera is embedded in the video file somewhere, and if no one else can access that information, certainly the police can figure it out.

The person who took the video has done interviews with the media. He's not hiding.

Re:Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video

[JustNiz]

I'm all for conspiracy theories but lets stay rational please.

According to Wikipedia on EXIF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

EXIF does NOT include a serial number or some such that would uniquely identify the phone that took the photo. It does include the model of device, GPS location and time though.

To be fair it would probably be trivial for government agencies to correlate that data against cell tower records etc in order to make a pretty solid guess, but not actually 100% conclusively prove it was a particular phone.

Re:OK

[koan]

Then why is it on youtube?

Re:Please....

[angel'o'sphere]

It is not legal, at least not in that simplified form as you wrote it, in Germany. And most likely not in any European/Scandinavian country. That was my point. Regardless ... laws like that are just insane!

Re:Please....

[ledow]

And come full-circle.

It works elsewhere just as you describe.

UK police still have "truncheons" (batons/night-sticks). In the 90's they abandoned use of US-style batons as they were too heavy and unwieldy. They do not carry guns at all. There are specialist units akin to calling in a SWAT team, etc. but ordinary police don't carry guns.

This is the problem - if you've never been given something, you don't miss it. The second it's "standard-issue" you'll never be able to prize it out of their hands again.

To understand how we got here...

[frederick.armstrong]

Here is a bit of history that explains where the police force in America came from: http://plsonline.eku.edu/insid...

Re:more respect for those that intervene

[Chrisq]

Filming a terrible event taking place is one thing; acting to stop it is wholly different, and far more courageous.

Seriously, we're talking about intervening between a crazy cop and his victim. How do you expect someone to intervene? The probable result would be two dead bodies, no photographic record, and your relatives claiming "he wasn't like that it must have been a throwdown"

Re:OK

[SternisheFan]

Why shouldn't others post it to YouTube? Or this image stabilized gif of the officer planting the taser near the body? i.imgur.com/DTYSXXC.gif Why shouldn't the news be the true news be posted, by anyone? http//:www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/08/south-carolina-walter-scott-shooting-audio-video

Re:What happens to the missed shots?

[SternisheFan]

4 missed, 3 body shots and the last was the head shot hit, probably it's the "kill shot".

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[kilfarsnar]

Our scared-shitless terrorism reactionary laws allow the police to hold anyone for 48 hours without charge. That's more than enough for many (most?) people to lose their jobs. Submit or else, citizen.

This is a good point. They don't have to convict you to screw up your life.

Re:Please....

[itsenrique]

What?

Re:Please....

[Shakrai]

There's nothing insane about using deadly force against someone who has killed or raped another human being. Such a person has demonstrated that they're capable of anything, which leads a reasonable person to conclude that they're apt to kill or seriously maim others in their attempt to escape.

Robbery is a trickier issue; as defined in New York State it requires that you use (or threaten to use) force to achieve your objective. In that instance you've demonstrated that you're capable of anything and a reasonable person has cause to fear for their life if confronted by you. Other jurisdictions may define robbery differently than New York does and I'm certainly not trying to justify the use of deadly force against a shoplifter or other non-violent thief.

Not heroic

[ZecretZquirrel]

Not heroic. Not. The word has be abused to the point of meaninglessness. Stop saying "hero". In this case, the recorder didn't know what was to happen, was caught in the moment. We are daily surrounded by people reflexively photo- and video-recording everything and seeing nothing. Harrumph.

Re:Not heroic

[dave420]

You're (conveniently) forgetting how the guy put his life in danger by making sure the video was released to the family. He stated in his interview that he struggled with releasing it because of the danger he feared, and that he contemplated taking the easy route of just deleting that, but decided to stand up and do the right thing. Of course, if you want to destroy all context, all he did was hold his phone in a certain way, which clearly is not being a hero. If you add in everything else which happened, his being a hero is far less up for debate.

Cameras vs Guns

[Mr_Blank]

The site Sociological Images has data about the rate that cops kill and are killed in the USA. This article is a comparison between the use of guns in the USA vs the UK, but it does highlight the USA rates per civilian population per police population pretty well.

Re:OK

[Anubis IV]

Because someone (presumably the lawyer) gave a copy of it to the New York Times.

