Police Using YouTube To Tell Their Own Stories 299
stevegee58 writes "Posting videos to YouTube allegedly showing police misconduct has become commonplace these days. Now police themselves are posting their own videos to refute misconduct claims. 'After a dozen Occupy Minnesota protesters were arrested at a downtown demonstration, the group quickly took to the Internet, posting video that activists said showed police treating them roughly and never warning them to leave. But Minneapolis police knew warnings had been given. And they had their own video to prove it. So they posted the footage on YouTube, an example of how law enforcement agencies nationwide are embracing online video to cast doubt on false claims and offer their own perspective to the public.'"
Re:About time... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure law enforcement agencies would never resort to creative editing. And I'm sure the media won't be more prone to parrotting the official "truth".
Then again, I live in a fantasy world where authorities can be trusted.
I find it hard to believe the police these days. (Score:3, Informative)
I find it hard to be on the side of the police these days. I live in Montréal, and I've seen and read about a lot of police abuse. They always have an excuse, a reason or some lie. I would be more inclined to believe them if they would show us what they are doing against inappropriate conduct by their own officers, or if they would publicly acknowledge any wrongdoing when it happens. When they constantly protect the ass of their officers, they lose credibility. When the press is constantly attacked by the police while trying to capture what is happening, they lose credibility. When they hide their badge number so we can't report them, we know they are up to no good. When they kettle a group of people, and then tell them to disperse while not letting them, well they probably think we're stupid about believing that they gave the people a way out. And when they detain and arrest people for no valid reason, or to issue them a traffic ticket because people were protesting peacefully, well they should consider themselves lucky we're not acting like the miners in Spain and all we do is put a video of their wrongdoing on the net.
In contrast (Score:5, Informative)
Police Unions are resistant to reviews of dash cam footage
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20120422-officers-complaints-prompt-dallas-police-to-suspend-units-reviews-of-squad-car-video.ece [dallasnews.com]
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-police-union-opposes-random-reviews-of-officers-dash-cam-videos-20120105,0,451142.story [q13fox.com]
/And don't get me started on retention policies for dash cam footage.
//Without any specific laws in place, most police departments more or less do what they want.
Blue Code of Silence (Score:5, Informative)
This is fine, they should present their own point of view. The evidence suggests however, that police brutality exists and that often there is no persecution of the perpetrators – sometimes they even drop investigations against police and instead charge the victims with resisting arrest.
There is a Blue Code of Silence [wikipedia.org] in the police that will protect a violent minority of policemen. In Germany there was a famous case of police brutality [youtube.com] at a demonstration "freedom not fear", where the CCC released a video of the incident. First of all the policemen had to be identified, which was only possible because it was a HD video, since despite Amnesty's [amnestypolizei.de] calls for a identification tags for policemen, there is none. When the accused police officers were questioned, they were provably lying, because the CCC had another unpublished video disproving the statements by the police. They were later convicted, but only had to pay a few thousand bucks.
Re:Pepper-spraying sitting protesters (Score:5, Informative)
It's not legal to use pepper spray on peaceful protesters in the United States.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/11/16/211132/23 [boomantribune.com]
Re:Pepper-spraying sitting protesters (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, democracy is completely dead in the US.
Re:Okay then... (Score:1, Informative)
Yup. And, every time some video sneaks out, it demonstrates criminal sadistic behavior on the part of the police.
Even with video of cold blooded murder by cops (shooting Oscar Grant in the back while held down by a bunch of cops who showed they were conspirators to murder when they tried to collect every recording device (cell phones, etc.) in the Bart station to destroy the evidence), nothing but a slap on the wrist to the murdering pig, and nothing to his co-conspirators.
It is hard to listen to the audio (there is poor quality video too) of one recording of 50 pigs in border patrol uniforms torturing a man to death just on the US side of the Mexico border. The man repeatedly screams Ayudame! Ayudame por favor! Help me! help me please! They kicked him, beat him, tased him, crushed him, and finally, after much suffering-- silence as he died-- leaving his children without (what sounded to be a devoted father). So, 50 pigs torture, murder, and (again conspire to destroy evidence by seizing cell phones), and nothing done to the criminal pigs.
Or, the pigs who murdered a man who was supposed to be the victim of a medical emergency (emergency call pendant went off). Pigs knew it was a medical issue, and the company canceled the call, but the pigs broke in tased, then shot the severely ill, unarmed man dead after calling him a Nigger. All recorded by the device his medical pendant communicated with. Still, the pigs involved identities were protected, and the murderous racist pigs were treated as the victims.
