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A veteran police officer in Pennsylvania has been indicted for murder after her taser video camera showed her shooting an unarmed man, laying face-down on the ground, twice in the back:
...an arrest affidavit in Mearkle's case said that the video depicts the officer shooting 59-year-old David Kassick as he was on his stomach.
"At the time officer Mearkle fires both rounds from her pistol, the video clearly depicts Kassick lying on the snow covered lawn with his face toward the ground. Furthermore, at the time the rounds are fired nothing can be seen in either of Kassick's hands, nor does he point or direct anything toward Officer Mearkle," the affidavit said.
The Hummelstown Police Department officer, released on $250,000 bail, said she acted in self-defense on February 2, when she attempted to pull over Kassick for driving allegedly with expired tags. She said that he sped away briefly and then fled his vehicle. With the stun gun in her left hand, she fired it several times in a bid to incapacitate him, she said. As he was on the ground, the authorities say she shot him twice in the back with her pistol.
Video evidence of Eric Garner's homicide by police chokehold did not lead to an indictment of the officers involved, which led many to question the efficacy of body cameras to cut down on police abuses. Mearkle's case, however, seems to present a counter-example.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday March 30 2015, @12:47AM
Expired vehicle tags = Death on sight in the free land of USA.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by davester666 on Monday March 30 2015, @02:40AM
I mistook my 9mm for my stun gun, and I was only trying to get him into custody. And I could hear his thoughts in my head, saying that he wanted to rape me.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @02:19PM
He was not shot for simply having expired tags, something for which a police officer may legitimately pull you over. He is dead because he escalated the situation by evading the police, probably because he feared arrest because he was drunk. This is not meant to justify the shooting, but I would point out that if he had simply stopped, he would likely have received a simple ticket for his expired registration, or at worst, been arrested for DUI.
(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Tuesday March 31 2015, @04:54PM
Do we actually have any evidence for this accusation other than the words of the convicted and her attorney? Because somehow, I don't think that is very compelling evidence.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 30 2015, @01:13AM
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/ [photographyisnotacrime.com]
Citizens have to fight to hang on to their right to photograph. The government does not.
As for body cams, recording devices, and other footage obtained by police:
Dash Cam Video Shows Michigan Cops Lied About Beating Man They Arrested [photographyisnotacrime.com]
Questions Remain Unanswered in Berkeley Police Shooting of Antonio Martin Near Ferguson [photographyisnotacrime.com]
New Orleans Cop Turns off Body Cam before Shooting Man [photographyisnotacrime.com]
New York Deputy Turns Off Dash Cam After Pulling Over Drunk Cop Before Chaos Ensues [photographyisnotacrime.com]
A Study in Contrasts Between Rialto Police and Albuquerque Police in Regards to Body-Mounted Cameras [photographyisnotacrime.com]
Bellingham, WA Police Officer Says He Will Not Get a Body Cam [photographyisnotacrime.com]
Miami-Dade Police Union Boss Claims Body Cams Place Cops’ Lives at Risk (Updated) [photographyisnotacrime.com]
The "panopticon" will work in your favor... if you're lucky.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Monday March 30 2015, @04:48AM
And the only reason the cop was not wearing his body cam was because he had not been trained to clip it on his uniform and turn it on, which takes approximately six months to get it right, said Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins.
I actually went and read the linked article to see if that was taken out of context, or even a fabrication.
But no, the mayor apparently does think it takes six months for a police officer to learn to use a clip and a switch.
Just how low is that maximum intelligence level on the police admissions test?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday March 30 2015, @09:17AM
It's not lowest IQ for admission. It's highest IQ we will allow. ;)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mojo chan on Monday March 30 2015, @07:26AM
Copy should be monitored while on the job because they have extra-ordinary powers over us. The rest of us need privacy.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 30 2015, @08:48AM
Or even more directly regarding the headline, somebody could explain what the hell "panopticon" means, for us slow puppies who aren't familiar with random Greek etymology (or is this a common thing we've been constantly referencing lately on SN that I just missed out on from not keeping up with it).
According to Wikipedia:
The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman.
So...we're talking about cops behaving differently because they're being constantly recorded?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fadrian on Monday March 30 2015, @02:07PM
Uh, yes.
