Leslie Plutonian

We DO monitor cops.

The radios are recorded, and we have dash mounted cameras in their cars, so there should be no expectation of privacy for them any more than the person working at the local market.

Absolute power, corrupts absolute.

While I can respect the guy not wanting his picture taken for no reason, he responded WAY out of line. He was trying to intimidate the person, just as cops are trained to do.

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Ingrid

If someone was following me around with a camera for an exteneded period of time, I'd call it harrassment. The cop needs anger management classes though.

Aimee Weber

Another thing. People are starting to use a program called Qik which automatically streams videos to their galleries. This is extremely useful for preserving evidence when the police destroy or confiscate your phone (which is actually illegal without a subpoena or a warrant unless the phone was actually used in a crime.)

Activists Using Qik To Salvage Videos After Police Confiscate Cameras | Pixiq

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Jaysin Beorn

No excuse for the cops actions. You can't say "I'm saying this as a person" - you're in uniform, and that's color of authority, and he should be fired for making the threat.

Cops, and everyone else these days for that matter, should expect that they might have a vid camera pointed at then at any time, and should act accordingly. If they don't, they're not smart enough to have been hired as a cop.

Now, video laws differ state to state - one party consent, 2 party consent, picture only unless you have notification of the filming, etc. But obviously in this case the guy doing the taping (and I'm basing this only on the video, I don''t know anything else that went on) was within the local laws, or I'm sure as pissed as the cop was, he'd have been arrested.

But the cop was an ass, no excuse for it, no matter what happened before. If you can't keep your cool and follow policy, you don't deserve the badge.

Joshua Nightshade

I suggested this to you several years ago, if you recall.

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Seyla Warden

What is this I don't even...

Speaking as a gas station employee that's on camera 8 hours a day because my corporate overlords are afraid I'm going to steal 81-cent cigarillos, the following is exactly why the police should be held to a higher standard than just about anyone else, with surveillance to match:


Are all cops this bad? No, of course not. But you're living in fantasy land if you follow American current events at all and aren't at least a little scared any time to cop notices you. They don't need a reason to ruin your day or outright shoot you, and you have no recourse.

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Joshua Nightshade

Key court case tests right to record the police with a cell phone

Briar Bing

Can one of the folks who thinks filming from a static location, is "creepy" or "stalking" please expand upon their reasoning?

The cameraman is not following this cop through his day. This was incidental, he was not the target, which is fairly obvious. So where is this "stalking" stuff coming from? Why is it even being brought up? I don't get it.

Unfortunately, like many other negative descriptors these days, I think we are far too quick to toss around the "stalker" label. Nothing like hyperbolic statements including words like "pedo" or "stalker" to get people riled up, is there?

And since when did "waiting for someone to do something wrong" become a bad thing? Authoritarians preach (and utilize)this sort of thing all the time. So it's OK for the authorities to use tech (listening/recording devices, security cams, photocop, et al) to catch criminals but it's not OK for private citizens to use some of the same tech (video cameras in most cases) for the reverse purposes? Should the authorities be exempt? Why do we seem to want to protect them more than we do other citizens - like celebs? Do the celebs "deserve it" because they are wealthy? Certainly celebs put up with more "stalking" than cops...

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Aimee Weber

The officer got 2 days suspension for his threat:

Cop Who Threatened To "Fucking Break" Face Of Citizen Suspended For 2 Days | Pixiq

The rest of the article is pretty interesting too.

Lord

Bart Shooting Convict gets out of prison this Monday. Has anyone volunteered to go pick him up ?

Aimee Weber

Police lose.

The Docket » Blog Archive » Officers lose cell phone camera appeal

http://www.theagitator.com/2011/08/2...he+Agitator%29

livia

That is just disturbing.
Your argument appears to be that we do not know for sure if someone is doing something with an intent to commit a horrific criminal act that might entail murder and at best mental, emotional, and psychological scarring of the victim, of a significant magnitude, and possibly incurable and life long in nature, that this is just like not knowing for sure if someone is being childish and impolite to a public servant.


