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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, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:34AM
However, I cannot easily separate these video takers from those who film things like all the recent fast food beat downs or something like this from this most recent filming.
What did you just say?
If I am reading you right you are unable to draw a distinction between filming someone with a gun, the power of the state behind them that takes them at their word and lots of motivation to make sure your video is never seen versus filming a random citizen beat up on someone half their size with their bare hands? And that makes the former some sort of coward?
What. The. Hell.
(Score: 4, Informative) by drgibbon on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:47AM
AC beatdown, live on SoylentNews.
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(Score: 2) by TK-421 on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:15PM
I wouldn't go as far as to label it a beat down but I fully admit that I did a piss poor job of editing what started as two different thoughts.
As I read the article from TFS I got the impression that the reader was supposed to believe that picking up a recoding device is the best thing you can do for advancing justice in all situations. In the case of what just happened in S.C. a recording device was probably the most powerful thing that could have been done. In the case of filming one citizen assaulting another (no cops involved) I think it is rather sickening to just watch when it progresses to the point that the assaulted is obviously unable to defend themselves and the assault continues. All it takes is the right blow to make a life impacting change.
I wonder if some who posted further down saying they wouldn't take the risk of defending the assaulted hold the same opinion of Edward Snowden. He took on some serious risk doing what he did but he did it anyway because he felt he was the only one in the position to affect a change. At least Snowden had the benefit of arriving at his decision over a period of days/months. It is harder to make a drastic decision when the time period is measured in seconds. I personally would be troubled knowing I could have made a positive change in a negative situation but instead chose in-action.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:26PM
The thing is no one was even talking about filming non-cops. You brought that into the discussion all on your own and it sure looks like the reason you did it was to water down the point of TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:57AM
Yeah, well unfortunately there is zero evidence of this and a lot of evidence against it. Snowden says that's why he did it. But why, to make his magnanimous point, did he grab and dump thousands and thousands of unrelated intel on foreign sources and methods? Just this week we had a story, a shocking barn burner, that part of "the Snowden Files" is that Britain spied on Argentina during the Falkland War! OMFG!!!! He says he did all he could to raise concerns to his superiors, but he can't produce any evidence of that. He makes the effort to go through all that CYA effort of encryption, Tor, etc., he can grab a Gigabyte of data, and he doesn't copy his Outlook PST file? He can't produce a single email to back his story up? All his valiant heroics and selfless acts were all described after the fact when his house of cards started falling down. The emails, posts, his employment history and circumstances before his great martyrdom all paint a contrary image of him as cocky, thinking he's the smartest person around, boasting about his security clearance and how he lied his way into the job, etc. I have my own thoughts on his motivations, but they certainly aren't as pure and wholesome as many around here hold.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Friday April 10 2015, @04:00AM
I agree that it's ugly if people think the best they can do is record situations in all cases of some injustice occurring, even when they have the capacity to intervene (and especially when a whole group does nothing). But it doesn't apply to a guy filming a cop murdering someone although of course I didn't RTFA, but I did watch the video, and what a wretched waste of a man's life! "Beatdown" was just an attempt at humour given the thread context.
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