BTW, it's hard for me to believe that someone doesn't know the term. The Panopticon was one of the seminal thought experiments/touchstones in both social liberty and prison reform movements. I don't know of many folks who've avoided the term. At least unless they were trying to avoid it.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 30 2015, @04:21PM
Well, you've just met one. And no, I was not "avoiding" the term.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @08:02PM
Sorry we're not all as smart as you, or perhaps we're just not sophisticated enough to appreciate the things that are of utmost importance as you clearly are. Or maybe it is because some of us got real degrees and weren't mentally masturbating over in the liberal arts wing.
I know a lot of cool shit from out of my sphere of influence too. Insights into complicated systems. I can sling differential equations with the best of them. I can talk of many things, such as shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. The generalitites of some of the shit I know well, such as the effects of ionizing radiation on people, I truly believe that people can and should know this stuff better, but one thing I don't do is be a dick to them if they don't know it, and then be a pompous ass by suggesting that they must be actively trying to avoid such knowledge.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Monday March 30 2015, @06:22PM
Don't worry about the guy making fun of you for not knowing a word. You're just one of today's lucky 10,000. [xkcd.com]
Bentham is a really interesting figure. If you're unfamiliar with his work, it might be worth looking into. He was a balls-to-the-wall utilitarian who loved poking fun at social norms. Here's what wikipedia says about how he had his body preserved after death (emphasis added):
On 8 June 1832, two days after his death, invitations were distributed to a select group of friends, and on the following day at 3 p.m., Southwood Smith delivered a lengthy oration over Bentham's remains in the Webb Street School of Anatomy & Medicine in Southwark, London. The printed oration contains a frontispiece with an engraving of Bentham's body partly covered by a sheet.[18]
Afterward, the skeleton and head were preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the "Auto-icon", with the skeleton padded out with hay and dressed in Bentham's clothes. Originally kept by his disciple Thomas Southwood Smith,[19] it was acquired by University College London in 1850. It is normally kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the college; however, for the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, and in 2013,[20] it was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where it was listed as "present but not voting".[21]
Bentham had intended the Auto-icon to incorporate his actual head, mummified to resemble its appearance in life. However, Southwood Smith's experimental efforts at mummification, based on practices of the indigenous people of New Zealand and involving placing the head under an air pump over sulphuric acid and simply drawing off the fluids, although technically successful, left the head looking distastefully macabre, with dried and darkened skin stretched tautly over the skull.[18] The Auto-icon was therefore given a wax head, fitted with some of Bentham's own hair. The real head was displayed in the same case as the Auto-icon for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks. It is now locked away securely.[22]
Here's a picture of the head. [staticflickr.com]
Back on topic, I thought the use of the term "panopticon" to describe citizens filming/photographing the government was kind of odd. It seems much more applicable to NSA style surveillance, where the government is constantly monitoring a bunch of proles but is (currently) unable to parse the data about each prole in a way that would extract the optimum amount of information from their surveillance feeds. By contrast, citizens filming police seems more like the prisoners watching the guard than the guard watching the prisoners. I still see the parallels to Bentham's panopticon, but I would hesitate to draw the comparison without actually exploring where it breaks down. I could see including it without further mention in a story about centralized surveillance (Big Brother), but not a story about distributed surveillance (Little Brother).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @10:33PM
It is probably because you actually know what it means and you're not trying to sound smarter than you really are, like the article title is trying.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @07:45PM
They also have to fight for their right to paaaaaarrrrrrrr-taaaaaaayyyyyy!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Monday March 30 2015, @01:14AM
OK, this time he wasn't resisting, but if he had defended himself in any way everyone would be saying the cop was justified.
Never forget, when you ask for a law to regulate the height of your neighbor's grass, that laws are enforced by, well, force, and if someone steadfastly refuses to submit the violence will gradually escalate until death.
Is it really worth it to kill someone over license plate tags?
Why is it so vitally important that the government has tags -- and not just plate numbers but currently renewed tags -- on every car? Is the purpose so critical that we are ready to kill those who don't bow down?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @02:27AM
If he had tags he wouldn't have been pulled over. Furthermore, he ran for it. Being a f-tard about it, he risked his own life and lost.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @02:31AM
If the police hadn't shot him, he would still have his life.
