Good Cop, Bad Citizen? As Cellphone Recording Increases, Officers Are Uneasy

[Jack Burton]

Someone earlier posted about cops harassing an open carrier in New Mexico and I suggested that we are soon reaching a tipping point where the cops will know that a sufficient number of people are willing to video them that will make this type of behaviour risky on the part of the cops.

Coincidently, there happens to be an article about this very subject posted today in the ABA Journal...

Good Cop, Bad Citizen? As Cellphone Recording Increases, Officers Are Uneasy - Magazine - ABA Journal

 

[superjoe76]

Its all BS... this translates into, "We used to be able to be JBT, but everyone has a camera and now we can't get away with anymore! Its not fair!"

 

[BlueEagle]

Yeah...as they say to us so often, "if you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

 

[jbombelli]

Its all BS... this translates into, "We used to be able to be JBT, but everyone has a camera and now we can't get away with anymore! Its not fair!"

And a corresponding nice, warm cup full of STFU! from the courts.

 

[rw496]

The guys that do it will continue to do it and the ones that don't still won't. Not a lot of thought goes into being a JBT it just comes naturally for some.

 

[littletommy]

I can see this (video recording) as having the possibility of leveling the playing field. That is, until a corrupt system makes it completely illegal everywhere, under any circumstance, to do so. In the name of officer safety, of course.

 

[Gabriel]

We've been recorded for years. There's really nothing new about it other than there are more people with cameras on their phones. Big deal. I've seen myself on YouTube twice now.

 

[canav844]

What cop in the last 20years hasn't been instructed to act in a manner that they would be ok with seeing on the nightly news? "Investigative reporting" by news outlets have wasted countless hours of tape trying to follow and tape officers in secret, and there are security cameras a most any public business, and many homes, I think the honest expectation is if you're on duty or in a squad car then odds are a camera is recording so act appropriately. I think Gabriel is right here, this is very far from being anything new.

 

[IndyBeerman]

What cop in the last 20years hasn't been instructed to act in a manner that they would be ok with seeing on the nightly news? "Investigative reporting" by news outlets have wasted countless hours of tape trying to follow and tape officers in secret, and there are security cameras a most any public business, and many homes, I think the honest expectation is if you're on duty or in a squad car then odds are a camera is recording so act appropriately. I think Gabriel is right here, this is very far from being anything new.

But if that was the case then there would not be these countless YouTube videos of officers acting inappropriately on a consistent basis.

Officers that are going to ba a bag will be one, regardless if a camera is on them or not. It's just the human nature of some of them.

 

[NIFT]

Hmmm....I guess the old saw, "Every bullet has a lawyer attached" can be extended to cell phones with the Glik case!

 

[jsharmon7]

I don't care. Just don't be trying to shove it in my face or try to intimidate me with it. It's already going to be on video anyway so what's one more camera?

 

[eatsnopaste]

“Police serve a vital function and most law enforcement officers are very decent people who should be commended,” Krages says.
“However,” he adds, “the police are in a position to grossly abuse civil liberties, and the bad ones cause a lot of harm. In many situations, a determination of what actually happened comes down to deciding whether the officer is more credible than a suspect or citizen. Consumer-level imaging, particularly video, has captured images of officers acting very inappropriately in all sorts of situations.”




As said above, those who don't fear the camera more than likely are professional in all they do, thus have no need to worry about this ruling.

 

[figley]

I don't care. Just don't be trying to shove it in my face or try to intimidate me with it. It's already going to be on video anyway so what's one more camera?

?

The good officers should welcome this, as it will aid them in outing the real $**%&-bags who bring discredit upon them all.

From the article:

Adds Krages: “Law enforcement personnel are still grappling with the idea that ordinary citizens have the right to take images, whereas previously such photographs and videos were taken by professionals employed by traditional media companies.”

...that can be controlled by the state? Or, ...are owned by persons beholden to the state?

“Those mainstream journalists who cover the police have developed an understanding with the police that many private individuals have not.”

Report things in our favor, or risk losing access?

The 1st Circuit found... “Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.”

AMEN

Graber accepted his ticket, then posted his video. A few weeks later, he was awakened by six officers raiding his parents’ home, where he lived with his wife and two children.

OMGWTFHOLYNOKNOCKCRAZINESSBBQ??@!!

But police also claim they are covered by qualified immunity. The doctrine shields government officials from liability for the violation of an individual’s federal constitutional rights—so long as the official’s actions, even if later found to be unlawful, did not violate “clearly established law.”

As a society, have we decided that this is acceptable? I couldn't decide which one of these is most appropriate:

 

[supermahns]

BOOM! that was good. Puts the whole situation in perspective. Hypocrisy.

 

[Sgt7330]

I've had in car video and personal audio while on duty for my whole career, going on 12 yrs. If someone wants to video me working thats fine. Its the person trying to get in the middle of the fight, crash, domestic or incident and provoke, inflame or interfere that is wrong. Stay on the sideline and video.
Just a side note - I didnt have all the buzz or media coverage several years ago when I was accused by a female arrestee of rape. No big outrage, no news articles, no forum threads speaking out against anything. The in car video was reviewed and the accusation was proven false as quick as it started. The accusor was charged with an additional count of false reporting, end of the story.
There are still some who can be called the good guys.

 

[JStarr]

I don't care. Just don't be trying to shove it in my face or try to intimidate me with it. It's already going to be on video anyway so what's one more camera?

Well, SOMETIMES the police video from the squad car can mysteriously disappear to protect the LEOs ass. One instance in Portland, Indiana where a young man was killed on a motorcycle as he fled and the video from the officers car that the LT had put in the car at the begining of the LEOs shift just up and walked away. There's something wrong with that situation. Yeah, the young man should not have fled and the officer should not have given chase to the individual since the LEO openly admitted that he knew who the young man was and where he lived. Something is downright fishy in that particular instance. I have a audio recorder in my pocket and my cell phone on me all the the time no matter what, to protect my ass and to not get implicated on something I did not do .Not all, but, SOME LEOs will do anything just to put someone in jail. The power trips need to stop, and the whole respect thing too. Give respect get respect. Dont expect it because you have a uniform and a badge. Girl scouts have uniforms and badges too. Not all LWOs are bad I have met a lot that are nice, respectful, and upstanding individuals. They're out there.

 

[Jeremiah]

Look at the recent BART case. I'm glad people filmed that. Te cops argument was he thought he was holding his tazer! He shot a man in handcuffs and lieing under the officer on the ground iirc. Reports say the handcuffed man had a knife that wasn't caught on film, bu through it away when asked.

 

[fullmetaljesus]

Im sorry im slow, but what is JBT?

 

[Jeremiah]

Jack boot thug it as analogous with nazi soldiers

 

[Rookie]

Jelly bacon tomato