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"A Utah police officer [Jeff Payne] who was caught on video roughly handcuffing a nurse because she refused to allow a blood draw was fired Tuesday in a case that became a flashpoint in the ongoing national conversation about police use of force."
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown made the decision after an internal investigation found evidence Detective Jeff Payne violated department policies when he arrested nurse Alex Wubbels and dragged her out of the hospital as she screamed on July 26, said Sgt. Brandon Shearer, a spokesman for the department.
Attorney Greg Skordas has said Payne served the department well for nearly three decades and questioned whether his behavior warranted termination. He couldn't immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Click here to read the entire story
Utah cop fired after arresting nurse who wouldn't draw blood
Some videos on youtube
Utah officer wants to apologize for nurse's controversial arrest
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:53PM (15 children)
Police Union Complains That Public Got to See Them Roughing Up Utah Nurse [reason.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:17PM (3 children)
Police unions are the lobbying and political front for departments that in many cases have devolved into armed gangs, or at the very least ignore or protect the "bad apples" within.
Rape, murder, assault, drugs, "asset forfeiture", you can get away with it all as a cop.
The police unions will complain about any level of accountability. It isn't enough that the officers are on paid vacation and will likely not be punished. It's also important to protect the officers from any consequences that their own actions, as documented by video, could possibly lead to. We wouldn't want to hurt their widdle feelings, now would we?
If someone else, including the nurse, had managed to document the event with a smartphone or bodycam, it would be well within their rights to release that footage ASAP, regardless of any investigation. Keeping videos secret allows incidents like this to be swept under the rug. Plenty of people have been subject to far worse at the hands of the police with no recourse. Today, there are many bodycams, but they can still mysteriously malfunction. Always film the police.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:11AM (2 children)
If someone else made the video, that person would own the copyright on the video. When an officer makes a video, any copyright belongs to the officer or to the law enforcement agency. One right that copyright confers is the right to not publish.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:20AM (1 child)
The bodycam videos mades by police officers are typically considered to be public records and subject to state FOIA laws [rcfp.org] (alt [google.com]). And someone paid taxes for that employee to make that video in the course of their duties.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:51PM
> The bodycam videos mades by police officers are typically considered to be public records
Public records are not necessarily in the public domain.
> and subject to state FOIA laws [rcfp.org] (alt [google.com]).
"Because only a few states have passed state-wide rules regarding public access to BWC footage, most police departments are left to determine their own rules," says that page.
The policy [rcfp.org] adopted by the Salt Lake City police says:
> And someone paid taxes for that employee to make that video in the course of their duties.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's in the public domain. You can see on the utah.gov website that the state asserts copyright: "Copyright © 2017 State of Utah - All rights reserved."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:46PM (10 children)
From T2FA (the 2nd FA, er, "friendly article") . . .
The problem is not that the video went viral. The problem is that there was a reason for it to go viral. An otherwise ordinary police interaction video would not go viral, because it is quite boring.
This is why all police interactions with the public need to be live streamed to the cloud by a member of the public. The police have demonstrated, and this lawyer is so bold as to brazenly state the desire to prevent such viral videos from happening. The video going viral is the public's mechanism to ensure that the video cannot just "disappear".
If you are relying on the police to record video, it is frequently turned off, or mysteriously missing. Or the un-edited version stored in one of the officer's personal home.
If it is not live streamed to the cloud, the police can "accidentally" destroy the recording device.
In the past, security cameras have led to the exposure of police crimes.
It's not that all police are bad. But the few that are, affect the safety of the rest, over the long run. And we're seeing that now. The public trust of the police has been poisoned. Some departments seem to recognize that. Others would rather deny it, and try to obstruct efforts to increase transparency and public trust.
Despite officer Payne's commendations and service, if he cannot follow the law and control his temper, then he really should not be in the job. And he should know this after such lengthy service. The fact that he thinks this is acceptable after such a long career demonstrates a serious lack of sound judgement.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:22PM (7 children)
If the "good" cops are turning a blind eye or even defending the illegal and immoral behaviour of the "bad" cops, that makes them bad too.
