Judge Orders Release Of Dashcam Footage City Officials Thought They Had Paid To Keep Buried
from the city-calls-it-a-settlement,-treats-it-like-a-bribe dept
A federal judge has ordered the unsealing of dashcam footage depicting several Gardena (CA) police officers shooting unarmed men (one of them inadvertently). The city's representatives fought the release of this video for several reasons, none of which appear to be the actual reason: that the video contradicts statements from the involved officers.
Here's the video:
One of the documents the city chose to release was the District Attorney's report on the shooting. This is where the contradictions begin. Obviously, the city thought this would be the last word in the civil suit. Statements from multiple officers all suggest the same thing: the man they intentionally shot (another caught bullet fragments to the spine during the hail of gunfire) made several "threatening" moves that left officers with no other choice but to open fire.
The 14-page report is an echo chamber. Officers, responding to a call about a bike theft, encountered three Hispanic males walking with bicycles. Having reached the unfounded conclusion that these were the suspects, they detained the men. ("Detained" being a fancy word for drew their weapons and shouted a lot.)
The report contains repeated claims by multiple officers that aren't matched by the events depicted in the video. Officers claim Ricardo Diaz Zeferino "ran towards them" and made "furtive movements" in the general area of his waistband. While the video does show Zeferino having problems keeping his hands above his head, it doesn't show much in the way of "furtive movements." It definitely doesn't show his hand "hovering" over his back pocket.
The document is a fascinating depiction of all the things that could possibly make an officer fearful -- an emotion that usually results in "discharged weapons," to use the deflective parlance of hundreds of officer-involved shooting reports: "furtive movements," other officers "seeming scared," right elbow "bowing out," "losing sight" of a hand, "big swinging motion" of Diaz's right hand, "manipulating something on the right side of his body," and so on. How a motion can simultaneously be "furtive" and "big and swinging" is beyond me, but then again, I rarely have to explain why I've shot an unarmed person.
Beyond that, there's additional claims made to buttress the righteous shoot. Diaz had a "maniacal grin." Diaz's movements became "faster and more deliberate." An officer expresses his disbelief that Diaz would ignore an order to keep his hands up, believing such disregard for authority to be indicative of Diaz's intent to kill. Another officer states he believes Diaz was "testing [the officers'] limits" and "closing the ground" between them.
Considering the official background of the shooting, it's hardly surprising the city spent several months fighting to keep this video from reaching the public. Now that it has been made public, the police department has gone into damage-control mode. At best, its efforts are inept.
Police have said the shooting was justified and that the dash cam videos from the squad cars don't tell the whole story. An attorney for the city said this week that one of the videos "looks bad" but that it was not taken from the perspective of officers.I have no doubt that if the video were more exonerating, the city would have never a) fought the release or b) claimed the video "didn't tell the whole story." And the claim that a dashcam video is somehow not a police officer's "perspective" is completely laughable.
Even more laughable is one of the city's arguments in favor of keeping the video sealed. It basically told the judge that the high-dollar settlement was offered in part to buy silence and secrecy.
The Court's rationale for sealing the subject videos was the parties' stipulated protective order—entered against the backdrop of stalled litigation. However, the parties cannot contractually agree to deprive the public of its strong First Amendment interest in accessing these videos, which were filed in connection with a dispositive motion. Defendants assert that the videos should remain sealed because they agreed to settle the case for $4.7 million—an amount above their liability insurance policy—specifically because they expected the protective order to continue and the videos to remain secret.The court is unimpressed by the city's "Hey, we paid good money to make this go away" argument:
However, Defendants' argument backfires here—the fact that they spent the city's money, presumably derived from taxes, only strengthens the public's interest in seeing the videos. Moreover, Defendants cannot assert a valid compelling interest in sealing the videos to cover up any wrongdoing on their part or to shield themselves from embarrassment. The only valid privacy interest in this case belongs to the Plaintiffs, who have made abundantly clear that they wish the videos to be made available to the public.Reason's Ed Krayewski points out that this is exactly why so many cities offer to settle cases like this so quickly.
Moreover, while the videos are potentially upsetting and disturbing because of the events they depict, they are not overly gory or graphic in a way that would make them a vehicle for improper purposes.