Prior to the video, the media was spinning the situation as a case of self-defense by a military veteran police officer against a ten-time convicted criminal. Never mind that he served in the Coast Guard and that the victim hadn't been convicted of anything violent since 1987. After the video, no one can deny that that account is quite incorrect. Moreover, the video makes it clear that evidence was planted (the officer can be seen picking up what we assume is his Tazer and then dropping it next to the victim), that he lied on the police report (he claimed that CPR was administered; it wasn't), and that his partner was in on all of it (his partner is standing next to him as he plants the evidence).

There's this thing called the "court of public opinion", and the lawyer probably recognized that it was important to get ahead of the issue, stop the spin the media was putting on it, and put national public pressure on the police and DA to deal with this correctly, otherwise it would have turned into another nameless guy getting killed in self-defense by the police. Instead, they now have a real chance at winning their case against the officer.

Re:We don't know???? Yes we do.

[MachineShedFred]

I'm glad someone does. The American media is a worthless shit show unless you're looking for biased (one way or the other) tongue wagging or stirring up outrage before all the facts are in. Again, this statement isn't talking about perceived "liberal" bias or "conservative-leaning" news like the shit show that is Cable news - it's the whole lot of them. They are too busy worrying about being first to report, that reporting facts is a distant second.

Re:We don't know???? Yes we do.

[Maritz]

You may well have a point in general, but the Mail is a complete rag.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[digitrev]

If a police office tells you to murder someone, and you do not, is that still a misdemeanor?

What about using weapons

[Cacadril]

If you witness a murder unfolding, and you have a weapon, and can prevent it, do you have a duty use it to save the victim?

Easy to counter

[spiritplumber]

The counter-move by the securistas is to not show these to grand juries, or decline to prosecute. Unfortunately, that's basically zero overhead and zero risk compared to what citizen activists have to do.

Unless we start kicking DA's out of office for being soft on blue crime...

Another counter in the securistas' arsenal is declaring by law that a cop's word is worth more than video: https://www.techdirt.com/artic... this madness has been attempted already and may even succeed.

Re:Please....

[nehumanuscrede]

Come on now.

It's all about how you word things.

From a police perspective, he wasn't running away. He was strategically retreating towards cover.

big blue's just the biggest gang

[Thud457]

If a man with a gun tells you not to video something, requests you to erase a recording or confiscates your phone, really what are you going to do about it? Doesn't matter what the law says until after the fact.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Coren22]

I think you mean Disobeying a LAWFUL order of a police officer, of which this is not one.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Not under a specific "illegal to record the police" statute, but making bullshit use of other laws, e.g. "interfering with a crime scene".

I recall at least one case where the police called it "illegal wiretapping", charging the person with the camera under wiretap laws.

Re:OK

[nehumanuscrede]

Because the only way the entire event gets the level of inspection it deserves is to make sure EVERYONE knows about it. Similar reasoning as to why transparency in government is so important.

Corruption, pure and simple

[sugarmatic]

"corruption
krpSH()n/
noun
1.
dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery."

The officer is a liar.

The officer felt entitled to be free from accountability. That is the definition of corruption.

Former officer Slager is a corrupt liar.

Re:Journalists Fault

[moeinvt]

I disagree. If anything, the press is minimizing the problem. For every case that gets media attention (white cops beating and killing black people) dozens, if not hundreds of incidents never make it out of local media markets and the online communities who follow this stuff.
Check out "Cop Block" and "Filming Cops". You'll find multiple incidents every single day.

Serpico

[ThatsNotPudding]

I know what the groupthink around here is, but "...now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is" is an expression of a preconceived notion, not a valid inference from data.

Frank Serpico *still* gets death threats from LEOs he didn't even serve with, so yeah, I'm more inclined (as the video evidence increases) to think less Thin Blue Line and more Big Blue Klan.

Re:by chance

[moeinvt]

For your safety and the safety of your fellow citizens, always film the police when they're interacting with the public.

Fine line between courage and sensationalist

[Gennerik]

For every hero that captures something like this, how many people turn into gawking bystanders with cameras instead of helping during a tragedy? In this case, the bystander may not have been able to help prevent the crime by inserting themselves into the situation and announcing their presence, but it's possible that if the cop had known that there was someone watching then the victim wouldn't have been shot 8 times (but then it's possible two murders would have been committed).

