Another Day, Another Story Of Police Lying... Only To Be Found Out Due To Video Of The Incident
from the but-after-the-conviction dept
We just had a post about how a video of police showed that they lied in arresting a guy. Josef Anvil points us to a similar, but slightly different, story that took place in Chicago. In this case, Debra Green was in a car in a funeral procession, yelled at the driver of a car who was weaving in and out of the line of mourners' cars. Turns out the driver was an off-duty cop, Sylshina London, (rushing to get to work) who decided to arrest Green for misdemeanor battery charges. On what basis? Well apparently London claimed that Green threw a bottle at her and hit her in the face. Green was actually convicted.The problem? It took a year and a half, but investigators finally realized that some of the incident was caught on police video... and it showed that London's window was shut at the time she claimed Green threw a bottle and that bottle hit her head. Even worse, London repeated that story under oath in court as part of what got Green convicted. Cook County prosecutors have now dropped the conviction and have apparently filed charges against London instead.
It's stories like these that, once again, remind people why it should be encouraged to film police -- and why honest police shouldn't have a problem with it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: law enforcement, lies, police, video
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Ah, the CPD....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ah, the CPD....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ah, the CPD....
I think we need statutes that stipulate MUCH higher penalties for law enforcement officers than for ordinary citizens. Because these aren't isolated incidents; everybody has a story like this, it's just that they don't all make news because only a tiny number have been recorded. We need to make the penalties for abusing the authority (granted to these public SERVANTS by we the people) as severe as we need to until this nonsense stops.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Ah, the CPD....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Ah, the CPD....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Ah, the CPD....
WHY would you expect someone who has sworn to uphold the law to know less about it than someone who has not sworn to do so?
WHY would you give an oathbreaker a lighter punishment than someone who broke the same law and didn't break an oath to do it?
WHY is ignorance of the law not an excuse when you are NOT sworn to uphold the law, but is an excuse for oathbreakers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You can put the old broadbrush away Mike, you aren't scoring any points on this one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
What IS being suggested is that the backlash against videotaping police activity is bullshit because there are enough of these stories to warrant review from every possible source possible. In Chicago in particular, there are many officers who are downright gleeful about the way they can screw with people. I know a couple of them. They used to be friends of mine.
Now they aren't....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
So how many videos? How about 10,000 a year (10%)?
Let's be fair to the many hard working men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
One case is one case too many. I think your litnious test is retarded.Ten percent is literally laughable.
Anything over ten videos a year is just stupid they need to be held to a higher standard not a lower one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
and ignore all the people who make up the law as the go along and taze people in the face?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
How many cases of police officers being racist have showed up lately with the Anon hackings? The police are the same idiots that went to school with power trips. Now they just have badges.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It can be just a few, it has to be something about the culture inside that institution that make that happens.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
You want to be fair? Well that's bloody nice of you. I'm glad fair and nice provide such dependable and just outcomes in your little world.
Step right up and spin the Wheel of Faith where you too can trust that justice will be true, nice and fair - watch out for those 'gotcha' landings though! But you can always spin again! Step right up! You there sir, have a spin, first one's free for your lovely friend too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
These "bad apples" should be shunned, ostracized, and outcast.
Instead they're (at least outwardly) covered for and helped out, and that is why the public is upset with police as a whole, because of this shielding behavior.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Check out all these isolated incidences that go back years and years.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
If they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
As an extension of your logic we can get rid of all police since (like videos of the police) having officers watching the %99 of people isn't fair.
According a quick google search (not completed vetted).there are 307 million for the US population and approx 2.3 million are in jail, That is a small percentage by my math.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's more like this:
one black guy commits a crime. Do we now condemn all black men to jail as a result, call them all criminals, and treat them as direct every time they walk by because one black man committed a crime?
That would be racist.
What Mike suggests with these stories is a bit of "job profiling", where he gets to "attack the man" by pointing out police making mistakes of judgement or errors. But it takes a pretty ballsy move to then suggest that because of it, we should consider all cops corrupt.
As a side note, Mike recently dissed one of those "fake meds kill people" videos because the person involved was in Canada. Yet he used a story of police in Canada with a taser to discredit all police in the US. Smooth move there Mr Masnick!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
No, let's not be fair. A good friend of mine is a police officer. Early on during his career, he questioned if it was a good idea that police officers hold a party at a local bar that was under investigation by police and the liquor control board. He didn't get far. They laughed it off.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Using the 1% ratio, the USA has about 7,000 scumbags employed
as LEO's..
