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Who would have felt comfortable in these circumstances?
A Massachusetts man was driving in the town of Medford last Saturday night. He admits he took a wrong turn and ended up going the wrong way down a traffic circle. The angry man steps out of a truck and approaches him. Michael, seemingly -- and perhaps understandably -- frightened, reverses. The angry man follows him and Michael stops.
The angry man appears to show his badge and identifies himself as a police officer. Some, though, might be troubled by the officer's greeting: "I'll put a hole in your head." Michael is apologetic and explains to the officer -- now identified as Det. Stephen LeBert -- that he is being recorded. LeBert suggests that he will seize the camera.
"I'm a f***ing Medford detective and you went through that f***ing rotary," says LeBert. As Michael insists he didn't see a sign, LeBert demands his license. "You're lucky I'm a cop, otherwise I'd be beating the f***ing piss out of you right now," LeBert adds, shortly after calling the driver an a**hole. LeBert ultimately calls for on-duty cops who at least do a little to calm the situation. However, the fact that Michael posted his video to YouTube has led to an investigation.
Medford Police Chief Leo Sacco told MyFoxBoston: "It's not the proper behavior, but we only know about it when people tell us. And unfortunately, we had to get up this morning and see it on a YouTube video."
In the days before cameras proliferated, you had to rely on witnesses and hearsay. The police were more likely to be believed by those in authority. Cameras have begun to change that -- on both sides.
Sacco told the Medford Transcript: "The video is troubling enough, and it requires investigation just based on what we see here. The driver does not have to file his own complaint. He may, but he does not have to."
[...] Sacco told the Medford Transcript that LeBert was a good policeman. He added, perhaps unfortunately: "If you work hard you do step on people's toes, which generates complaints."
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:59PM
I've pointed this out before:
Ex: here [soylentnews.org]
It seems to me that a paragraph or so from TFA should be direct quoted and the rest should be summary, commentary, or analysis.
We could blame this on bad submissions or lack of submissions, but this is a editorial function. Submitters should be able to send TMI and the editors should feel confident in pruning this a little (or more) to meet aesthetic, journalistic, organizational, or legal standards.
I know that we have a couple of cases in the past where editors have been criticized for doing this. This is not an excuse to not attempting to be good editors. Since we have added links to original submissions, the OP can always point to the original submission if he/she feels misrepresented.
We should remember that while the Comments are the speech of users and SN is protected when posting them, the articles posted by the editors are the speech of SN and are held to a higher standard.
Food for thought.
...but you HAVE heard of me.