Generally such settlements include no admission of guilt by the city—the cops involved usually keep their job, and the settlement money always comes from taxpayers, not from police officers, their unions, or their pension funds. Settlements effectively end discussions on police brutality because many people view them as victories even though they come without admissions of guilt and with the punitive bill being picked up by taxpayers, not cops.But it didn't work here. The city paid out and still has to deal with the repercussions of its officers' actions. It has already filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court. And it has received the most useless of temporary restraining orders in response:
After The Times published the videos online, 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski issued an order that “the police car camera video footage shall remain under seal pending further order of this court.”And, as long as we're talking about transparency, let's discuss the other parties involved in this case. "Interested media organizations" -- including the Associated Press, the LA Times and Bloomberg News -- all filed motions in support of the video's release. And while all were more than happy to post the video as soon as it was released, not a single one of them could be bothered to post the court order that gave them access to this footage. Once again, media outlets continue to pretend public court records are somehow proprietary information. Articles quote from the order, but apparently the $1.30 they paid to download it from PACER (if these outlets paid anything at all) entitles them to interpret public documents on our behalf, rather than allow us to read them for ourselves.
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: dashcam, footage, freedom of information, gardena, gardena police, lies, police
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I am not convinced that your checklist should end with being shot to death... tazed and handcuffed for a short while, maybe. shot multiple times, not seeing it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
AC claiming that murder is fine when a cop does it? Check.
Not a 'kill on sight' crime.
one of worst neighborhoods for gang violence in america
Not a 'kill on sight' crime, or criminal at all.
continues to screw with the police after multiple warnings by reaching in pockets
Not a 'kill on sight' crime.
It is fun trying to excuse cold-blooded murder, or are you really that twisted that an action that would be blatantly illegal if done by anyone else is suddenly acceptable when a cop does it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Given that the statement given by the attorney in no way matches the recorded footage, can we get this attorney arrested for 'Depraved Heart' manslaughter, and the officers charged with 1st Degree Murder?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Well, the gangs without badges are more likely to take the bikes of people not watching out for bad elements. The gangs with badges go for their lives.
Definitely a bad neighborhood.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's thanks to a mix of two factors.
First, police are trained to always see the public as a threat, and are always told by the ones training them and the ones they work with that everyone they meet intends to harm and/or kill them, and therefor they are constantly seeing threats even when none exist.
Second, the system is so stacked in their favor that if you're a cop who happens to want to cause bodily harm or even kill someone for looking at you funny, you can rest assured that your buddies on the force, and the court will have your back, allowing you to literally get away with murder. As you can imagine, this attracts a lot of sadists and sociopaths, eager to sign up for a job where they can pretty much do anything they want and never suffer any real consequences for it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Cop has no choice in this. If it means that 999/1000 people do not intend him harm, 1/1000 the cop is dead. He has to treat every situation as potentially lethal or know that he will not make it home sometime in his career.
Now the stacked in his favor part I support. It's that way because the same folks who review depend on the cops to do the job for them... sort of a built in conflict of interest. There needs to be an independent review somehow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
It sucks but it's the world, we put cops in a position where they are never judged reasonably so they seem to be resulting more and more to brute force when considered communication and restraint in their actions would be called for. When you deal with the dregs of society you get to the point that you see every interaction as adversarial to the extreme.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The risk an officer takes is not that significantly different than normal crime. The statistics seem to imply that there are a lot of other jobs with greater risk than cop.
Additionally, a Cops 'concept' of personal safety does not actually trump citizen rights. The constitution does not say that citizens rights end when a police officer "feels" threatened. Threats must be legitimate before they can employ deadly force in defense of their life or others.
Being a cop is definitely a tough job, no one is really saying otherwise, but that difficulty is hardly justification for giving officers a pass on bad behavior.
The moment a member of law enforcement can no longer see the citizenship as fellow humans to 'serve and protect' instead of 'the enemy' is the moment they need to be removed from the force. Cause lately, they serve the public very little and protect practically nothing except their egos.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
There are plenty of jobs more dangerous than that of police work, yet that doesn't give the ones in those jobs excuse to open fire 'just in case'. As such, I fail to see how cops should get a pass because they might be in danger of suffering significant harm at some point during their career.
