Cop kills unarmed black man in South Carolina

[oneforthebus]

The cop lied and the video stops him from getting away with it. Never support laws limiting the right to record the police.

Glad he was charged. I don't now of anyone who supports laws limiting the right to record police.

 

[oneforthebus]

most recently:

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=84R&Bill=HB2918

Illinois tried it under their wiretapping statute.

http://www.ibtimes.com/illinois-passes-bill-makes-it-illegal-record-police-1744724

NYC sent a memo to their officers reminding them it was legal because there were stopping filming etc...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-cops-told-memo-filmed-article-1.1898379

Ok, the first link refers to interruption, disruption, impediment or interference with police work, specifically it says it's illegal to record them within 25 feet while they are engaged in police activity. Seems reasonable, from a safety perspective. I mean, you have a right to film but you don't have a right to shove a camera in a police officer's face while's he's trying to apprehend someone.

The second law refers only to secretly recording conversations that have a reasonable expectation of privacy....police activity in public doesn't seem to fall under that statute.

Glad the NYPD reminded the police of what the law is.

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

I started this thread to make a point which I made in the 1st post and the 6th. Some jurisdictions are trying to outlaw it. Do you have anything substantive to say on that issue?

Mmmmhmmmm. You started this thread just to support mandatory video taping. One would think you'd have titled the thread with something like "Why Video Should be required in Law Enforcement" or "Unarmed man killed by Cop in South Carolina." Instead, it very specifically omits "Video" in the title (your point after all), while specifically pointing out the victim is black.

Mmmmmhmmm.

As far as saying something substantive on it...how about doing something about it? I am working on lapel cams with the State Police in one of the states in our fine union, to deliver the video collected from the cams to the State AG office for mandatory storage.

Are you doing anything substantive about these issues, or just fanning racial flames?

 

[GMC]

I love Charleston. It's a great city. That said, I think I'll be staying away from there for a while.

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[oneforthebus]

I think what people believe is that if there wasn't a video in this case, the cop would have gotten away with it. In a case where the cop is telling the truth, video could stop any backlash. What do you think on that?

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I think they are right. Of course forensic evidence generally tells the story even when there is no videotape, as it did in the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases. Obviously if you shoot someone in the back from 15-20 feet away you're going to have a hard time making the case for self-defense.

I'm all for videotaping being legal though, as long as it doesn't obstruct police from doing their job safely.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Of course forensic evidence generally tells the story even when there is no videotape, as it did in the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases.

No it doesn't. White people and especially white cops shoot black people every day for no reason.

 

[oneforthebus]

No it doesn't. White people and especially white cops shoot black people every day for no reason.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Then they do things like punch themselves in their own faces and bash their own heads into concrete so they can claim self-defense, they just want to shoot black people that much.

 

[Vis]

Ok, the first link refers to interruption, disruption, impediment or interference with police work, specifically it says it's illegal to record them within 25 feet while they are engaged in police activity. Seems reasonable, from a safety perspective. I mean, you have a right to film but you don't have a right to shove a camera in a police officer's face while's he's trying to apprehend someone.

The second law refers only to secretly recording conversations that have a reasonable expectation of privacy....police activity in public doesn't seem to fall under that statute.

Glad the NYPD reminded the police of what the law is.

25 feet would mean you couldn't record if a cop comes up to you and your husband and starts beating him. It means you can't record the cop if you are pulled over on a dark road and no one else is around. I don't like defining recording as interference. It's not interference of good police work. The wiretapping law tried to say the cop has to consent or it's illegal.

 

[Stillers]

I realize there's no changing some of your minds on this but...

Some like to claim "But there are so few Bad Apples, they spoil the bunch".
I completely refute this. To wit..
How many encounters do you think are actually recorded on video? Maybe one in 100, less??

Search youtube for "Police abuse of power" or something similar and there are 100's of recent posts.
Simple math..multiply those videos x 100 or 200 and you get a sense of the magnatude... that this isn't something isolated.

Keep in mind that, these people are given the ultimate in authority. Their word is law. While there will always be corruption, you'd like for the amount of abuse to be near ZERO.Since lives are ruined or completely lost. But the reality is it's way more than that.

Then factor in the other "good" cops that witness these abuses and do nothing and say nothing because of fear of retribution...which has been documented to be swift and brutal.
Are they not as guilty??
I say they are.

