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Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that in the past year, after the killings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, many police departments and police reformists have agreed on the necessity of police-worn body cameras. But the most powerful cameras aren’t those on officer’s bodies but those wielded by bystanders. We don’t yet know who shot videos of officer officer, Michael T. Slager, shooting Walter Scott eight times as he runs away but "unknown cameramen and women lived out high democratic ideals: They watched a cop kill someone, shoot recklessly at someone running away, and they kept the camera trained on the cop," writes Robinson. "They were there, on an ordinary, hazy Saturday morning, and they chose to be courageous. They bore witness, at unknown risk to themselves."
“We have been talking about police brutality for years. And now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is,” tweeted Deray McKesson, an activist in Ferguson, after the videos emerged Tuesday night. “The videos over the past seven months have empowered us to ask deeper questions, to push more forcefully in confronting the system.” The process of ascertaining the truth of the world has to start somewhere. A video is one more assertion made about what is real concludes Robinson. "Today, through some unknown hero’s stubborn internal choice to witness instead of flee, to press record and to watch something terrible unfold, we have one more such assertion of reality."
Update: NBC News has identified the cameraman as Feidin Santana.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:00AM
The video will force the issue. If legal system doesn't handle this properly, riots are likely to occur. It seems every time people in power are caught on camera they get charged. Otherwise they can game the system.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:26AM
Rodney King? LA Riots? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots [wikipedia.org]
In the decades since the LA Riots, it appears the cops have upped their game from getting caught on camera beating a person to the edge of death, to just shooting them dead. And while rioting is all exciting and all that, what comes out of the riots? I'm guessing more dead people mostly, as the cops have increased their weaponry to war-time street fighting capabilities in the last decade, and even more draconian police abuse generally to put down incipient rioting.
I'm skeptical about rioting resulting in positive change occurring at least 50% of the time, and suspect, but have no stats to back it up, that it usually ends up making things worse.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:18AM
I think it is the threat of rioting that gives the peaceful protests teeth. The two groups don't even need to be coordinated or share common members. Just the fact that there are some people willing to absolutely lose their shit given enough provocation gives the powers be reason to come to the negotiation table. That doesn't mean it always works that way, or even a majority of the time. But that would be an impossible standard anyway - social progress is a failure most of the time. Two steps forward, one step back would be an unrealistic goal compared to the way it usually goes.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Thursday April 09 2015, @10:49PM
When I was a kid in LA in the 70's and 80's, we use to her about police brutality all the time. Rodney King was a few years after video camcorders became common, so it was just the first time they got caught on video.
Also, every night on the news, Compton was always in the headlines. When someone tried to blow away my English teacher in the 5th period in my mostly white HS, not a peep on the news. In DC, the same thing happened in a SE black neighbourhood and was front page above fold in the Washington Post. Our media is so racist...
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:39AM
I remember Rodney King. He's that upstanding sober choir boy who was out on a slow Sunday drive who respectively and obediently pulled over and answered the police questions. It was really sad. He wasn't doing ANYTHING that warranted pulling him over.