Police have _far_ too much power for the number of controls on their behavior. They should be recorded at all times (any incident without video and audio should default to the victim's account), and there should be civilian oversight boards from every community they police (that share the demographics of the community). These oversight boards should be empowered to make binding decisions about misconduct claims, and be given a say in the discipline such as recommending murder charges be pressed (the regular prosecutors office should recuse themselves from these cases due to their blatant conflict of interest). And, no cop should ever collect a pay check during an investigation (or, must repay 100% within 30 days + interest if after the investigation, the cop is shown to be in the wrong).
Victims should be able to make claims against police pensions-- that alone would probably reign in many of the pigs.
So many incidents where no recorded evidence too. Even harder to get even a slap on the wrist to the murderous sadistic pigs in these instances:
Pigs in Louisianna, who not only went on a racially charged murder spree, but tried to burn the bodies to destroy the evidence.
Or, the pig all juiced up on steroids who murdered a worker in a pet shop for not letting him use the stores phone to call in late (for the 20th time).
Or the pig who shot up the car of a few kids (the bullet holes show he was aiming to kill the kids-- shooting at their heads). The kids were driving down the dead-end rural SD Proctor Valley Rd., and one tossed an empty paper cup out of the window, and it bounced off the off-duty pigs windshield causing no damage, but the pig was infuriated, and tried to murder 3 kids. Then he filed a report that the kids attacked him (assaulting a police officer was the charge). It was just one parent that stood between the truth, and the kids going to prison because of yet another cop roid raging. It came out that the pig considered them trying to drive away from him, an out-of-uniform madman shooting at them, as assault.
If we treated cops like other criminals, entire precincts would be sitting on death row or at least be in prison right now.
Re:Pepper-spraying sitting protesters (Score:3, Informative)
From just his comment it sounds like they were sitting in the middle of a street blocking the crosswalk, which is not only illegal it's also dangerous. . .
They were sitting across a paved foot path that crossed a larger grassy area on a college campus. Just see for yourself how scary and threatening these protesters were: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4 [youtube.com]
Re:Okay then... (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't Wikipedia but there's more than enough info provided to find multiple sources, some with video, in a matter of moments.
If you can find Slashdot, we do expect you know how to Google or that you have access to YouTube.
There are, of course, many other examples of questionable and criminal activity by police - many obscure.
But most of the ones above are easy to find although I've not found the stories about Proctor Valley Rd or Lousiana.
Ones of the benefits of my age-accrued wisdom and my extensive Slashdot experience is that I learned a long time ago to control kneejerk reactions.
It's clear that Nocturnal Deviant isn't yet at that level or perhaps it's too early in the day for him to be thinking clearly.
Consider the following:
"Yup. And, every time some video sneaks out, it demonstrates criminal sadistic behavior on the part of the police.
Even with video of cold blooded murder by cops (shooting Oscar Grant in the back while held down by a bunch of cops who showed they were conspirators to murder when they tried to collect every recording device (cell phones, etc.) in the Bart station to destroy the evidence), nothing but a slap on the wrist to the murdering pig, and nothing to his co-conspirators"
Story and video of this is easy enough to find. My opinion is that the officer did confuse the Taser with his pistol but tasering a man who was held down by 6 cops was excessive - surely more than one of them had handcuffs or tie-wraps.
As this was the 1st use of "pig", let's give this inference a pass.
"Police have _far_ too much power for the number of controls on their behavior. They should be recorded at all times (any incident without video and audio should default to the victim's account), and there should be civilian oversight boards from every community they police (that share the demographics of the community). These oversight boards should be empowered to make binding decisions about misconduct claims, and be given a say in the discipline such as recommending murder charges be pressed (the regular prosecutors office should recuse themselves from these cases due to their blatant conflict of interest). And, no cop should ever collect a pay check during an investigation (or, must repay 100% within 30 days + interest if after the investigation, the cop is shown to be in the wrong)."
No insults at all in this paragraph - why no comment from Nocturnal Deviant? Is there nothing here that's Insightful?
"Victims should be able to make claims against police pensions-- that alone would probably reign in many of the pigs"
"Pigs" appears only at the end and you could read right up to the word "many" without losing any of the point of this sentence. He does misuse "reign".
Perhaps that error had a subliminal effect on Nocturnal Deviants heightened sensibilities.
Okay, now if we skip over the remaining lines where "pig" appears, we get to the closing statement:
"If we treated cops like other criminals, entire precincts would be sitting on death row or at least be in prison right now."
This is, at most, an exaggeration but it's not unthinkable if RICO laws, or slight adjustments to them, were applied in cases where police criminal activity or the coverup thereof, was suspected.
Now, if the original AC poster had, instead of using the insult directly, had linked to videos where friends, family or witnesses had described the events while referring to the cops as pigs, would you (or Nocturnal Deviant) think they were less deserving of empathy?
I would says that most cops do try to be good officers but there are many who not only fall short but are as bad as, or worse than, the criminals.
Why they are given so much more leeway than we would grant a soldier?