Bottom line, this is nothing new. Its been like this forever.
The difference is access to cheap video and a platform to reach the masses.
Which is why sympathetic politicians are trying like mad to outlaw filming of police.

The time is coming when the mighty police union will be seen for what it is...nothing but a powerful bunch of dim-witted thugs.
Can't wait to hear how they defend this clown.

Oh and, can I investigate myself if I do something wrong?
I'm sure I'll do a thorough job and everything.
That's not a recipe for disaster is it?

 

[Vis]

Stillers, I get your point but if you record a cop being polite and helpful, you don't post it, you delete it.

 

[Stillers]

Stillers, I get your point but if you record a cop being polite and helpful, you don't post it, you delete it.

Vis, isn't that an expectation? Why would I post a video of something that is supposed to happen?

I don't follow your point.

 

[ark steel]

Stillers, I get your point but if you record a cop being polite and helpful, you don't post it, you delete it.

True. In addition, some of the videos you see of some kind of "abuse", you don't really know what was going on. Maybe it is as portrayed and maybe not.

I've come to believe that not everything you see on the interwebs and Youtube are 100% accurate depictions...

 

[Stillers]

True. In addition, some of the videos you see of some kind of "abuse", you don't really know what was going on. Maybe it is as portrayed and maybe not.

I've come to believe that not everything you see on the interwebs and Youtube are 100% accurate depictions...

Well, if some of them aren't 100% accurate, then ...what?
I can tell you the answer isn't to investigate themselves with their buddy/buddy prosecutors with whom they work with almost every day.

Does any of that workflow strike you as odd and open for potential abuses?

 

[ark steel]

Vis, isn't that an expectation? Why would I post a video of something that is supposed to happen?

I don't follow your point.

If your point is that the abuse of power is not a minimal percent, it seems very relevant. If the good interactions are in the 10's of thousands and you have 150 on you tube that are bad, the 10's of thousands are not on youtube.

 

[ark steel]

Well, if some of them aren't 100% accurate, then ...what?
I can tell you the answer isn't to investigate themselves with their buddy/buddy prosecutors with whom they work with almost every day.

Does any of that workflow strike you as odd and open for potential abuses?

I'm not defending or commenting on the "investigate yourselves" issue, I'm only commenting that you cannot use youtube as a statistical analysis tool.

 

[Stillers]

If your point is that the abuse of power is not a minimal percent, it seems very relevant. If the good interactions are in the 10's of thousands and you have 150 on you tube that are bad, the 10's of thousands are on youtube.

That's so far from reality.
Again, I know some won't ever say it out loud. That's fine.

Speaking of the other fine officers involved. They said they performed CPR on the guy since, you know, he just got shot in the back and is dying.
This is from the NYT article.

Police reports say that officers performed CPR and delivered first aid to Mr. Scott. The video shows that for several minutes after the shooting, Mr. Scott remained face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. A second officer arrives, puts on blue medical gloves and attends to Mr. Scott, but is not shown performing CPR. As sirens wail in the background, a third officer later arrives, apparently with a medical kit, but is also not seen performing CPR.

I'm sure they all just mis-spoke.

 

[ark steel]

That's so far from reality.
Again, I know some won't ever say it out loud. That's fine.

I can't find a good count of the number of law enforcement officers in the US. One place said 400k, another said 800k. If 1/2 or so are uniformed officers, that is a lot of officers and, I am sure, each has numerous contacts with individuals every day where there is no abuse of power.

 

[oneforthebus]

I can't find a good count of the number of law enforcement officers in the US. One place said 400k, another said 800k. If 1/2 or so are uniformed officers, that is a lot of officers and, I am sure, each has numerous contacts with individuals every day where there is no abuse of power.

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=703
An essential element in law enforcement is the potential for suspect resistance and police use of or threatened use of force. In the Police Public Contact Survey (PPCS), persons who had contact with police during the previous 12 months, whether as a driver in a traffic stop or for some other reason, were asked if the police officer(s) used or threatened to use force against them during the contact. Survey respondents who reported more than one contact during the year were asked about the use or threat of force by police during their most recent contact.
Summary findings

Among persons who had contact with police in 2008, an estimated 1.4% had force used or threatened against them during their most recent contact, which was not statistically different from the percentages in 2002 (1.5%) and 2005 (1.6%).


Males were more likely than females to have force used or threatened against them during their most recent contact with police during 2008, and blacks were more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience use or threat of force.


