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Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

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Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#11

Post by Nelson69 »

stcredzero wrote: post #3
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

I wish all cars came with black boxes and 360-degree video coverage so that we could voluntarily supply this information. People lie when they get into a fender bender. (Note: if you live in a neighborhood where people key cars, either stop parking like a douche or you need to move to a better neighborhood. If people feel free to vandalize in a place, they'll also do other crime.) I'd pay $300 for a device I could ju…

I started sketching notes for this a couple years back. Some stupid parking lot altercation where someone started lying.. With the costs of flash and cameras becoming so inexpensive and the amount of wireless access around (GSM or Wifi) I was thinking you Tivo style record like 2 to 8 hours of video just with a circular buffer then if a triggering event happens (hazard button pressed, the record button pressed, a crash is detected, air bags deploy, the alarm triggers.. there are others) you store the video from the circular buffer and store live recorded until told not to. Then when you can contact the internet via wifi or possibly gsm, start off loading the video to some server. It seems like onstar already has most of the hard stuff done, they just need some dvr type stuff. 2 cameras in a dome light like area could pretty much cover 270 to maybe a full 360 degree view of the car. I'd guess it's like $1000, just from some past experiences, which isn't terribly unreasonable.

On the server there are 2 ways to access the video, the owner's password or a law enforcement key that could be accessed with proper court documents.

The other thing I was thinking, it's clearly an owner protection device but if you had some sort of encoded radio signal like they use to change the traffic signal lights. All of the cars in an area could be used to help when there is an Amber alert or some major crime was happening.

For a moving violation like that, why does a gun need to be drawn? Was there a threat of violence or just stupidity? The motorcyclist stopped on his own, right?

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#12

Post by danhood »

ErrantX wrote: post #6

Was the camera obscured - as it appears to be? In which case I can kinda see the issue they have (i.e. unaware of being filmed). That seems different from most of the other cases where the filming was pretty overt. Still; it is an extremely bad reaction even so. The thing that shocked me most was.... he drew his gun. Are things really that bad that a traffic stop requires a drawn weapon? Jesus :(

I saw an interview with with Mr. Graber on the local news - the camera was in clear view of the officer. A pic of the helmet he was wearing at the time can be found in this article...

http://carlosmiller.com/2010/04/16/maryland-motorcyclist-spe...

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#13

Post by patio11 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

I think we all, given a few minutes of reflection, would be glad that we're not judged on a 30 second edited video highlights reel of the worst decisions we've ever made. Particularly not one which stripped the context out of the video.

That said, I'm much less concerned about videotaping cops on the street and more concerned with VPI -- videotaped police interrogations. Unlike videotaping cops on the street, they'd mostly be to the benefit of poor & minority suspects rather than tech-savvy twentysomethings who enjoy protesting as a lifestyle. The imposition on the cops is minimal (since the interrogation is theoretically under their control) and the justice gains are huge, and this can be compellingly sold to the cops as in their best interests. (You'll clear more cases with less court time because routine videos of lying perps will cause most of them to take the freaking deal like you want them to.)

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#14

Post by ErrantX »

danhood wrote: post #12
ErrantX wrote: post #6

Was the camera obscured - as it appears to be? In which case I can kinda see the issue they have (i.e. unaware of being filmed). That seems different from most of the other cases where the filming was pretty overt. Still; it is an extremely bad reaction even so. The thing that shocked me most was.... he drew his gun. Are things really that bad that a traffic stop requires a drawn weapon? Jesus :(

I saw an interview with with Mr. Graber on the local news - the camera was in clear view of the officer. A pic of the helmet he was wearing at the time can be found in this article... http://carlosmiller.com/2010/04/16/maryland-motorcyclist-spe...

Oh blimey :D ok then I retract that comment!

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#15

Post by mike-cardwell »

When its your word against that of a policeman, you've not got much hope. It pisses the police off when you introduce evidence which takes that advantage away from them. All of a sudden they can no longer fall back to lying to defend themselves.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#17

Post by politicalist »

buzzblog wrote: post #8

These prosecutions aren't just wrong, they're un-American. How police and prosecutors sworn to uphold the law can abuse it to this extent boggles the mind.

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, so it unfortunately looks very American. (If "American" refers to the US alone.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#18

Post by stcredzero »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #5
stcredzero wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish all cars came with black boxes and 360-degree video coverage so that we could voluntarily supply this information. People lie when they get into a fender bender. (Note: if you live in a neighborhood where people key cars, either stop parking like a douche or you need to move to a better neighborhood. If people feel free to vandalize in a place, they'll also do other crime.) I'd pay $300 for a device I could ju…

I had a teenage girl rear-end my car and total it back in the 90s. I was pulling out on to a 4-lane road at night in an underpowered car, she was 1/3 mile away. She dropped her cell phone about the time I pulled out, so she never even saw me, even though I was in her lane for ten seconds or more. She slammed into me at about 65. I was doing maybe 30. It was a hell of a wreck. Thank the stars nobody got hurt. At the t…

Something similar happened to me. Get into a situation with a hot-headed cop, a cute shaken looking young woman, and things might not be so favorable for impartial justice. (She was trying to pass me on the right, when I was already in the right lane, by driving over the demarcated roadside parking spaces.)

Better if I don't think about it too much.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#19

Post by DanielBMarkham »

patio11 wrote: post #13
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

I think we all, given a few minutes of reflection, would be glad that we're not judged on a 30 second edited video highlights reel of the worst decisions we've ever made. Particularly not one which stripped the context out of the video. That said, I'm much less concerned about videotaping cops on the street and more concerned with VPI -- videotaped police interrogations. Unlike videotaping cops on the street, they'd…

I hadn't thought about videotaping interrogations. Interesting.

Perhaps the question is: what parts of police activity shouldn't be videotaped and published, and why? Undercover busts maybe. You can't spend five years growing a policeman into what looks like a drug dealer only to have him outed on YouTube in ten seconds. Or do we get rid of all undercover police work?

Need to think about that some more.

Re: Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

#20

Post by sophacles »

patio11 wrote: post #13
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

I wish I had ten upvotes for this. Or a hundred. I love devil's advocate, so I'll say this just as a way of keeping things in perspective: not a lot of folks would want people videotaping everything they did at work and putting it on YouTube (along with criticisms) I know it would drive me nuts. Society as a whole is going to have to go through some major contortions as people get their heads wrapped around the idea…

I think we all, given a few minutes of reflection, would be glad that we're not judged on a 30 second edited video highlights reel of the worst decisions we've ever made. Particularly not one which stripped the context out of the video. That said, I'm much less concerned about videotaping cops on the street and more concerned with VPI -- videotaped police interrogations. Unlike videotaping cops on the street, they'd…

You know, I want every cop to wear a video recorder. I want this for accountability reasons, both as a protection to the ops, and as a protection to me. Of course I too don't want to be judged on a 30 second edited video, so I demand the right of "turnabout is fair play" and have me and others video tape the same cop at the same time. If the videos don't match, there is some 'splainin' to do.
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