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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[avandesande]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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]

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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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?

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: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: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.

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: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police

[Dins]

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

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....

[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....

[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

[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

[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

[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: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: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: 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....).

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....

[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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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: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...

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.

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)