Of persons who had force used or threatened against them by police in 2008, an estimated 74% felt those actions were excessive.


Of those individuals who had force used or threatened against them in 2008, about half were pushed or grabbed by police. About 19% of persons who experienced the use or threat of force by the police reported being injured during the incident.


Among persons experiencing police use or threat of force in 2008, an estimated 22% reported that they argued with, cursed at, insulted, or verbally threatened the police.


About 12% of those involved in a force incident reported disobeying or interfering with the police.


Among individuals who had force used or threatened against them in 2008, an estimated 40% were arrested during the incident.


An estimated 84% of individuals who experienced force or the threat of force felt that the police acted improperly. Of those who experienced the use or threat of force in 2008 and felt the police acted improperly, 14% filed a complaint against the police.

 

[oneforthebus]

I would say 1.4% of contacts where cops used or threatened force represents a few bad apples. Especially considering that only 14% of that 1.4% file a complaint. And how many of those were totally justified? Probably most.

 

[Stillers]

I can't find a good count of the number of law enforcement officers in the US. One place said 400k, another said 800k. If 1/2 or so are uniformed officers, that is a lot of officers and, I am sure, each has numerous contacts with individuals every day where there is no abuse of power.

That's fine Ark.

Here's a simple solution...
Why not employ a zero tolerance for police abuse and have a 3rd party do all investigations.
Including a separate prosecutor.
Somehow I think the police union will have a slight problem with that.

Here's some food for thought.
This is in Houston. Does this not strike you as odd?

Houston officers involved in shootings have been cleared every single time they've gone to a grand jury since 2004 -- at least 288 consecutive times. Of the 121 people HPD officers shot between 2008 and 2012, more than a quarter were unarmed. Ten unarmed civilians were shot dead by Houston cops during that time period.

 

[ark steel]

That's fine Ark.

Here's a simple solution...
Why not employ a zero tolerance for police abuse and have a 3rd party do all investigations.
Including a separate prosecutor.
Somehow I think the police union will have a slight problem with that.

Here's some food for thought.
This is in Houston. Does this not strike you as odd?

zero tolerance rules are, generally, horrible. Putting handcuffs too tight on a person might be considered abuse. Do you treat that the same as someone who gun whipped a guy?

In any event, I don't have a particular objection to third party investigators. I just can't figure out why anyone thinks a third party investigator is, somehow, magically incorruptible and I don't just mean on the side of the police. Virtually every "independent" investigator will have been appointed by a politician and, is likely, to have politically leanings similar to that of the person that appointed them. Or they are elected, which is may be even worse.

I'd point to the Michael Brown case as a pretty good example of the bullshit that goes on and the eventual outcome of the Federal investigation was the exact same as the outcome of the internal investigation. All the bullshit that was claimed beforehand, was just that, bullshit. Sure a separate investigation found that there was some pretty good examples of racism within the Ferguson governmental halls, but not one indication that racism or abuse of power was involved in the actual shooting.

 

[Steeltime]

Vis, isn't that an expectation? Why would I post a video of something that is supposed to happen?

I don't follow your point.

I thought Vis' point was accurately stated, i.e., that across the United States, police interaction with citizens occur thousands of times per day, millions of times per year. The videos that wind up being posted are those showing unusual interaction between the police and citizens, sometimes violent interactions.

Those videos number in the dozens.

So, out of perhaps 2,000,000 police interactions with citizens per year, maybe 50 (?) merit being posted while hundreds of thousands simply disappear.

That leads some (you might be one) to conclude that the problem is "rampant." I suggest that the problem exists, but the fact that every video of a police officer acting inappropriately (really, yelling at an Uber driver makes the news??) is newsworthy, and occur rarely, shows that the problem is vastly less widespread than many believe.

I also disagree with your premise that the instances of police interaction with the public being videotaped are rare. Quite a few police departments have cameras mounted on police cars, some have personal cameras on the cops, and the general public now almost universally carry cameras everywhere they go in the form of an iPhone.

I don't know what you do for work, Stillers. If you work with the public, I would wager that 99% of your encounters are professional, even friendly, and 1% are not. It is just the way of the world. If you encounter 100 people per month in your job, and your encounters were videotaped, then I could cull out the 1 per month that were out of the norm and showed some level of discord. At the end of the year, I could compile those 12 videos, and argue that you were insane and a menace to the public - "Look, 12 times I caught him arguing with a customer!!!"

