In this technological society, citizens have a very effective tool to prevent any brutality that might happen or record it when it happens. It is the ability to tape the incident (which today can be done with most cell phones). Some people, both those prone to violence and others who mistakenly think it takes unnecessary violence to police this country, are opposed to the taping of police officers in the performance of their duties. I disagree. Any officer who simply follows the rules of his/her own department should have no fear of being taped.
Courts around the country have upheld the right of citizens to video-tape police in the performance of their duties, but one state thought they had found a way around that. Illinois is a state that has a law preventing the audio-taping of anyone unless all individuals being taped have given their permission. They enhanced this law to make it a felony to audio-tape a policeman, even in the public performance of his/her duties -- punishable by a prison term of from 4 to 15 years. This would make illegal any kind of taping, video or otherwise, that had an audio component.
The law was upheld by a Chicago judge, but overturned by a federal appeals court. The appeals court issued a temporary restraining order preventing any charges resulting from audio-taping of police. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A couple of days ago, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, effectively upholding the action taken by the appeals court. Now the ACLU has asked the appeals court to make their temporary injunction a permanent one -- and with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case, that will probably happen.
This is another small victory for free speech. In the United States, citizens have the right to photograph, video-tape, or audio-tape any public event -- even when the police are involved and have not given their consent. And that's the way it should be in a free country.
San Diego has an interesting relationship with its police department. The city has the smallest force of many major city in terms of ratio, cops to citizens, and has an unusually low crime rate. Homicide solve rate is the highest of any major city by a large margin.
ReplyDeleteNot long ago we had a rash of arrests of police officers, about six in nine months as I recall. Bad charges, too. Coercing sex from womwn stopped for dui, stalking and domestic violence, dui with hit and run, discharge of a weapon connected with road rage...
In the midst of all this, and immediately after, we had episodes of citizens coming to the aid of cops in trouble. A female officer was assaulted during a traffic stop and was being knifed. Two citizens jumped in and corraled the attacker, one of them sustaining injury himself. She said they saved her life. An officer was shot by a sniper and a citizen went to the squad car under fire and used the radio to call for help while another rendered aid to the officer. A third led responding officers to where the fire was coming from. Another officer was shot dead and neighbors brought food and flowers to the precinct all week.
Somehow, the city did not seem to connect the bad officers with the force itself. Part of that was that the force was prompt to act on the evidence of misconduct but much was due, I think, to a history of performance by the body of men and women on the force.