Just like under alcohol prohibition, police violence and corruption is getting out of control, and needs to stop. They won’t stop it, so we the people and our elected representatives have to stop it.

Not only do we all need to be able to record police in public, but a completely separate body needs to investigate police corruption and brutality. They have proved, over and over, they cannot do it themselves. But no organization can police itself, that’s why we have police in the first place. It is only logical that they cannot police themselves, and so new organizations have to be made, remove IA from police and make it separate. Punish the “good” cops who cover for the bad cops. Punish cops whose cruiser cameras “break” while suspects get mysteriously beaten.

——

As for videotaping police: Hey, if they’re not doing anything wrong, they should have nothing to fear, right?

Two questions:

(1) How many times have we heard a cop say that they were justified in opening fire at a vehicle driving towards them, even at slow speed, because by driving towards the officer, the driver was using deadly force against the officer?

(2) What was Chad Holley suspected of doing such that the police were justified in using deadly force as he ran from the scene?

It’s a sick double standard. Police officers use their cruisers to chase after, block off, and run into suspects on foot routinely, even (especially?) in cases where the same officer would not be justified in shooting at that suspect.

Yet if you or I drive in the direction of a police officer, that’s justification to shoot us.

Prior to the ruling in Garner v. Tennessee, stopping a fleeing felon with deadly force was acceptable. If the officer could articulate probable cause that a felony had been committed and there was a greater than 50-50 chance the suspect fleeing did it, he was good. It still is lawful, if the officer can articulate how the fleeing suspect represents a danger to others.

And no, I’m not saying it should be illegal to record police.

Onward and upward,
airforce

And since this post certainly goes against the grain, flame away.

Nice try. You know it is possible to be “against the grain” while also having a pretty weak argument.

On to more important things…

“This rhetoric can give someone a free pass to try to assault a police officer or kill a police officer, and I’m not going to allow that,” he said.

Cop-dude, your officers brought this shit on themselves.

“My officers should be able to go out here and work in the neighborhoods and keep this city safe without fear and without hesitation.”

You aren’t keeping the city safe. You are increasing the danger/violence to citizens.

And I’ve asked them to remain calm and treat people with respect and dignity.”

They stared blankly at me, so I explained what “respect and dignity” meant. That still didn’t sink in, so we acted out some scenarios…which resulted in 4 people being clubbed into unconciousness. So, I finally just told them to make fewer traffic stops and hope for the best.

Firstly, the seriousness of the injuries are less important than intent in determining the nature of the offence. If you stamp on someone and repeatedly kick them in the head you can be certain that you will be arrested for assault (unless you’re a police office, in which case ‘official oppression’ is apparently the term).

Secondly, the argument here isn’t particularly over the kid. If the police made an argument that they did what was necessary to stop a fleeing robber then that would be assessed on its merits (and you might find a surprising number here are not averse to the use of deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect, depending on how violent the crime).

The salient points of the argument are as follows:

1) The police have an unsavoury and unconstitutional dislike of being recorded, and the official reaction to videos of this sort is badly askew.

2) When their unconstitutional dislike of being recorded leads to video either not being made (because the recorder was arrested or had their equipment confiscated or, in the case of security footage, the video ‘goes missing’ ) the police version of events often differs dramatically from that of bystanders, but the police are always assumed to be right.

3) When footage does turn up that the police weren’t aware of, it usually proves the bystanders right, but the police are rarely prosecuted either for perjury or for the events that the footage contains.

All of these factors make the right of citizens to record police officers unmolested an important one that there are no good arguments against, but because we’re dealing with politicians and union representatives the lack of a good argument in no way stops them from making noise.

The beating the kid took would undoubtedly not be under discussion if video footage were unavailable. Because it is available, you’re more than welcome to opine that it isn’t all that serious. Disagreeing with the wider point about video footage would put you much more in the minority here.

Secondly, it wasn’t that long ago that it was acceptable to shoot a fleeing felon. Garner v. Tennessee was only decided back in 1985. I’d say the kid was probably lucky he wasn’t born a generation earlier.

One could try to argue, I suppose, that the officer striking the suspect with his vehicle was “deadly force,” but I don’t see how you can hold the driver responsible for the suspect running into his car. Saying that the officer knew the kid was running in that direction and purposely struck him with the vehicle would be quite a stretch. Ironically, he’s the only one who is still fired.

Back to the video, I only saw two officers doing something I would call unlawful in the video. I’m not real certain what the other charges were for. And since this post certainly goes against the grain, flame away.

Conventional wisdom says these four Officers charged with misdemeanors (if you can believe it) will be acquitted. Of the seven fired, two have been allowed by civil service arbitrators to return to work.

Funny that if the police cruiser hadn’t damaged the fence of the storage facility, no one would have ever watched the footage, or learned of this misconduct.

/Bishop Berkeley