I am sure, that Non-commissioned Officer London, has acted in a similar fashion before..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Given how seldom police act against their own, and how hard it is to get a cop arrested, the fact that they have almost the same rate of arrests as everybody else is telling. If police almost never arrest their own, yet they get arrested at the same rate as non-police for every criminal category, and three times as often for sexual assault, how many criminals in uniform are there anyway?!?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
pick a ratio
How many citizens commit a felony in a given year? Fewer than one in ten, I guess. That means we don't need the “justice” system, right?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
got some kind of fetish where you scrub mike with a broadbrush you haven't told us about?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
While I normally dislike the logic of "An honest person has nothing to hide", police are given powers far above those of normal citizens, and thus need extra scrutiny/oversight.
I would think most officers would want a button camera recording everything they do while on duty. It's more likely to exonerate an honest officer and provide hard evidence when things go to trial.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Yet it is the police who like to use this line to beat us into giving up our rights. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Normal people are not in a position to force others to do anything, the police is.
That is why they should be hold to a higher bar than everyday folks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The people have a right to know that the subgroup they have ordained with a legal monopoly on violence are always acting in the people's best interests.
They are human, and so they can not be trusted to watch themselves. Indeed, we are lax in our civic duties if we turn a blind eye to the abuse of power.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Our job as I told the trainees I worked with was not to drive a school bus, but to get the children safely to and from school. They just let us use a bus because it would take to long to get them there one by one by piggyback.
My job was a public safety job (not as dangerous as a police officers) and since I was doing my job correctly and following the rules, I viewed that camera as protection for me if there was every any question about my performance.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The woman was convicted of something she didn't do, nobody apparently cared enough at the time to digg deeper for the facts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Geesh. You troll-types need to remember to change the pages on your Anti-Techdirt Keyword-of-the-Day Calendars.
"Broadbrush" was a couple of days ago. Today's word is "sycophants".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Feb: "Broadbrush" month
Mar: "Kool-Aid" month
Apr: "Sycophant" month
May: "jackwagon" month
June - Dec: ???
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: what broadbrush?
When you deal with a job where you handle criminal acts, of course you're going to believe everyone else is one. Broadbrush is the police, not Mike.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: broad brush
Don't forget the much larger number of police officers who will close ranks to protect the guilty from 'outsiders'. That 'thin blue line' mentality is a large part of the reason why people are starting to feel that the police are less trustworthy, and more a possible enemy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When officers begin to be punished, having their badges, guns, and pensions removed for performing criminal acts, and they actually get convicted and sent to prison instead of some sweetheart plea-bargain that would not be available to a regular citizen who performed the same crime, then it will be right to stop holding the entire profession accountable.
A police officer who breaks the law should get a treble punishment; if a regular citizen would get 2 years in prison for a crime, the officer should get 6. Failure to abide the very laws they enforce should be seen as one of the most egregious things an officer of the law could do.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Cops, mayors, senators, religious leaders . . .
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Nobody challenges the word of officials apparently and that leads to innocent people being convicted of bogus accusations.
Which reminds me that copyright laws are giving power to an entire industry that is well known to be associated with crimes the power to do the same.
See copyright trolls like Righthaven as an example of the sad state of affairs in America.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I gotta ask...
Someone needs to sue someone. Think of the children.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I gotta ask...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They need to examine past cases.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's stories like this that should let judges and prosecutors know that when it's an officers word against a citizen's, judges and prosecutors shouldn't automatically jump to the conclusion that the officer is telling the truth.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The initial incident was sickening (some members of the procession missed the burial). But in the end, justice will be served as long as the cop is convicted.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
*IF* Officer London is convicted, AND subsequently relieved of her duties AND jailed, AND Ms. Green is compensated for adequately, then justice has ALMOST been served.
Expect this littel incident to cost the citizens of Chicago a ton of $$$
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
1) The lady must have had a horribly incompetent lawyer for the video of the incident (recorded on police cameras) to not have been presented as evidence at the trial to prove her innocence.
2) Since the police had a video of the incidence the whole time, but it took them a year and a half to even view it means either a) some of the cop's buddies, and even prosecutors most likely, were covering things up for them, and/or b) the cops (and prosecutors) were also very incompetent for not reviewing all of the evidence before going to trial. Either one of these conclusions is equally disturbing.
Either way, they ought to press charges against more then just the 1 bad cop. They ought to be investigating the potential corruption/incompetence of other cops & prosecutors who helped cover this mess up for a year and a half until someone got brave enough to release the evidence.