It seems that a lot of shock reactions have turned from helping to pressing record on your camera. During the Boston Marathon bombing, how many people just started recording instead of trying to help people that were injured (a lot, as a matter of fact)? I'm sure if smart phones had been around and as prevalent during 9-11, how many people would have hung around to record it? In many of these instances, hanging around to record a scene can be dangerous, yet it has become a natural reaction for some people to just hit record. While there always needs to be checks and balances on those that enforce the law, as they are in the end only human and subject to the same feelings and actions as anyone else, but is the general populace placing themselves in harms way the answer, especially when most people don't have any training to help themselves survive bad situations?

The most important App

[ThatsNotPudding]

The most important app that you folks could make is one that just launching it, begins recording audio and video (along with GPS info) which is real-time streamed to the encrypted file storage holder of your choice (ACLU, EFF, Glen Greenwald, Anonymous, a BitTorrent service, etc.). It would also have local storage for later auto-upload if not a good enough signal at the time and gives the goons a false sense of security upon deleting / wiping / crushing the device. But the kicker is: neither those recording it, nor the device itself, will have the ability to delete the uploaded record.

Re:Please....

[rochrist]

Fuck you.

Both

[phorm]

It's both.
Brutality is when an officer beats or kills somebody without cause.

Corruption is when the system (rest of the police, courts, etc) covers for him/her.

Fleeing VIOLENT FELON is justifiable ...

[drnb]

NOTHING justifies shooting an unarmed fleeing man in the back when he's already 10 yards away.

Certainly it was NOT warranted in this case given the victim's background and the given circumstances.

However it is legal and justifiable when the person is a fleeing violent felon and there is an immediate and likely threat of death or severe bodily injury to others. Again, that was NOT the situation for this victim, but your absolute claim of "nothing" is entirely mistaken. Consider the Boston bomber, after the bombing, after shooting the cop, if he had been unarmed and attempting to flee shooting him would have been entirely justifiable and legal. Now that is an extreme example from the other end of the spectrum but it should make the point.

Re:Please....

[angel'o'sphere]

I don't agree that fleeing from a rape scene warrants killing the supposed rapist. I also don't agree that this might be appropriated from a murder scene. As an eye witness you very likely have no chance to figure anyway what happened unless you have been present from the very beginning. Then comes the question: why did you not shoot more early? (There might be reasons of course)

My point was anyway more aimed against someone who e.g. is fleeing from after a prison break. That was what I meant with known murderer. If you are involved in a crime scene the situation might be objectively easy but due to stress and circumstances you might react more violently.

Regarding robbery (hence my tow nails always want to crinkle up when I hear about an "art robbery") the definition is easy in my country: "you use (or threaten to use) force to achieve your objective". However that leaves open whether you use a weapon or not e.g. driving by in a motorbike and the rider or co -rider strips away a purse or bag of an old lady: that is robbery. Because they take it directly against the force of the body holding it. It does not matter if she is completely unharmed, or stumbles and gets hurt or breaks a finger nail. It does also not matter if the robbers have weapons with them. Same other way around, an armed robber is forcing you to give him your money. It might be more grave in the end in front of the judge but this is still just robbery.

On the other hand breaking into a museum and stealing 10millions worth of paintings is nearly never robbery. The amount of money involved is irrelevant. So if there is no guard, they simply break in and simply take the painting and escape: it is burglary and theft.

Regarding shooting at a robber, I don't see a real reason unless he is armed with a fire arm and there is reason to assume he is shooting.

Higher standard

[phorm]

In many places, crimes against a police officer are tried more harshly than against regular citizens

I think it's more than fair that crimes committed by police officers - who hold a position of trust - also come with stronger consequences.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[man bear nerd]

what a country where the police is your enemy. people who justify murder because thats how police are and most of them are good like fuck. most of them do not try to kill for no reason. but that is not a way to gauge good cops from bad. any cop who abuses his power for any reason is a bad cop. i have had drinks with cops who were friends and seemed like decent people but a few years latter they got caught doing a rodney king job on a native man (in Canada) even if the guy had it coming thats not a cops job. the power gets to many of them in varying degrees.i do not believe most cops are good anymore especially in your police state.

Re:Please....

[phorm]

I'm also fairly sure that planting the taser on the "suspect" after you've pumped him full of bullets would be considered a no-no...

