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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: 3, Insightful) by BK on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:43PM
1) American police have always harassed "outsiders". In their time Germans, Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Cambodians, Japanese, and more have all been outsiders. Black people have been the ultimate outsiders having only escaped the system of 'separate but equal' around 1970. American police are not unique. European police do the same thing. Roma and transient people are treated badly everywhere. Migrants are forced to work their way through a stagnant class system that is seldom acknowledged and the police enforce "the rules".
2) The police have always behaved as though they were above the law. There are too many set asides and too many "rights" for police-persons. The law grants them the benefits of doubts even when there are no reasonable doubts.
3) The internal investigation _always_ says that the police did nothing wrong. The set-asides mentioned in the law grant huge leeway for an officer to make a judgement call -- even a _wrong_ judgement call. Internal investigations go further and establish that these legal but questionable actions are compatible with local policy. This is precedent setting! This is how it has become OK to electrocute a person who poses no danger if they do not follow a command. Don't taze me bro!
4) Police have been taught to put safety first -- their own personal safety is considered above the safety of those they interact with or the public at large. This has lead to police blindly throwing grenades into babys' cribs, botched no-knock raids with fatalities (sometimes at the wrong address), and to suspects being shot because "they might have been reaching for a weapon". Police consider the people disposable and the people increasingly know it.
5) Black people have started to be considered just "regular" people by the mainstream population but the police have been slow to adjust. This does not mean that racism is dead, but rather that public racism is no longer acceptable and that even private racism is finding a smaller audience. It will never end... there are still those that hate Italians out there, they just mostly keep it to themselves (except in Germany...).
6) Since 2001, the police and their related agencies (TSA, NSA, etc.) have increasingly alienated their traditional support bases. White people with jobs and kids are considered threats and have felt what it's like to be treated as guilty-until-innocent and disposable by them. There is new empathy for the outsiders...
7) Just as TV brought the war in Vietnam into living rooms and changed popular opinion, so the dash-cam and the go-pro and the smartphone have brought police behavior to the attention of the masses. The technology brings it to Ars. Maybe change will happen.
...but you HAVE heard of me.