Some say that police abuse of the law and other corruption has just gotten worse in recent years. But in reality it's just gotten much easier to catch bad and incompetent ones.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I'm more impressed the video from those cruisers was even maintained for a year and a half.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Police "Lost" Dashcam Videos
Records show Seattle Police Lost Thousands of Dashcam Rcordings
Eric Rachner's run in with the police shows why these videos are so important.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/130209878.html
There is a Dashcam video of Eric Rachner's arrest telling the Truth.
45,000 Dashcam Videos are missing be exact
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/09/seattle_police_department_sued.php
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Police "Lost" Dashcam Videos
Not the dep't, the individual police officers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is it just me...?
We have lawyers who use the laws to entitle themselves to other's earnings.
We have politicians that do their work mainly to support business over the common people. In my view, this does not make sense.
Police officers should be allowed to make clear conscience decisions on the laws that need to be enforced. They shouldn't be people that turn off their brain, remember a ton of laws and suddenly, they are just messengers of a bad system.
A politician should be a person who listens to what their constituents want, not the monied interests (mainly lawyers) who pay them. I personally believe we need more statesmen than politicians and sadly only a few people in Congress exemplify that quality (Wyden is one)
Lawyers should be looking to help society at large. Making the law something so complex and arbitrary that no one can gain access to it. It's ridiculous.
There's been at least one person that's been able to write up some good information about how to change our laws. Honestly, we need a better way to redress our government and allow more people to have a voice rather than allowing a bad system to hurt them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
honest police?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A higher standard
A buddy who has had to take a lot of gun classes for his security job told me that if someone breaks into my home and I shoot him, I would face a lot less severe judgement than if someone broke into his house and he shot them.
That's because he has a lot of training, and so is held to a higher accountability level than I would be, since I haven't taken any classes.
Cops should know the law, and so should be held to a much higher standard than your average citizen when it comes to cases like this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You are assimilated.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
People dont realize how dangeros it is to be a police officer and how filming police will make they're job even harder!
Their is scientific statistics that show for every 10 person 1 wants to kill cops! Go ahead and film police, this will just help these crimanals identify and find cops to shoot them!
Maybe when all police officers quit there jobs you will realize how much you need them and you will stop acting like spoiled children. You have to realize safety is not possible with too much freedom. Would you really prefer to be dead? With all the crimanals out their I can promise without cops you would be murdared in less then a week!!
Cops our not the crimanals, crimanals are! You're right to film cops is not important compaired to you're safety unless you our crazy!
People like you make me want to quit my job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You can identify cops as the guys driving squad cars and wearing police uniforms. No need for film!
On to what's relevant, I can't imagine a law being passed requiring officers to wear recording equipment, nor do I think that is practical. However, I do feel like an officer that abuses his/her status as a law enforcer in this case deserves a more severe punishment, and to be scrutinized to the point where they would most likely lose their job.
I have yet to hear a good argument why a civilian should not be allowed to film a police officer. Especially in a public setting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
On the other hand I cannot believe you are actually a cop. I mean, this is just too beautiful. You are giving the impression of being an illiterate non-sense-spouting idiot. You have got to be a satire of sorts.
OK, I can't resist it: If there were no cops, there would be a wide variety of mechanisms which would emerge to replace cops. For instance, people might start carrying more guns. Private security companies would be more common. Your life-insurance might have a provision whereby the insurance company would pay for an investigator to find and punish the one responsible for your death. Most likely business associations would pay to provide security since a secure environment tends to be good for business.
But let's say none of that happens. Most human beings don't really care much for killing each other. Beyond the punishment and the fear of retribution, there is just the simple fact that its a messy and dangerous affair. Sure, there will always be some bad apples. But for the most part, people would rather live their lives without having to go through dangerous life-threatening conflict. So I think we would last for much longer than a week.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If a cop doesn't break the law in the course of doing their duty, they have nothing to fear from being recorded. In fact, good cops welcome being recorded, since that recording will prove their innocence if they are accused of wrongdoing for actions performed while the camera is on. Any cop that quits his or her job because the public has the ability to record them should be investigated on the spot for corruption and criminal behavior.
If a cop cannot do his or her job without breaking the oath they swore when they accepted that job, then that's a really BIG hint that they're doing the job wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
https://data.cityofchicago.org/Administration-Finance/Current-Employee-Names-Salaries- and-Position-Title/xzkq-xp2w
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The City is one copper cleaner!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bad Coppers
Chicago police has a reputation has being combative and arrogant, just ask a ticket seller at Wrigley Field..
Hear in the St Paul and Minneapolis area, there is a vast difference in conduct and attitude between the two departments..
I am glad most of my dealing is with the St Paul Police Department and not the latter..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]