Police in the UK

[phorm]

I think this is a pretty good example of UK cops keeping a suspect under control without letting things get out-of-hand.

In the USA (and possibly Canada) the guy may have ended up with a beating if not a tazing and/or bullet-holes.

Note that while they do point a tazer at the guy, they manage to take him down without harm. Heck, an off-duty cop even tells them to let up a bit.

Re:OK

[SternisheFan]

When a video of a white cop shooting an unarmed black man as he fled from him surfaced on the internet Tuesday, many people responded with a combination of grief at what had happened and grim satisfaction that a policeman would finally face murder charges for lethal use of force against someone who posed no threat to him. Many also marveled at the bravery it took for the eyewitness to film the atrocity knowing full well the cop might harm him as well if he saw him. Now that witness has come forward to say that he was, and remains, afraid for his life as a result of his part in the incident, and he considered deleting the footage because of it.

In an interview with MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, witness Feidin Santana elaborated on his experience and the emotions he felt during and after it.

“I won’t deny that I knew the magnitude of this, and I even thought about erasing the video. I felt that my life, with this information, might be in danger,” said Santana. “I thought about erasing the video and just getting out of the community, you know Charleston, and living some place elseI knew the cop didn’t do the right thing.”

Santana says the police officer definitely saw him, and that he kept filming “so he can feel that someone is there.”

Santana told the New York Times he contacted the family of shooting victim Walter Scott and told them he had the video, but he wanted to wait and see if officer Michael Slager was going to tell the truth first. When that didn’t happen, he turned the video over:

Mr. Scott and Mr. Santana made a gentleman’s agreement after viewing the video on Sunday. They would wait another day to see if there was any need to release it: If the police stuck to the struggling-for-the-Taser story, then Mr. Santana would give the video to the family, despite his trepidation that the officer would come after him.

“I had to hold my breath and let him go,” Mr. Scott said.

By Sunday night, the family had made contact with an Atlanta lawyer who was experienced in cases involving police misconduct. The lawyer, L. Chris Stewart, got in his car and drove five hours to Charleston, arriving after 2 a.m.

On Monday, the statements from the Police Department had not changed. “It was obvious that we didn’t even have to ask him for it,” Mr. Scott said. “He was still hesitant, but he gave it to us.”

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.co...

Maybe it was better before

[lay]

Funny how white cops started shooting black kids as soon as camera phones became available.

Filming police in Texas may soon be illegal

[MillionthMonkey]

Speaking of Texas, a bill has just been introduced there (HB 2918) that prohibits filming the police within a radius of 25 feet, unless the person filming is a member of the "news media"- defined as an employee of 1) a newspaper that publishes at least once a week, 2) a magazine that publishes on a regular interval, or 3) a TV or radio station that is licensed by the FCC. Filming the incident yourself and forwarding the video to a newspaper, magazine, or TV station would make you guilty of a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by a 180 day jail term and a $2000 fine.

Can You Just Drop the Sunglasses Bullshit Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hardly call moving sunglasses "planting evidence"

You are such a goddamn moron. Imagine this, you're a police officer, you've just committed a crime and you realize it when you see that the victim you just shot has no weapon. At this point, moving anything is tampering with the crime scene. You know this because -- wait for it -- you're a fucking police officer. And what do you do? You walk back to move a man's sunglasses over to his corpse? Goddamn you've posted this like eight times in this thread -- you really do take the cake.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Woeful Countenance]

Illinois had a "two-party consent" law which prohibited audio recording, even in public, without the consent of all parties involved. That law was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2014, but until then it was used by police to suppress both audio and video recordings. That particular law was also packaged in both misdemeanor and felony sizes for convenient plea bargaining. Technically, the law didn't prohibit video recording without audio, but the police didn't necessarily make that clear when confiscating recording devices. I'm reluctant to make blanket statements about all 50 states.

"Two-party consent" in Illinois

Decision in People v. Clark (PDF)

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[bigpat]

Here in Massachusetts if you record audio without the person knowing it is a felony.

I've seen instances of that law being used by the police to threaten bystanders who start recording.

Reverend Jesse Jackson afraid ...

[drnb]

"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.... After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating."
https://news.google.com/newspa...