"If you hadn't looked at the policeman in a funny way, he wouldn't have shot you. Therefore, it's entirely your fault that he chose to make a personal decision to shoot you for doing so." doesn't seem like good logic to me. You seem to be saying that if you commit a crime (or do anything to make police angry), the police are faultless if they use excessive force against you, despite it being *their decision* to use such a level of force. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? The person is responsible for committing the crime/whatever they did, and the police are responsible for the level of force they use.
Don't be a worthless government bootlicker.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @03:39AM
Don't mind them, victim-blaming is a conservative tradition.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @06:00AM
> Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
That's only for individuals.
Institutional responsibility gets a pass.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by mrcoolbp on Monday March 30 2015, @03:45AM
I agree there's lunacy in "routine stop ends in death" here, but once you start running from police, and ignoring orders, you put your own life at risk. I think the officer here used extremely poor judgement, and deserves more than a slap on the wrist, probably jail time (read: indicted for murder, $250,000 in bail).
I'm all for curbing the police state, and furthering the "we should be able to record police anytime, anywhere" agenda. But FFS people, don't run from police, don't resist arrest. Doing so tells them that you are a potential threat to their lives. If shit goes down: Just wait for your lawyer, and hope there is a camera running.
I may be flaimed for this but here it goes: put yourself in the police officer's shoes, if you pulled someone over for a missing tag and they ran/resisted, what would you think/do? Yes there are serious issues with how are police are trained, and the conventions that exist. But don't fight cops, they have guns. Get a good lawyer and fight in court.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @04:03AM
When the police are routinely documented and recorded killing people who don't kiss their boots, why would running from them not be considered prudent?
Unfortunately, it's a lose-lose proposition. Flee for your life and like as not, they'll hunt you down and kill you. Stop and do as they demand and there's a reasonable chance, especially if your skin is melanin-rich, that you'll be arrested for "resisting" them by striking their fists, feet, batons or other accessories with your face and possibly even for "assaulting" them by daring to bleed on them while "resisting".
There may be some good eggs -- I hope there are -- but there are enough bad apples in the bunch, either flat-out evil in their own right or dirty for defending/not turning in the evil ones, that your life and liberty are at risk in any encounter with the enforcers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @11:39AM
There may be some good eggs -- I hope there are -- but there are enough bad apples in the bunch, either flat-out evil in their own right or dirty for defending/not turning in the evil ones, that your life and liberty are at risk in any encounter with the enforcers.
You've got it backwards, actually. There is a tiny fraction of all cops who are truly bad, evil, sociopathic, and so on. People who shouldn't be near a gun, shouldn't be in a position of authority. Those few are the ones we see in the news. There are just over 1 million sworn police officers in the United States; if the vast majority of them are bad and only a select few are good, as you stated, every evening news segment would be three hours of bad cops acting bad in every city and county in the nation. Statistically, "most cops are corrupt/evil/bad and only a few are good" just doesn't add up; it's hyperbole, or exaggeration, or whatever you want to call it.
The thing is, it only takes one bad cop to bring a department down. Every agency I worked for when I was in that line of work would immediately expunge a bad cop once he was found out, and one agency in particular actively worked to make sure their officers were good people and true servants of the community. With that said, yes there are agencies that are "rotten to the core", with corrupt management and a large percentage of bad cops. You see that kind of thing in small towns/counties, and in large cities. But Middle America is filled with good cops who hate the sociopaths as much as the rest of us do, and don't want to be associated with them.
I left that line of work in part because I was seeing my department headed towards acceptance of the "bully cop" type of policing, and being a peon I had no power to stop it. I didn't want to be associated with that. But that kind of thing is much less common than most people, especially cop-haters, think.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 30 2015, @06:58PM
Are you sure it's *still* less common? I will agree that the evidence seems to show that MOST police are not actively evil, but it also seems that most of them are willing to cover for associates that are. In fact I rarely hear of an example of one police officer testifying against another in court over a felony, even when there is decent photo evidence that there were multiple witnesses who were police officers (and that the felony happened). Now I can accept that occasionally the photo evidence may be misleading, but to claim that that's always the case is flat out ridiculous. So you are painting MUCH too sunny a picture.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Monday March 30 2015, @08:15PM
This is exactly the problem. The movement towards "Bully Cop type policing" as you put it, is undermining the work of all the good cops in the community, and painting all cops with the same sociopathic brush.
