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Olga Khazan writes in The Atlantic that police in Ferguson, Missouri, arrested two reporters Wednesday night as protests over the police shooting of an unarmed teenager continued for the fifth day. The journalists, the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery and the Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly, were only detained for about 15 minutes before being released, but the incident provoked widespread outrage over the Ferguson police's increasingly brutal tactics.
Lowery wrote that armed officers stormed a McDonald's in which he and Reilly were working and demanded to see ID. They then told Lowery to stop video recording them, and finally they ordered the reporters to leave and claimed they weren't leaving fast enough. According to other reports, the Ferguson police also demanded that an MSNBC camera man and a local Fox News crew take down their cameras. Police hit the crew of Al Jazeera America with tear gas and dismantled their gear.
"The arrest and intimidation of journalists for documenting the events in Ferguson is particularly disturbing because it interferes with the ability of the press to hold the government accountable. But actually, anyone journalist or otherwise can take a photo of a police officer," writes Khazan. "Citizens have the right to take pictures of anything in plain view in a public space, including police officers and federal buildings. Police can not confiscate, demand to view, or delete digital photos."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Saturday August 16 2014, @03:07PM
Rally behind a push to require every police officer to have a video cam on them. That never turns off. Contents can't be modified. That must have a carefully preserved chain of ownership and must be turned in and uploaded to a third party archive immediately following every shift. Retain them for 2 years or indefinitely if they pertain to an ongoing case.
Penalty for noncompliance: Two strikes for all time, then immediate termination.
We can get this implemented by the legislature. The men and women in blue don't have anything to say about it. Frankly, in this state, you could probably get it done via voted amendment to the State Constitution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2014, @03:16PM
That might actually cut down on the cute girl traffic stops. Of course it might make for an increase in traffic stop porn too.
(Score: 1) by weilawei on Monday August 18 2014, @11:46AM
Make taking home video a felony, with immediate suspension without pay, pending an automatic investigation and trial, followed by mandatory prison time. If you have a (near-)monopoly on doing violence in the name of the People, you should be held to a higher standard. Additionally, there should be a strong chain of custody and privacy protections on video evidence. Once a complaint/charge (not sure what the appropriate level is; this will take fine-tuning) is filed, both sides should have full copies of the raw footage to prepare and present their case (and the video should never be excluded from court).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2014, @03:39PM
Your idea has merit but an independent committee from
outside the jurisdictions this is done in should
coontrol/monitor everything transmitted to them
offsite from the cameras with the officers. The
members doing the actual recording/monitoring
must be kept anonymous to avoid corruption and
reprisals instead giving their results to the
public facing committee for dissemination,
analysis, and feedback.
In this manner, the monitoring should be
fair and impartial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2014, @06:20PM
Lines will automatically wrap upon hitting the right-hand edge of the reader's window.
It's NOT necessary to put hard linefeeds within sentences.
Indeed, it looks goofy.
Some people compose their posts in a text editor and paste that into the S/N page.
That also insures against the occasional glitch where your text disappears after clicking a button.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday August 16 2014, @03:52PM
In the case of Ferguson, the police are planning to wear body-mounted cameras but haven't implemented them yet.
It's a good idea that has been gaining traction, but as you say, the implementation has to be very solid to prevent the measure from becoming a mockery. Battery life and cost are issues. Mandating retention of video can be problematic. I think most departments doing this are voluntarily introducing it, and could easily "lose" evidence or have a mysterious hard drive failure. Getting local or state governments to mandate the cameras will be politically difficult, and holding the police accountable for lost video is impossible without close media scrutiny.
New Orleans Cop Turns off Body Cam before Shooting Man [photographyisnotacrime.com]
Fortunately, smartphones are nearly everywhere. Regardless of whether or not police are wearing body-mounted cameras, citizens have a right and perhaps even an obligation to record them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday August 16 2014, @07:14PM
The important thing is that they NOT be able to turn them off. That they NOT be able to edit the film. Sound recording is important too. And if they take them off or disable them, their evidence can't be used in court. Variation of "fruit of the poisoned tree".
That still won't stop them from covering the camera while they beat someone up, but it might help a bit.
Battery life isn't an issue if the police work from squad cars. The batteries can be charging whenever they are in the car. Mandating retention is necessary. And so is reasonable backup. So the retention should be managed outside the department, as well as within the department. Validating the backups is a real problem, as the "tapes" shouldn't be allowed to be seen without a warrant. Hash codes could probably handle this, though, if combined with a program that validates that the file format is readable and interpretable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Sunday August 17 2014, @12:16AM
Enough battery to record for a full shift (let's say 12 hours, just to be safe) shouldn't be particular big. Glass records for 30 minutes on its tiny battery, and even a pack of 24 of those wouldn't be too large. A specialized design can be much smaller still. Police already carry a lot of specialty gear, so it wouldn't be a big issue. This way, they grab a fully charged camera at the beginning of a shift, and leave it on the charger at the end.
Most important reason: This city already does it [washingtonpost.com], and complaints against officers are down 88%
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Sunday August 17 2014, @01:26AM
Just treat missing audio/video as destroyed evidence. That is, the court assumes that it would have been favorable to the other party.
That just leaves somehow making the video tamper evident.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 17 2014, @07:06PM
A timing track that records UTC time should work for that. But you still need to ensure that they can't edit it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:41AM
so "cop turns of body cam before shooting man",
that should could count as evidence for an automatic murder charge,
it shows premeditation
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Sunday August 17 2014, @02:01AM
Having worked in law enforcement in the past, I can honestly say that most everyday cops would love to have personal recorders. The few at the department I worked for who were opposed to it when it was introduced were the "vice" cops, the ones working undercover cases. They were already exempt from the requirement anyway for obvious reasons, but they insisted it was a waste of time and money. The regular patrol officers were pretty much all for it, since it would not only prevent false accusations, it would also provide a complete record of their work day so their case files would be more complete and accurate.