If I assumed the filmer had no reason and intent but to be an asshat, I would still find that this is not unlawful and that any police officer would be obliged to protect that person's ability to so behave from any kind of unlawful interference.

Officer Unabletocontrolhimself, is not in my view, fit to work in law enforcement.

Ariadne Korda

OK, your experience is valid but it is not representative of all police everywhere and all policing, nor does it mean people are for the most part privileged or just plain dumb.

Of course it colours your experience and I can accept that and - for what it's worth - sympathise.
I've had police roll up at my door at 6 am to search the house (ooops mistake), been threatened with arrest and verbally abused for not having the right papers (as a foreigner with limited command of the local language), been ignored by police when called in a panic because I had a guy trying to kick my door down when I was alone at night (I lived in a red light area).

Tame stuff? Maybe. It did not make me a fan of the boys in uniform.

Then I started to work with the police, as a civilian, because I needed the work and the income. Idealism in all that? No, not much.

Over 12 years now, I've heard top police officials' frustration over limited budgets, inability to train their people or recruit them or equip them properly over and over. Also first hand.

In many, if not most cases, this is because politicians don't get kudos for promoting - or putting money into - police reform or improvement (better recruitment processes, training, overall culture, clamping down on corruption). The results would be far from instant and they won't be in office by the time improvements really happen. Far better to prove to the public they're saving money by drastic cuts. People vote for those who promise lower taxes, right?

And the cops? They have to be reactive, focus on "fighting crime" instead of - for example - much needed training on the use of violence, dealing with the public, etc. because their budgets get cut over and over.

You can't send people to be trained and respond to the (justified) public demand for 'policing the streets' when you are short of finances and desperately short of people.

And you hire cheap or without proper screening (including the brutes, the psychos) because they accept the often crappy pay or enjoy the ability to swagger, bully, meaning the wrong sort of cops are on the street.

Not difficult for corruption to develop, either, when all it takes is for a cop to turn a blind eye in order to supplement a pittance of a salary.

It is not easy, either for a (poorly-trained) cop to handle hostility that is often based more on what a person has read in sensationalist articles than on the situation in hand. Not every cop is a brute. Some of them believe in serving, helping even though public opinion of policing is so low.

I do agree that the situation in the US seems particularly bad, and again sympathise with that.

Some countries get it "more right", but they are often the countries who have put money and efforts into making their police force there to SERVE and PROTECT the people, not to bully them.

There are countries or even towns that perhaps have less fancy equipment or limited resources, but where a guy on the street is still happy to see cops around. I've seen them. And there are others where the 'bad' has even spread to those at the top of the police who condone their officers' role of dominating and of spreading fear. I've seen that, too. Plenty of it.

Sure I get irritated with all the 'police bashing', even though it is often justified - I am NOT arguing with that. Because - naturally - bad policingis what gets the publicity in a world that loves sensation and pointing fingers. Except the fingers should not always be focused on Mr Average Cop but often much, much higher up.

Who, really, wants stories of police successes, anyway? Child abuse rings broken up, human traffickers put away? Advances in fighting credit card fraud? Districts made safer because of good proximity policing?

Nope, they'd much rather read about Officer X threatening somebody (while, of course, demanding that "something is done" about child abuse, CC fraud and all the rest). .

I don't even blame the media because they are responding to a demand.

As I said, I blame the politicans, and I blame human nature for wanting a nice juicy 'bad cop' story. And yes, I read them too.

Changing a whole 'cop culture' riddled with corruption, violence, bad management... is one hell of a task, and I am not optimistic about it happening any time soon.

But even so, I did want to make a (probably pathetic) attempt at giving my point of view about why the police is in such a bloody mess in so many places... while insisting that there are also cops, at all levels, who still believe in what they do.

I've seen a few of those as well, and also seen them quit because they are working in an environment where they face preconceptions, lack of resources, and frustrations.

(I know, I know, tl, dr).

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