A cop wants to make it home alive, fine, I get that and to that extent I don't have a problem with it. It's when they do so by making it so that someone else doesn't make it home alive that I have a problem with their actions.
The job can be dangerous, I agree, but that shouldn't give them the right to gun someone down unless presented with a clear and present threat to their life or the life of someone else that can only be resolved with immediate lethal force, and it should never give them the right to do so without repercussions. Every death caused by a cop should receive the same scrutiny and treatment that any other death receives, not just brushed aside by clearly biased parties and given a pass.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is not you said in the first message, you said they are trained to view the public as a danger and I said of course they are, because there is a chance in every case that the public they are dealing with is lethal. You should wear a seat belt every time you drive "in case you get in an accident not because you are going to get into one". The cop has to treat each case as lethal jeopardy because it might be and to not be ready for that is a death wish.
Does that mean they should kill folks on a whim, NO WAY!! The cops in this case should be prosecuted for murder. The over stepped their authority, committing a criminal act that can't be justified. That is not a reason for any cop not to be ready to respond to a lethal threat in every case, they can't afford otherwise. What they need to do is be able restrain that lethality when it's not required. Just because you need to be ready to kill doesn't mean you have too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is not you said in the first message, you said they are trained to view the public as a danger and I said of course they are, because there is a chance in every case that the public they are dealing with is lethal. You should wear a seat belt every time you drive "in case you get in an accident not because you are going to get into one". The cop has to treat each case as lethal jeopardy because it might be and to not be ready for that is a death wish.
Does that mean they should kill folks on a whim, NO WAY!! The cops in this case should be prosecuted for murder. The over stepped their authority, committing a criminal act that can't be justified. That is not a reason for any cop not to be ready to respond to a lethal threat in every case, they can't afford otherwise. What they need to do is be able restrain that lethality when it's not required. Just because you need to be ready to kill doesn't mean you have too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or might not have been, if the people they were facing weren't fearing for their lives, faced with someone who can gun them down on a whim and knows it.
A phrase I'm fond of is 'Self-fulfilling prophecy', and it fits this situation quite well. By acting as though the public is the enemy, and treating them as such, the public becomes the enemy, because they can no longer trust that the police have any interest in protecting and helping anyone but themselves.
Their training, and the actions that follow from it, only make things worse for everyone, including the police.
The cop has to treat each case as lethal jeopardy because it might be and to not be ready for that is a death wish.
No, they don't, and in fact shouldn't. By acting in such a manner, they unnecessarily escalate otherwise harmless situations, leading to deaths that could have easily been avoided were they not taught 'shoot first, ask questions never'.
Their job is that of protecting others, putting themselves at risk to do so if needed. If they want to prioritize their own safety over the safety or lives of others, then they chose the wrong job, and need to quit.
That is not a reason for any cop not to be ready to respond to a lethal threat in every case, they can't afford otherwise.
Define 'lethal threat'. Is it someone holding a gun? Someone holding something that might be a gun? Someone who you can't see both hands of? Someone with a hand in their pocket/jacket? Someone acting 'funny'? Someone who takes a swing at them?
The problem with the idea that they should be ready to respond to 'lethal threats' is that it's been expanded such that pretty much anything qualifies these days, leading to a lot of corpses. Should they be ready to defend themselves or others? Sure, but lethal force should be the absolute last resort, even if that means taking a risk on a potential threat.
As your last line notes, just because they can, doesn't mean they should, but these days they absolutely are, and a lot of the reason behind that is because they've been so trained in the idea of public=threat, and act accordingly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm not sure that the two commenters above who seem to endorse what happened actually watched the video. It shows the event from two angles and to my eyes the victim merely lowered his arms, not reaching for his pocket as has been suggested, and was shot. Not even a hint of anything "lethal".
