How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#121

Post by griffinkelly » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

griffinkelly wrote: post #103

pmorici wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video wasn't of the national guard it was clearly police of some kind based on the uniforms. Also typically the national guard units they activate for stuff like this are often the MP units so they would be trained on law enforcement specific things. Either way it doesn't excuse or justify that blatant misconduct in the video.

I'm a member of the national guard and I, along with many of my friends, did not sign up to be police officers. That said, in Minnesota they called up every unit it seems. I'd understand civilians to easily confuse police with the military particularly after seeing a Humvee drive by, but if you take a closer look its easy to distinguish. Also note, we take orders directly from the governor of the state, not the polic…

The other thing to think about is, if they activated the entire MN guard, many of these folks are not military police or have received any kind of light MP training. Typically the guard is there to just provide assistance. If they end up doing heavy-duty police work or real riot control, this is how we end up with a kent state type situation--most guardsmen have civilian jobs, so imagine one day your working your IT job, the next day your expected to be a police officer.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#122

Post by prawn » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #39

lordnacho wrote: post #5

Why do I not see more drones in the protest videos? You'd think that would be a safe way to film things, plus it's a little harder to confiscate than your phone.

Money, a good one is $500 and it requires skill to deploy. I saw someone doing it yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to talk to them.

They're trivial to deploy - a child could do it if you showed them once. If you can afford to lose one being knocked out of the sky, you still draw attention by returning to ground every 20-30 minutes to swap batteries. Batteries are $100-200 each, at least for the drones I have, so not really something that a casual protester would be carrying around. Battery packs that can recharge drone batteries are heavy, expensive and uncommon. If police/NG are firing projectiles at journalists, grocery shoppers and people in their front yard, I can imagine they'd be delighted to play target practice with a drone.

You could be high enough that no one would notice, but then you're not going to get especially useful video. Low light situations wouldn't help.

A racing drone would be more difficult to control (AFAIK, no hover or GPS-based positioning) in trying to film specific things for 20 minutes at a time.

If you wanted to film with a touch of elevation over a crowd, you'd carry a GoPro on a stick. Cheaper, cheaper batteries, can charge via USB with any battery pack.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#123

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #37

watwut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you flight drone over protest and something hit the drone or you crash the drone, the drone will fall on people under it.

Pro drones have lights and people can react in time, it's totally cool as long as you're not a cop. If you're a cop, you're not getting your drone back.

[deleted]

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#124

Post by greggyb » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

curryst wrote: post #79

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only unethical lawyers? Suppressing evidence can get them disbarred.

Ianal, but I wouldn't think the defense attorney would be required to share that? Wouldn't it violate your clients right to not self-incriminate? The prosecution is definitely not allowed to suppress evidence that would demonstrate someone's innocence, but I don't think the same is true of the defense.

A video filmed by a third party is not self-incrimination. It would be incrimination of the defendant by the third party's video evidence.

Trials are preceded by a long process of discovery and, in general both sides will have access to all evidence that is going to be used in the trial.

Edit: incorrect punctuation marks snuck in.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#125

Post by downerending » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

StellarTabi wrote: post #11

It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. Safety is important, protesters (and even journalists...) have been livestreaming themselves innocently doing nothing (in contrast to other media's hyper-focusing on "looting") then getting shot with rubber bullets. One of them reportedly has permanent blindness in the left eye as a result. Police b…

It depends on how the video is edited and presented. Certainly the initial video of the "Covington kids" scandal was highly unethical.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#126

Post by sethammons » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #56

vixen99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not seem to be the case. The US spends more on education than any other country. $16,268 a year per student vs global average of $10,759". It's evident that money does not translate into better results. "According to the Washington thinktank the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), the average student in Singapore is 3.5 years ahead of her US counterpart in maths, 1.5 years ahead in reading…

What's the money actually spent on? I'd argue that massive American football stadiums for grades 9-12 are perhaps incorrectly prioritized as compared to e.g. teachers.

A decade ago, I was a high school teacher in inner-city San Bernardino. At the time, the district had more administrative personnel than teachers. I’d wager that kind of spending surpasses stadiums.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#127

Post by threatofrain » Sun, May 31, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #115

threatofrain wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism is in all our hearts — what’s important is in developing calm relations with your own strengths and weaknesses so that you can work on yourself if you choose. Embracing this human weakness is part of developing the structures to keep us accountable.

Having internal prejudice which you wish to understand and eliminate, versus actively and purposely organizing or facilitating violence against people of color, are drastically different things. The long history I'm referencing is not people who have hidden prejudices and need to face their demons, it's people who are malicious toward groups of people for their race on purpose.

These are just different extremes in the expression of racism, which is the unjust treatment of other human beings due to race.

Those who are vehemently racist are likely only a minority of the expressions of racial injustice which minorities face as a lifestyle in America. The answer to both should point to structural solutions rather than making this an individual moral matter, asking people to monitor whether they're consciously racist.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#128

Post by ficklepickle » Sun, May 31, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #77

mtts wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the situation with Nordic police and minorities? Because in the not really Nordic but reasonably civilized Netherlands the supposedly well educated police force is also a known hotbed of racism. Members of the police force in The Hague refer to themselves as “exterminators of Moroccan vermin”. Ethnic profiling is rampant and on at least one occasion a man of color was held down by a group of cops until he died…

Police in Denmark are bullies too. Breaking basic rights, assaulting citizens, covering for each other, lobbying against body cams and visible identifiers on cops like numbers, etc. Profiling is legal and used extensively.

Until we realize that tribalism is human nature, it won't change.

Racism is universal amongst humans. We are tribal primates, after all. We need to admit the biases exist and address them head-on.

It stands to reason that having a bias against out groups once increased an individuals chance of survival. Now it is actively harming society. If we can't rise above our primitive impulses, we are doomed.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#129

Post by allannienhuis » Sun, May 31, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #75

RickJWagner wrote: post #69

I'm starting to wonder if we need some formal role for communities in this. Bad cops must be held accountable. But also there must be some way to compel a belligerent person to go along with police (i.e. not resist arrest). Maybe there should be 'community liaisons' or something that would be called out when there is a troublesome situation.

In fairness, part of the idea of using professional cops and not soldiers, was originally that professional cops were from the community and would be better able to interact, or "liaise" with community members. It's just that over the centuries we kind of forgot about that part. In the US we moved to the current system where many of the police may not even live in the communities they serve. Heck, they may not even l…

Police often don't want to live in the community they patrol because they don't want to be recognized with their family while off duty by gang members they interact with, making their families targets.

I have close family who had to move to a different city because of direct specific threats to their family made by gangsters.

Organized crime changes the dynamics completely.

Re: How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct

#130

Post by Mirioron » Sun, May 31, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

tmsh wrote: post #2

Can I just say - the sources for good, actionable news are sometimes the strangest of places these days. I've started just reading: http://reddit.com/r/news instead of newspaper websites and it's nice - some affiliate tv news stations (the Minneapolis newspapers...not so much) or student newspapers (I see you Crimson reporting on the anthropology department) are getting it done and sometimes more consistently than ma…

A word of caution: /r/news is quite partisan (so be skeptical). Not as bad as /r/politics, but not too far either. I do agree though that having a variety of what seems to be unusual news sources is pretty good.