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Prosecution of UK News Photographer Collapses After Recording Disproves Police Testimony (wordpress.com)
Slashdot reader Andy Smith writes: Slashdot reported last September how I was arrested while standing in a field near a road accident, as I photographed the scene for a newspaper. I was initially given a police warning for "obstruction", but the warning was then cancelled and I was prosecuted for resisting arrest and breach of the peace. These are serious charges and I was facing a prison sentence. Fortunately we had one very strong piece of evidence: A recording of my arrest. Not only did the recording prove that two police officers' testimony was false, but it caught one of them boasting about how he had conspired with a prosecutor to arrest and prosecute me. Yesterday the case was dropped, and now the two police officers and the prosecutor face a criminal investigation.
Police or those in related positions (working at a PD) are often excluded from juries for various reasons. Some of it is because they may be too intimately knowledgeable about police procedures, but mostly it's because they will be biased. However it's not necessarily because they will be biased to believe police testimony, but because they're often the most dubious of that testimony.
I was on a jury once, and we had one guy that absolutely assumed the guy was guilty precisely because he was arrested. 11 other jurors kept trying to explain to him that the evidence didn't hold up, but he didn't want to believe it. The next day he went to the judge and somehow got himself excused, so an alternate juror was called. Scary that people of that sort are out there and get onto juries.
8 years ago I fought a B.S. resisting arrest charge from some Long Island NY office who'll never make Sgt. for good reason. After the slightest of a tap of the vehicle in front of me in slow moving traffic, I had an extremely angry driver who called the cops. The 1st young officer was doing everything right getting our information, then a 2nd police car with lights and siren blasting screeches onto the scene like some scene from the Dukes of Hazzard tv show. He gets out, points at me yelling, "Stay in your car!!!"
"This is different.", I said to myself. 2nd cop talks with the other driver & young-cop, comes to me as I'm leaning on my car and says to me, "You're under arrest for assault!" I tell him, "That's his word against mine, I never touched him!" He grabs my wrist and forces my arm down to the 6 O'clock position. I keep an eye lock on him and, just because I was mad at the obvious wrongness bring my arm back up to the 12 O'clock position. He pulls a practiced maneuver on me by twisting my arm and 'walks me forward' while I instinctively try to keep my knees from buckling. I fall onto my stomach, he comes down with his knee full force onto my lower back while yelling, "STOP RESISTING! STOP RESISTING!" I yell back, "I'm not resisting and you know it! STOP OVER-ACTING!!!" "But, I can't get the cuffs on!" "JUST DO IT!" I tell him. Got released in the morning on an ROR by the judge. Told my public attorney, "There's no plea deal on this one. Either the D.A. drops all charges or I want my trial." 11 months of going to court every month until the trials, first was the resisting arrest charge. My lawyer had read a synopsis of my account of what happened and after the cop testified that I was holding onto a fence while kicking at him, she got him to admit that he never actually witnessed any assault. Some conferences between lawyers and judge happen, and 2 weeks later charges were dropped. The 2nd trial from the driver happened and I explained my side of the story which included a few disposable camera pics of the scene which showed an unkempt, angry plaintiff, found not guilty, and I'm done with it all. The D.A. originally wanted me to plea out to a deal that included 3 years probation. A cop friend of mine told me how I should have, "Sue that asshole!" cop, I told him, "I don't sue cops." After a year my back stopped aching.
That cop smoothly lied and committed perjury so easily, fortunately for me the judge was firm but fair. After I did a fist pump when the "Not Guilty" words came from his mouth, we joked a bit about how my Public Defender and I had a running joke between us after she got the resisting arrest charge dealt with. I told the judge, "Ms. N***r here, she's my Matlock!" I'm blond haired/blue eyed, the whitest white looking guy in a white power structer life in NY, and I know that if I was darker skinned I might've had to take the D.A.'s deal. But damn, if the cop lied so easily on the stand he'd done that for a long time with other arrests. I feel so bad for all darker skinned than I people who get railroaded by immoral police. I've worked on 'good cops' homes here on this island, but if this ever happens to me again you can be damned sure I'll sue for all I can get, won't get fooled again. (Rant over now, I'm glad that I got this experience out of me here, thanks all for reading through my story.)
Always record incidents, public or private authority notwithstanding. The Dao dragging incident would have been quietly covered up had it not been for all those nearby passengers snapping away with phonecams.
If you encounter a ban on recording incidents, record more. Today's tech makes it easier to record surreptitiously than ever before. If there is a threat of officially forced deletion, get your footage onto social media as quickly as possible. Some camera apps have an option to automatically mirror to your Dropbox account.
There was a case in New Zealand a few years ago where the evidence of two policeman was contradicted by the video recorded by the camera on a taser gun.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-new...
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/...
I was once a juror on a kiddie porn website case back in 2005, and the police just lied and made things up that were IT related. For example they said there was no evidence on his laptop as the sized laptop was only 5 days old, therefore his must of got rid of his porn ridden laptop and brought a new one which showed he was trying to cover his tracks.
They then said because the new laptop had a way to "delete" cookies this showed his was trying to cover his tracks.
The guy got 5 years.. The Police IT evidence was bullshit, but the paper evidence that 2 of his credit cards has multiple monthly subscriptions to kiddie porn websites is what we the jury found him guilty of.