Oh, and as to Vis' point - I agree that police officers should have their duties filmed. I read somewhere that when the officers are filmed, the instance of complaints of excessive force decline significantly, in part because the officers monitor their own behavior and in part because the potential complainants realize that false claims will be shown to be just that - false. Win-win, as far as I am concerned.

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

I also agree with the use of cameras. I'd like to see it done ubiquitously. It protects the citizens, AND it protects the cops. And to Steeltime's point, it reduces the number of altercations. Indeed a win-win.

Here's an example of the cameras protecting a police officer from a bogus sexual assault claim by a woman. I personally loved this one.

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3592956.shtml

Lapel cam captures woman trying to frame APD officer for sexually assaulting her

Arrested for drunk driving, an Albuquerque woman tried to flip the script on an Albuquerque Police officer, accusing him of sexual assault. Cops say 23-year-old Deanna Griego padded her bra with something extra as she was placed under arrest for DWI earlier this month.

It turns out that's what ended up giving her away.

Griego slipped her cell phone into her bra just before she was taken into custody. Albuquerque Police say she used it to hatch a false sexual assault accusation against the cop who arrested her.

When she was stopped for DWI, Griego first tried charming the officer.

"I'm going to school for being a cop," she tells APD officer Jared Frazier, seen on his lapel cam.

Then she tried explaining.

"[I have a] speech impairment. It's embarrassing," she said.

Officer Fazier responds quickly, "Oh me too, it's no big deal."

Then Griego tried to make sure she was following directions. She asks several times if she starts a field sobriety test with her right foot, or left. Frazier answers "right" every time.

It didn't go too well.

Frazier arrested Griego for DWI. She blew a .13 blood alcohol content at the station, way over the legal limit of .08.

Then she said she had to pee.

"Bathroom's on your left," said Frazier, taking off Griego's cuffs. "Your other left. There we go."

Fraizer says he heard Griego talking in the bathroom, asking "How can I get this officer in trouble?"

Then he remembered Griego had slipped her cell phone into her bra back at the stop. It's clear on the officer's lapel cam video.

"You're not allowed to do that," said Frazier, opening the bathroom door a few inches. "Go ahead and step out. You're on the phone; you need to step out."

From inside the bathroom, Griego argues with Officer Frazier and says he's violating her rights by opening the door. He points out he can't see her, and then comes this accusation:

"[You were] inappropriately touching me while I was waiting in the car," said Griego.

"Please don't touch me," she said, coming out of the bathroom.

"The whole thing's on video ma'am; you can say whatever you like," Frazier responded.

Frazier tells his fellow officers.

"Now she's saying I touched her when I put her in the car," he said.

But when Griego asked for medical attention, Frazier called EMTs.

"Basically the whole thing's on video," he tells the paramedics. "She's accusing me of touching her."

APD says a sex crimes sergeant and detective conducted a full investigation and cleared Officer Frazier of the allegations.

APD union president Stephanie Lopez released this statement about the incident:

"The desire to frame officers for wrongdoing is a growing issue facing officers every day. We believe that the public should be held accountable for filing false reports against police officers. These incidents can be very damaging to an officer's career, so we hope that this individual and others face appropriate consequences for their malicious actions."

So far, Griego is not facing any additional charges for making the claim, but APD spokesman Tanner Tixier says it's not out of the question.

This link has the actual video: http://rare.us/story/this-small-dev...ficer-from-a-false-sexual-assault-allegation/

 

[oneforthebus]

That's fine Ark.

Here's a simple solution...
Why not employ a zero tolerance for police abuse and have a 3rd party do all investigations.
Including a separate prosecutor.
Somehow I think the police union will have a slight problem with that.

Here's some food for thought.
This is in Houston. Does this not strike you as odd?

I think it's pretty clear from the Brown and Martin cases that "unarmed" doesn't necessarily equal "not a threat". Is it odd that all of these shootings were justified? Maybe...of course they aren't dealing with the general population here. They are dealing with criminals, who are often on drugs, acting irrationally and violently resisting because they've got a rap sheet a couple of miles long and know they've got little to lose.

 

[oneforthebus]

So, out of perhaps 2,000,000 police interactions with citizens per year, maybe 50 (?) merit being posted while hundreds of thousands simply disappear.

There are actually around 11-12 million arrests per year, so many, many more interactions.