The cops in question may be good people, with the best of intentions. When they act like bullies though, how can you expect the community to see them as anything else? When all the cops in an area start behaving like sociopaths, that just lets the truly "bad apples" hide among the "good" ones. Soon you have an entire police force acting the same way as the "tiny fraction of all cops who are truly bad, evil, sociopathic, and so on".
That's why police forces are loosing the public's confidence.
The movement towards "Bully Cop" type policing, as you put it, is coming from somewhere. It's driving out the truly good cops, (like you, by the sounds of your post), leaving behind only those who can accept the sort of attitude it requires. It's distilling police forces down to exactly the sort of anti-social organizations that you are claiming are rare, and it's happening all over.
I think you might have to accept that, given the scope of the backlash against policing of that sort, the shift towards bully cops is more widespread than you thought.
As far as the community is concerned, it's a case of "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and in almost every respect behaves like a duck... it's a duck".
As far as the individual interacting with police is concerned, if all the cops are behaving like bullies, and the ones who cross the line (to assault or even murder) almost never get punished, how can anyone trust that they're safe? The odds they'll be hurt might be long, but not winning lottery long, and people buy lottery tickets all the time.
Unfortunately, police in the USA aren't collecting these statistics [nbcnews.com], so we don't have the numbers to say for certain just how bad the situation is, and that's part of the problem.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 30 2015, @10:34PM
Well, I come from a different heritage. In my received heritage, the government of the United States owes its mandate to the consent of the governed. As such, the police in the territory where we are deserve no special treatment, but are subject to the same laws as the rest of us. If they break our laws, they are brought to account. It's a radical notion, to be sure, and one that has been lost in most of the rest of the United States. But it remains.
Let those elected officials, even law-enforcement officials, be held to our laws. Let them be held accountable, even unto death, for violating our laws. Let them fear the just citizen, armed with justice, and fully armed, for their just judgement.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @04:30AM
Let them go and call it in? Yeah, suggests something more is at stake than, "Oh, thanks for reminding me, Officer!" But not that the perp must be neutralized at all costs and the use of lethal force is approved.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Monday March 30 2015, @07:58AM
put yourself in the police officer's shoes, if you pulled someone over for a missing tag and they ran/resisted, what would you think/do?
I don't know the actual punishment for missing tags, but I assume it's a fine, or in the worst (unlikely) case a short-term jail sentence. Maybe a license suspension. Also, to get tags you most likely have to go to some agency, maybe even pay for them? (If it's not clear, I have no idea what tags are on a car, but I can still make a few educated guesses.)
So if someone attempted to speed away when pulled over, I'd assume they're trying to avoid the fine/jail/whatever, which is more likely then them being a pirating pedophile terrorist druglord or whatever it is that makes cops shake in their boots.
There is a lot of people living in poverty who need a car or they lose their job, but can't afford to keep the car (or themselves) completely "in the green". I'd say the first reaction upon being pulled over by the police is panic, so they try to run. Well, panicking in front of your Benevolent Protectors now gets you killed.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -- Anatole France
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 3, Informative) by khedoros on Monday March 30 2015, @08:31AM
If it's not clear, I have no idea what tags are on a car, but I can still make a few educated guesses.
It's a vehicle registration plate, often called a license plate, licence plate, number plate, etc (depending on region). In the US, the number on the plate is registered with the state, and there are annual fees to register the vehicle for operation, non-operation, etc. People who are stopped by police with expired tags are issued a ticket, and often have to pay a small additional fee to register their car.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Monday March 30 2015, @01:30PM
Ah, so it's just another name for a license plate. I got the impression it's something else that you also have to keep registered.
Thanks for the explanation.
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @09:32AM
Wait, if I run away I'm a threat to their lives? Do they have a special medical condition that they can't survive someone running away from them?
I mean, I get that running away from the police makes you suspect of having done a crime. But it being a threat to their lives is ridiculous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @10:52AM
Thank you, I needed a good laugh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @11:49AM
Let's say you're a dog, and you see a cat walking where you don't want it to. You go up to the cat, the cat bolts, you chase it. You corner it, and suddenly that cat now has claws in your eyes and teeth in your nose. The cat wasn't a threat while it was running away from you, no. But once you cornered it and it had no way to get away from you, out came the concealed weapons and suddenly your life was at risk.
