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posted by on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the lights-camera-action dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:04AM (#168088)

    Arguably, there is no point fining poor people who have no money.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:05AM (#168135)

    In Country Club Hills, Missouri (a community whose residents obviously have no spare cash to blow on cotillions or golf tournaments) There Are 26 Open Warrants Per Citizen. [alternet.org]

    over 35,000 outstanding arrest warrants, or a mind blowing 26.9 per resident

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:42PM (#168351)

    And yet, that's exactly what they do. [cbsnews.com]

    • (Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:49PM

      by tathra (3367) on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:49PM (#168418)

      and here i thought debtors prisons [wikipedia.org] were abolished more than a century ago.