There is no excuse. The cop was trigger happy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You would think so, but really their job is to investigate crimes and apprehend suspects. I believe court cases have determined that police have no duty to protect citizens.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's just a slogan on a car. A particular police officer has no legal duty to protect any particular citizen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Duty of care
I've observed that sometimes our courts make a lot of shitty rulings. Or even good rulings that are extrapolated inappropriately to mean differently than the original intention.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Duty of care
Perhaps not. I don't think that's the root of the problem with police, but it can't be helping.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Dopes that mean anybody can shoot any stranger that approaches them, because they may be muggers, or physcopaths out to do them harm?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Stacked in the favor of law enforcement officers in this case = all suspects presumed guilty.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The people who believe that "every situation is potentially lethal" are called soldiers and are trained specifically to kill. Unless you are a member of a SWAT-like team that's called into an already escalated situation, rolling out everyday in your patrol car with that attitude is already disastrous.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Strangely enough, in other parts of the world, cops are trained to use far less lethal force - I once witnessed a Dutch police officer spend 20 minutes convincing a guy with a machete to just give it to him.
This was on a busy street, no guns drawn, no massive 'cordon' - just one cop & his partner with patience and empathy. The guy was obviously mentally ill or on drugs, he had been living in the phone booth next to my house for months.
In the US, he almost certainly would have been shot. There is no reason for this, it's really just an attitude & training problem. On top of it, police violence begets more violent suspects, it's a vicious circle.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"being a police officer is a dangerous job"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "being a police officer is a dangerous job"
http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/cell-tower-climbers-die-78374
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "being a police officer is a dangerous job"
http://www.ranker.com/list/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america/american-jobs
http://www.wa shingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/28/charted-the-20-deadliest-jobs-in-america/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And now that the video has been published and people have copied them to which there are copies now located outside of the US jurisdiction then good luck to them with having the video removed entirely from the internet. If piracy can't be stopped then the entire removal of this video from the internet isn't going to happen.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The stories I've read stated "trace amounts", which suggests 'not under the influence'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yeah, I think our police are a little too free for anyone's good and, at this point, there's a lot of training out there for these guys that is *highly* suspect. Taxpayers pay the bill for officers that kill. That seems flawed on many, many levels.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
that will learn them
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Being stupid near a cop should not carry the death penalty.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2015
Many of those were described as "left the roadway" or "crossed the centerline". Only a few were during a pursuit, which is a separate category.
Note that you have to read the descriptions to get an accurate count, since some seem to stretch the definition of a police fatality (e.g. a police dog killed in an accident, cancer described as 9/11-related).
There were 11 deaths from heart attacks, 1/6 of the total. It seems odd to count those as police deaths when comparing the count to people killed by police.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And it shouldn't end with just the officers at the scene. Their superiors had to know the officer's testimony didn't match what the video showed and yet chose to back the officer's accounts. These superiors should also face Obstruction and Conspiracy charges for helping with the cover-up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I mean someone could suggest them, but there is nobody in the legal profession, or law enforcement, or government, in the United States, that would even consider allowing such travesties of injustice to become reality.
Suggest such changes to the law too loudly or often and the members of the law industry just might find a legal excuse to protect itself, by removing your ability to breathe air ever again.
Welcome to the Fascist States of America.
---
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They see a cop with a gun drawn, they will assume they are about to get shot regardless if they've done anything wrong or not. Fight or flight instinct kicks in, since it's hard to run from a bullet they may decide to engage. Just because the Police Officer had a gun drawn, the engagement now becomes lethal. They could cause the very situation they are trying to avoid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Lots already do.
"They see a cop with a gun drawn, they will assume they are about to get shot regardless if they've done anything wrong or not."
Yes, because that's a very reasonable assumption.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
LAPD guns, over and over and over
lone 14 year old shot 5 times across the street, 'gang colors'; dead by LAPD. I'm told i will 'go to jail the hard way'.
Traffic stop, big red drop-top caddy, guns in my face (i'm watching from sidewalk in front of the house), guns in father's face, kids face down on hot pavement.
LAPD chases suspected burglar up this driveway and 'arrest', i spend a few days washing away the blood.
My church let's out on Sunday, then LAPD stops and writes 'ticket' to a local black child on his bike, AMONG US WHITES AS WE STAND ON SAME SIDEWALK.
My 75 year old black neighbor was shot dead by the LAPD last year on the back lawn of his own gorgeus home in broad daylight. The TV news interviews were of an unknown actor-witness, placing nonsensical blame on the homeowner.
And, every time anyone calls 911 in the Hood, it goes badly for us; we haven't seen a black LAPD officer in a patrol car in ten years. Except- all local motorcycle officers are black.
What the Phuc would i know?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Murder
[ link to this | view in chronology ]