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[chaboud]

It was a law on the books in several states, at least indirectly. In Illinois, it was explicit enhancement of eavesdropping to a class 3 felony when used against certain protected parties (police, states attorneys, etc.). In California, it was application of wiretapping dual consent laws.

These laws were leveraged by police to harass, and even charge, citizens recording public actions by law enforcement. I'm not sure about every state, but it was struck down in the courts in Illinois.

In NYC, the NYPD used the existence of an ancient (pull out antenna) cell phone hidden gun to make the claim that they were within their rights to fire on citizens with cell phones, as cell phones constituted a "legitimate threat". That is, at the very least, a law enforcement officer using intimidation to enforce an unlawful (and unconstitutional) order. Armed and threatening the use of lethal force is textbook assault. These forceful (mis)applications of police-protecting laws need to be remedied by clear enshrinement of the protection of public documentation as fundamental to free speech.

The truth, in public, should stand at the front of the line of forms of speech that should remain free.

Re:Please....

[Shakrai]

I don't agree that fleeing from a rape scene warrants killing the supposed rapist.

As a matter of morality I would not regard shooting him as the first or even the most desirable option. I do however recognize the inherent danger when confronted by someone who is willing to commit such a heinous crime and let's just say that he's not going to get much benefit of doubt from me.

Re:Please....

[shutdown -p now]

The law doesn't merely require the person to have a warrant for rape. It requires him to be an imminent danger. So for example, if he has just committed a rape, and is being chased by an officer, the officer can reasonably assume that the person is an imminent danger. But if it is a traffic stop and the guy starts running because he has an outstanding warrant, that doesn't work that way.

Even then, it's very hard to argue "imminent danger" when the suspect running away is known not to be armed.

These laws aren't used anywhere as often as you'd expect, anyway. In most cases, cops get away not because of them, but because they claim that the suspect was attacking them when they shot him, and the juries tend to believe them. This is exactly what happened in this case, too, except that we've got the video showing that the cop lied (and other cops have covered up).

Re:Please....

[angel'o'sphere]

Hehe, point understood.
I likely would shoot him myself ... but from a moral standpoint or viewpoint that would be not the correct thing.

Re:to be fair

[Cacadril]

I too have had to ask myself how this is. But my conclusion is the opposite. The warning signals are too many. Where such a culture of corruption reigns, there is always the possibility that "the truth coming on the table" is as fabricated as the taser next to Scott's dead body. So while I am no longer so sure that everything was exactly as the first witness accounts told, I rather opt to file it as "unresolved - probably police murder".

Re:more respect for those that intervene

[Cederic]

As a tremendous admirer of photojournalism I'm aware this is a very difficult ethical situation.

Save one victim, or produce the evidence that will change a culture and save many?
Detached observer or culpable participant?
Sometimes as basic as dead or alive.

On this occasion, not really viable to intervene - too far away, no time, and any attempt would be interpreted as an aggressive act.

It's always going to be situational, and it's always going to be challenged by someone that wasn't there, and my personal view is that I wish I had the level of detachment needed to objectively record what's happening rather than ineffectively try to prevent it.

Automatically backup the video to the cloud

[Torin Darkflight]

Regarding the "police tend to confiscate phones and delete the video evidence" issue...why not use a method of recording that simultaneously saves a copy of the video in a private cloud storage service? Granted this is still not 100% foolproof, since once the police have the recording phone in their physical possession they could potentially gain access via the cloud storage app and also delete the file there. But, it's still an extra step of protection that could potentially help in some "they deleted the video" scenarios.

Or, how about this...a cloud storage service that requires a second different password to be manually entered (No "remember this password" setting) before any uploaded files can be modified or deleted? I do not know if any such services exist, but this would almost certainly prevent police from deleting the cloud copies even if they have physical access to the phone and the cloud storage app.

Re:And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Noah Haders]

It's often illegal to obstruct police in the course of their duties. If they have to stop what they're doing and come over and confiscate your cell phone, then your obstructing them by making them stop you. This is the bs argument they use.

Re:Please....

[Shakrai]

Morality is in the eye of the beholder; I would not shoot him if he clearly surrendered, because I've known people that have taken human lives and have seen the damage it does to one's psyche. That said, I am not going to take any chances when confronted with such a person, and I will do everything within my power to ensure that he does not gain (or regain) the advantage over me.