That's how the cops see it: A fleeing suspect, when cornered, may have nothing to lose and may just have a hidden weapon.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday March 30 2015, @12:21PM
...That's how the cops see it: A fleeing suspect, when cornered, may have nothing to lose and may just have a hidden weapon.
So preemptively shooting someone because they _MIGHT_ have a weapon is an acceptable procedure?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @01:27PM
Absolutely not, and I never said that. I was giving an example of why cops fear a fleeing suspect, nothing more. Putting words in my mouth to prove your point doesn't do much for your argument.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday March 31 2015, @12:26AM
Yeah I didn't say that either. No one is defending the officer in this case. My point was if you run you are asking for a whole lot more trouble; it demonstrates that you have more at stake, and are more likely to be a threat.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 3, Informative) by fadrian on Monday March 30 2015, @02:20PM
If you pulled someone over for a missing tag and they ran/resisted, what would you think/do?
I'm not in this situation, but my daughter is studying to be a LEO, so I guess I'm sort of in this debate by proxy. And, I would say (as hard as it is for me to do so as her father) that her safety is not the paramount issue here. If she chooses to be an LEO, the first priority is to uphold the law. Period. That's her job. And you don't do that by shooting people who are not a threat at the time.
In this case, if the guy was on the ground, as the video seems to indicate, no matter what transpired before, the police officer is in the wrong. And I hope the law prosecutes fully, as not doing so shows that we are no longer a nation of laws, but of ungovernable factions. And that is more dangerous than a criminal having expired tags.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @04:34PM
but my daughter is studying to be a LEO
If this is true, then you would know that this
her safety is not the paramount issue here. If she chooses to be an LEO, the first priority is to uphold the law. Period. That's her job.
is not true. In the academy, officers are told that their first duty is to go home to their families, then they are told that they are to uphold the law. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm simply stating what I've heard from the instructors themselves. Those same instructors say that officers are not to "shoot to kill", they are to "shoot to stop the threat". Based on the limited information we have on the case in the article and summary, the female officer didn't shoot to stop the threat. She had already stopped the threat when she Tased the guy multiple times and he was groveling face down on the ground. She shot to kill, period. Whether her intent was murderous or not is for a jury to decide, but either way she consciously shot and killed an already incapacitated suspect. It would be no different than if she'd bound him hand and foot before shooting him in the back; either way it's homicide, not a justified shooting.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 30 2015, @04:37PM
My problem with this, is that people misbehaving during a police encounter is not an excuse to go ballistic. If the officer can't control the adrenalin rush, they shouldn't wear the uniform.
And while an American cop needs to have a gun, it might be a good idea if they lost the habit of drawing it at the first sign of minor or potential trouble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2015, @05:11PM
My problem with this, is that people misbehaving during a police encounter is not an excuse to go ballistic. If the officer can't control the adrenalin rush, they shouldn't wear the uniform.
You're right, and their training addresses this issue and attempts to weed out the "adrenaline rush junkies", along with those who would hesitate to use their weapon when it was called for. There is a middle ground that makes for a good officer.
And while an American cop needs to have a gun, it might be a good idea if they lost the habit of drawing it at the first sign of minor or potential trouble.
If that were to happen, you'd see a lot more cases of officers losing their lives on what at first glance appeared to be "minor or potential trouble". There's a saying among officers that "there's no such thing as a routine traffic stop", and it's true. The officer has no idea if the person they just pulled over is an innocent grandmother, a typical commuter who drives too fast, or a hardened criminal who can't wait to kill a cop. They have to approach each contact with the public as if their life is on the line, because quite simply, it could be. When the officer is walking up to your car after pulling you over and has his hand on his gun, he's not planning to murder you, he's simply keeping himself ready just in case you plan to murder him. It's how they are trained.
Now, that's no excuse for what happened in the case of the man shot in the back; that cop wanted to kill him, for what reason we don't know and may never know. But when your job is to uphold the laws of the jurisdiction you work in, every day you run the risk of approaching someone who has no respect for those laws nor for human life. An officer who goes blindly into a situation, any situation, with no regard for his or her own life, is not going to be alive very long. But cops are human beings, and there will always be bad cops. Just not nearly as many as everyone here seems to think.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday March 30 2015, @03:39AM
You have a different idea of "gradual" than I do.