49 replies to this topic

[MikeyWretch]

There’s a new law enforcement trend sweeping the nation wherein the police arrest citizens who lawfully videotape them and then charge them with wiretapping and other ridiculous offenses.

pigs

[jeremx]

There’s a new law enforcement trend sweeping the nation wherein the police arrest citizens who lawfully videotape them and then charge them with wiretapping and other ridiculous offenses.

pigs

my apologies if this is in the article that i have yet to read.. (make that "watch") i wonder if you can get away with just holding your hand over the microphone since i was under the impression that the wiretapping pertained to audio.. anyone know if it's video as well? maybe that's why you see those, "hey, you're on camera" signs by security cams in stores. aside from just drawing attention that people are being watched.

[MikeyWretch]

But at the same time as a great man has said about this: "what planet do these idiots live on...yes having a camera mounted to the cops helmet will ensure that there will be an unbiased witness....please let me live in candyland too"

[donald]

never liked cops, this only solidifies it more.


No offense to VikingGuitar of course who is a very swell guy and wonderful poster in the bossie forum

[Jacki O.]

what!?!?!?
dat's lame!

[gbell]

As a full time firefighter and paramedic I have to say it would definitely suck to have every call video taped.. so much can be taken out of context. But, aside from that.. I think it's complete shit that someone would be arrested for it. I'm gonna have to look that up and see how they are justifying that. Doesn't seem like that's really valid.

[BigAdamFest]

Step by step they are making it easier to arrest people for absolutely anything. This is total shit. This is the kinda thing that a really good lawyer can make a name for themselves by fighting it. Hopefully we find a cool lawyer to do something like that. Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath or anything.

[raubhimself]

As always it is important to know the law. As the video shows, cops aren't always on top of what the actual law is. Too many people assume they know and it gets them in trouble. That said, it is almost always 100% legal to photograph or videotape in public.

In my opinion all cops should have cameras in their car or mounted to their uniform or something like that. I can see why they wouldn't want that, because often times perfectly legal and reasonable tactics can look much worse. But I also live in this town so pretty much anything I do is videotaped and if nobody is going to consider why I might not want taped all the time, I'm not going to consider why cops might not want taped all the time. And if your job is to have deadly force available at all times, then maybe the job should be taken with utmost seriousness. I'm not even saying these videos should be made public, just available to supervisors and courtrooms when needed.

To be fair though this video makes cops look very bad when really they just pinpoint a handful of unfortunate instances. A cop's job is made easier when the relationship between cops and community is brought together, not wedged apart. When you know the citizens are expecting the worst from you, or just do not like you, you have to expect them to act and react according to that attitude.

[donald]

I know a woman who works as one of the main troubleshooters for Tazer.
She receives and fixes tons of broken Tazers from Cops all over the country.


I guess there are tazers now that have cameras attached to them just for this reason. She said she used to watch some of the video footage off of the tazers to see why or how the tazer stopped working. She stopped after watching some video of a warden tazing naked men in the shower. She didn't see how the guy provoked the Prison Guard but said she will never watch the videos from a tazer again cause she can't handle the brutality of it.


She said that the Cameras for cops is something that is out there but that the cops are pushing hard against it. I guess I can understand, If my boss put a camera on me they would see I was on the shizz all day

[BigAdamFest]

As always it is important to know the law. As the video shows, cops aren't always on top of what the actual law is. Too many people assume they know and it gets them in trouble. That said, it is almost always 100% legal to photograph or videotape in public.

In my opinion all cops should have cameras in their car or mounted to their uniform or something like that. I can see why they wouldn't want that, because often times perfectly legal and reasonable tactics can look much worse. But I also live in this town so pretty much anything I do is videotaped and if nobody is going to consider why I might not want taped all the time, I'm not going to consider why cops might not want taped all the time. And if your job is to have deadly force available at all times, then maybe the job should be taken with utmost seriousness. I'm not even saying these videos should be made public, just available to supervisors and courtrooms when needed.

To be fair though this video makes cops look very bad when really they just pinpoint a handful of unfortunate instances. A cop's job is made easier when the relationship between cops and community is brought together, not wedged apart. When you know the citizens are expecting the worst from you, or just do not like you, you have to expect them to act and react according to that attitude.

Yeah, cops should have cameras on the cars. I agree. Those things have gotten a lot of actual justice when it comes to people killing cops on traffic stops and such. then they have some kind of evidence.

As far as people getting in trouble for recording cops, they sure aren't making the relationship with the community come together.

Also, and I the only one noticing that they keep giving the cops more and more power, and they keep getting more and more dickish? Drunk with power. No thanks

[DIRT]

As a full time firefighter and paramedic I have to say it would definitely suck to have every call video taped.. so much can be taken out of context. But, aside from that.. I think it's complete shit that someone would be arrested for it. I'm gonna have to look that up and see how they are justifying that. Doesn't seem like that's really valid.

Firefighters and paramedics are great. They are there to help. Cops are there to make you afraid.

[HNIC]

Do you want to be filmed during your workday? How many of you would really be OK w/ that?

[Jacki O.]

Do you want to be filmed during your workday? How many of you would really be OK w/ that?

i would be ok with it. i just pick my nose and surf the internet and occasionally get some work done.

but i also dont have a gun with me at work and engage the public with it ready and loaded.

i agree that if your job involves, and sometimes requires, deadly force, you should accept having to be videotaped. hell bank employees are videotaped all day at their job, why can't cops be?

at my job (which involves forensics - hence the picking of the nose) we often look at security video, cop car video, and highway video to help with our cases, those videos are often invaluable in forensic engineering and accident reconstruction.

i dont support cameras everywhere in public but i do think that if your job permits you to kill people, you should be videotaped. that includes soldiers. maybe we dont want to see what these people do, but we should know.

and if the public is videotaping police doing their jobs and are getting arressted for it, then it's obvious that those officers are not doing their jobs correctly.

i recently went to a CopWatch fundraiser and they had a gentleman from the town of Guadalupe speak at the fundraiser. He said, since Guadalupe is so small, they dont have a police force, so the maricopa county sheriff's office is their police force and we all know how much sheriff joe loves brown people right? So that sucks for them and they are often abused by sheriff's deputies. CopWatch donated some video cameras to them and they began videotaping their interactions with the sheriff's office. Because of this, 2 deputies were removed from their jobs due to what they caught on tape. It helped make their community safer from abuses by the sheriff's office. he was very grateful that they could do this and that it was effective.

In that instance, i think it's imperative that the public be able to monitor what our police forces are doing in our communities.

[BatMan]

I only like one cop.


Jim Gordan.

[HNIC]

Copwatch in theory is a fine idea. However I have witnessed some of those involved with it also be antagonistic towards police for the very reason to film an incident.