I doubt there are very many good cops at all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:38PM (1 child)
I would like to be generous and assume there are. But I am fully aware that you could be correct. I am usually cynical (see: posting history) but I would like to give the benefit of the doubt. But there may come a point where I would say the same as you are saying.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:06AM
From those I've known, good cops don't last more than a couple years.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:11AM
A 44 year old movie explains how it happens:
If you're a cop and you turn in a bad cop, subsequently, when you get in a jam and call for backup, no one comes.
Undercover officer Frank Serpico gets shot in the face [youtube.com]
More clips [google.com]
...and prosecutors won't press charges against rogue cops (because cops are the source of the cases that the DAs handle)--and even when they do prosecute a bad cop, it's half-hearted.
...but Reactionaries keep voting for and reelecting these sleazeballs.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:50AM (1 child)
Every working man and woman in the world is subjected to situations which they don't approve of. Sometimes, you even work for a complete freaking idiot, an incompetent boob. You know, and I know, that the working person seldom has any influence over the situation. You follow orders, do as you're told, and "don't rock the boat", or you're fired.
I would like to think that MOST cops would turn on a fellow cop who flagrantly violates human rights, and/or commits major felonies. I can't KNOW that, but I would like to believe so. My interactions with police, over the course of many years, has convinced me that there are far to many bad cops. But, I've also met a lot of good cops. I've even met a few who have stuck their necks out to ensure that something resembling justice was dealt.
A big part of our problem when trying to judge cops is, we don't get all the facts. The truth is kept out of sight, and we're left guessing most of the time. We're sure that a cop did something wrong - but we are never allowed to learn whether he did it out of malice, or it was a mistake, or maybe even the media got it all wrong.
That secrecy needs to be done away with. Body cams are part of the solution to that. Every cop needs to wear one, and the cop must NOT have any control over that camera. He puts it on when he comes on duty, it records until he goes off duty. It's part of his uniform, and being out of uniform warrants a week of UNPAID suspension.
Then, we can begin weeding out the bad cops. And, maybe, the good cops will take more pride in their jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:45AM
Just because you don't do the bad stuff makes you better but doesn't make you good.
Go look at the Stanford prison experiment, the Milgram experiment and similar. There are a bunch who are good enough to refuse to go along but how many tried to call the police to say a crime may have been committed or similar?
Thus if you really want good stuff to happen you should try to set up systems so that such things are less likely to happen. The camera stuff you mention might help.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 12 2017, @04:02AM (1 child)
I think it's department-by-department. I think there's good cops out there, but they're in departments that are relatively well-run, and everyone there is pretty good. The bad cops don't last there. Then there's departments (and there's lots of them) where there's plenty of bad cops, and plenty more cops who cover for them and are bad by extension, and most importantly, the leadership is bad because they're complicit. In those departments, the good cops don't last.
Human organizations tend to be like this: it's not just "a few bad apples". With real apples, a few bad ones will spoil the whole bunch--that's the rest of the saying that everyone keeps omitting for some reason. It works that way with humans too: like attracts like, so shitty/corrupt leadership eventually results in shitty/corrupt underlings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:57AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:34PM
"My client shouldn't be convicted, because he wouldn't be if you didn't catch him."
So their strategy is a Chewbacca defense. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:53AM
if we had any balls, or power, as citizens, we'd demand that a law be enacted that voids all police results that have 'missing audio or video'.
even if the camera really did jam or break on its own, that should not be an exception. this is to prevent abuse.
abuse we all KNOW happens every day, since its unwatched and a guy in blue with a gun always gets to have his say over a guy who is without a gun and blue costume.
all interactions with anyone in position of authority (especially ability to directly kill you) should be live streamed to 2 cloud locations. there should be immediate backup copies via whatever tech makes sense, so that the data is as undeletable as we can technically make it.
any citizen should be able to view any video and make comments. comments could be moderated so that they get seen or buried, sort of like here.
distributed free help. and by people who have a direct interest in not letting the powerful abuse their power.
damn. we could solve so many problems if 'we' (the thinking people; not the psycho career politicians and con-men) had some actual say in how systems are setup. the 'justice' system needs a major overhaul, but those who are in it, keep themselves and their friends in it. it won't change by itself, and we seem completely kicked out of the process, at this point ;(
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."