The scenes in the movies where someone gets attacked, manages to somehow get the drop on their attacker, and then runs away? I'm the one screaming "FINISH HIM OFF" at the television. If you get the drop on someone that's trying to kill you the last thing you should be thinking about is running away. That's the ideal time to strike and neutralize the threat.

Self-defense isn't about fighting fair, it's about fighting to win. The best fight is the one you avoid; when that fails the only remaining rule is to win. At all costs. The prize is your life. Failure is not an option.

Re:Please....

[Shakrai]

Do not presume to lecture me about what New York State's use of force law says. I can assure you that I know it better than you do. In the case of someone who has committed robbery, rape, or murder and whom is in immediate flight therefrom the use of deadly force to affect an arrest is permissible, if you reasonably believe it to be necessary.

Here's the plain text of the law, feel free to parse it yourself if you wish:

A private person acting on his or her own account may use physical force, other than deadly physical force, upon another person when and to the extent that he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person whom he or she reasonably believes to have committed an offense and who in fact has committed such offense; and may use deadly physical force for such purpose when he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to:

(a) Defend himself, herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force; or

(b) Effect the arrest of a person who has committed murder, manslaughter in the first degree, robbery, forcible rape or forcible criminal sexual act and who is in immediate flight therefrom.

That's the applicable section for private citizens; the section that's applicable to peace officers is similar, albeit slightly broader.

The "reasonable belief" part is key; in short you would need to articulate that there was no reasonable way to stop the person from escaping without using deadly force. How hard do you really suppose that is if you're confronted with someone you just witnessed commit a murder?

Neither the law nor morality obligates you to fight fairly if confronted with someone that has already demonstrated the willingness to violate other human beings in the most heinous manner possible.

Re:Please....

[shutdown -p now]

I think you have replied to the wrong guy (should have gone to GP).

Re:Please....

[dave420]

You'd have more of a point if your fourth paragraph wasn't contradicted by your third paragraph...

Re:OK

[Anubis IV]

No, I don't have it backwards, since they both were Coast Guard veterans, but that's not how it was being portrayed in the media prior to the video, which was the point I was making.

Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[keithrc]

A bill has been introduced in the Texas Legislature to make it illegal for anyone except a 'professional reporter' (whatever that means now) to record police activity within 25 feet: http://www.chron.com/news/poli...

Re:bunk

[macbeth66]

Yeah, well, the cop didn't look too upset when he walked back to his squad car. The shooting happened after the 'perp' opened his door and ran.

Getting your phone confiscated

[pebear]

I want to know what rights as citizens we have when the police come up to us after taping a police interaction and they tell you that they need to take your phone as evidence. Now a smart person before filming would make sure that their pics and vids go straight to the cloud / dropbox and so if the phone goes bye bye you at least can get to your contents ASAP and pick up another phone on Ebay. You could see your IPhone 6+ that you just purchased go away and you would not get it back till a judge released it until the Iphone 10 came out. When my daughter was 13 her IPAD was taken in for evidence and the police still have it. No arrests have been made and all that really needs to be done is an image backup of the divice can be made and the item returned. She is now 18. You can't refuse to hand over a device to the police if they tell you it's evidence. So think about it. Would you guys willingly give up your phone to the police? Personally me, I would go down swinging.... I know the constitution says they can't deny you property without due process.

3 Laws Safe?

[LifesABeach]

Maybe it's time to codify them?

A fat lot of good courage will do...

[ChoosyBeggar]

...when the police black-out cell-communications & remotely erase all data on your phone.

the courage of bystanders who press record

[timothy600]

In some cases this may be true. In others, it is simply a cowardly act of titillation, collecting content to be posted on one's favorite social network or other self-aggrandizement. We had a case a couple of weeks ago where a couple of teenage thugs attacked a geek working on his laptop on a metrolink (think subway without the tunnels) car. three against one in a car full of people, and not one person stood up to help the victim as he was sucker punched and repeatedly struck before the thugs left the train at the next stop. Great video made it on the evening news, however.

Recording! Sometimes, almost pointless...

[iq145]

It didn't do Eric Garner any good for bystanders to record. The police are on a different level when it comes to justice... Charges for wrongdoing are inapplicable, even if you SEE them unquestionably commit it! Just how unfair are police? Have a look here. Notice how the cops point their lights right into the camera so they can approach without being identified!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...