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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Police tell 2 On Your Side an Internal Affairs investigation is underway after an officer's rifle fell off a roof and onto a sidewalk during the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Sunday.
Pictures shared with WGRZ by Andrew Mavrogeorgis show the officer positioned on top of the building at 560 Delaware Avenue at Allen Street in downtown Buffalo. The rifle is perched on the edge, on top of a stand, a short distance from the officer. At some point, the rifle fell onto the sidewalk below, where people were walking about.
Another picture shows the officer peering over the ledge of the building at the rifle on the sidewalk below, while people gathered for the parade pass by.
A nearby officer was able to pick up the rifle and carry it to safety.
There's no word yet on if the officer will be disciplined, and there are no reports of any injuries.
Buffalo Police say the officer was on the roof conducting "overwatch" of the parade, a routine safety protocol at large events.
Click the link for pics.
Is the city of Buffalo hiring Florida Man for their police force?
Someone tell me again why we should trust the police.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 27, @12:37AM (6 children)
I don't think I said it in this thread but you've likely heard me assert that no steps have been taken to curb LEO abuses. Actually a big step has been taken and, frankly, I should have acknowledged this and probably owe a number of PDs an apology. Bodycams. I do have some criticism about how they're being used in some locales, but it does bring me some relief that, for example, bodycam footage was used to pursue the officers in LA who beat a man to death. That was a big win and I spoke like it didn't happen. That's on me.
So... what's that got to do with your point? Well I said before that getting into the nitty-gritty of disciplining Police Officers is nuanced. Bodycams have helped create transparency. One thing that worries me is the concept of police officers reviewing their footage before writing their report. I need to be up front and say I've only heard about this in passing (I have family near Los Angeles) so I don't know if this is something they already do or if it's something they want to be able to do. There's a good chance you know more about this than I do. But I am troubled by the general concept. I don't mind the ability to amend a report to get details verified... I mean when I get home from Disney World and wrote down what rides I rode and in what order the odds are good I'd make an error. Okay, we need a mechanism to address circumstances like officers getting their stories striaght. Is that something you agree with?
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 27, @12:42AM
Sorry for the confusingly-written post.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27, @03:40AM
I run into this dilemma at my accounting/auditing job. As I've mentioned before, I work for a private concessionaire at a US national park. Due to the weirdness of the business, there are multiple point of sales systems each with its own quirks. I won't go into details, but merely describe a basic dilemma - when a cashier/bartender/waiter reports sales, there are various approaches by department to how the sales are reported and how cash is handled - some parts are consistent, but other parts aren't. The ideal is that the worker counts out the extra money they've received and drops it without knowing what they should have received for cash. The idea is that they don't know (unless they've intentionally arranged it) whether their monies are over or under what they should be. So if they collect $20 too much by accident, they don't have knowledge of the excess and don't try to pocket the money. A couple of our systems can achieve this "blind drop" ideal, but other systems can't. And there's at least one case where it would be outright impossible due to how the business is conducted.
So I get to see some of the issues that can manifest. As described above, if a cashier counts out $100 and knows they're supposed to only drop $80, that creates a temptation to pocket the extra money, but it can also happen in reverse, if they count out $60 and know they're supposed to drop $80, they are tempted to drop $80. If you have someone who just is really bad at counting money, it's better to find that out right away and move them to a job that doesn't have cash handling rather than have them thrash for days on end adding and subtracting money in futile attempts to make their money right.
There are plenty of other problems that can come up which aren't addressed by such systems. It's merely a component of a whole.
So a blind drop can save a lot of drama, but not all.
In the same way, having a record that police can't review would be similar. It's a blind drop. They can't coordinate stories as easily because they don't know what the cameras recorded and thus, forms an incentive to be more honest. The drawback is that it removes an otherwise valuable investigative tool. For example, a police officer could just walk through a crime scene (before it is disturbed) and carefully study the footage (including sound) later at their leisure. Perhaps there was a note on the fridge or a comment made by a witness that was missed in the initial investigation.
My take is that an intermediate state would likely be most productive here (and definitely far more productive than no video at all!). The camera video (with necessary time stamping and such) is downloaded to a write-once store so that they can access (with logging of said access) for their work, but don't have the ability to change or delete the video. It also creates a subpoenable record for trial. They have the ability to alter their reports to fit the video, but they don't have the ability to alter the video. Non-blind video won't catch some defection, but it create a base level of evidence that is hard to corrupt. In exchange, they receive a powerful tool for recording evidence and strengthening the police officer's role as professional witness.
One would also need auditing of these records. Two particular problems: a police officer who routinely has malfunctions with their camera system (particularly being off or malfunctioning when it is convenient for the officer) and detecting when the camera video doesn't match what is claimed to have happened.
Going back to your general thing though, I agree that wearable cameras are a considerable improvement and I support their use. With the particular issue you mentioned, I think allowing officers to review their footage at will would be more valuable than blind dropping such data. Some compromise is caused, but it's still a pretty tough system to beat when implemented well.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27, @04:07AM (3 children)
explains the situation a little better (though it does overuse some security footage). Apparently, Ohio police officers [reason.com] are suing the singer, Afroman, for these videos due to "embarrassment, ridicule, emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation." I don't see why that would happen. /sarc
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 27, @06:30PM (2 children)
It's funny to me that you showed that vid because in my last post I had started to go into civilians videoing the police and suggesting we needed some sort of addition to the law so that copyrighted material that lands in that vid isn't an automatic take down. My post was running long already (and my back was killing me) so I dropped it. But that is something else on my wishlist of things to do to. What I don't have is a solid idea of what that would look like. How does one create a reliable exception for videos involving law-enforcement?
I agree, man. Thank you for being patient with me.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27, @07:35PM (1 child)
In the US, you don't need an exception if you honor the first amendment.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 27, @09:24PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