The Body-Worn Camera As State's Witness: How Cops Control Recordings

from the the-unseeing-eye dept

"But for video," as they say. (Well, mainly Scott Greenfield…)

Abusive conduct by police officers -- up to and including killing someone for, say, holding a plastic bucket -- has always flown under the "your word against ours" radar. But now everyone has a camera, even the cops.

The push for body-worn cameras is still a good idea, but it has many, many flaws. It won't save the nation from police misconduct but it will put a dent in it. Back when the NYPD was ordered to begin a body camera pilot program, then-Mayor Bloomberg said the devices would become nothing more than another way to play "gotcha" with good cops.

A camera on the lapel or hat of a police officer... He didn't turn the right way. My god, he DELIBERATELY did it. It's a solution that's not a solution…
Bloomberg was prescient, but not in the way he imagined it. He felt cops would be accused of covering something up by failing to get the best angle when recording an arrest. But it looks like the limitations of the cameras themselves are capable of covering up bad behavior even without the active involvement of the officers wearing them.

The ACLU's Jay Stanley pointed this out last year in a post that echoes Bloomberg's complaint, but with the view that cops could use cameras to defeat transparency, rather than participate in it. We already know cameras operated by police officers seem to develop technical issues during controversial interactions. Some are switched off. Some produce video but no audio. Some develop intermittent problems that can't be replicated by tech support, but always seem to have captured everything but potentially damning footage.

Even when they're left on, they can still be used to control the narrative, as Stanley points out.
A stellar example of what I’m talking about can be found in the case of a man named Marcus Jeter, who was pulled over, beaten, and arrested by a Bloomfield, New Jersey officer in 2012. The officer who is beating Jeter can be heard on video yelling, “Stop resisting! Stop resisting! Why are you trying to take my fucking gun! Get off my gun!” In the officer’s dashcam video, it is unclear whether Jeter was, in fact, resisting and/or trying to take the officer’s gun, and Jeter was charged with a number of criminal counts including assault. Internal affairs cleared the involved officers of any wrongdoing and prosecutors offered Jeter a plea deal of 5 years in prison.

Fortunately for Jeter, a second video surfaced showing the incident from another angle. The video was from the dashcam on another patrol car that arrived at the scene as backup, and which prosecutors said was not initially provided to them by police. In the second video, it is clear that Jeter had his hands in the air from the beginning before being attacked by the officer. (The police officer was charged with aggravated assault, and he and another officer also faced charges including conspiracy and falsifying reports. A third officer pleaded guilty to tampering and retired. All charges against Jeter were dropped.)

By falsely shouting that Jeter was resisting and trying to take his gun, even as he beat the motorist, the officer was clearly acting for the cameras, aware that he was playing a role in a public drama where later interpretations of what took place would be contested. And his aggressive physical behavior was matched by an equally aggressive attempt to define how his own actions would be interpreted. He almost succeeded.
Officers are actors and directors in their own scenes. Even when performances are captured by bystanders and their cell phones, there's still plenty of "drama." Multiple cops swarm the same suspect, blocking the body from view. Officers shout "Stop resisting!" even when subjects are prone with hands behind their back and under the weight of four or five cops. This allows officers to deliver extra amounts of force, instantly justified by the repeated shouts about resistance.

This scenario has played out again. Footage captured by police body cameras appears to show a tough, physical struggle to subdue a suspect. Shouts of "stop resisting" continue throughout the recording. The up-close-and-personal body cam footage gives every appearance that officers are wrestling with a highly-combative suspect. But footage captured by another camera shows an entirely different scenario.


Here's Stanley's description of what actually happened, as captured by a security camera:
It’s hard to imagine what more a suspect could do to avoid being beaten by the police. Derrick Price not only puts his hands high in the air, he then proceeds to lie spread-eagle on the pavement before any of the Marion County sheriff’s deputies reach him. And yet the deputies beat him. What appears to be taking place in this video (as in many others, including the granddaddy of them all, the Rodney King video) is that police officers, angry at a suspect for fleeing (and perhaps disobeying previous orders to stop), have taken it upon themselves to punish the suspect for that disobedience.
Compare that to the "official" footage (which starts at 1:42 in the video above) captured by the officer's body camera. (There's a side-by-side comparison of the footage available here.)
[T]he difference between the two videos is… a result of intentional manipulation by the officers beating Price, who repeatedly yell “stop resisting!” as they kick and punch his unmoving body. And the body camera never properly captures the beating of Price, actually facing fully away from the action at some points. It is hard to tell how intentional this was on the part of the officer wearing the camera, but it’s easy to imagine that the officer knew that what his colleagues were doing was not acceptable, and intentionally sought to avoid videotaping them.
The devices that were supposed to result in better policing are becoming complicit in their abusive behavior. Stanley notes the camera was turned on far too late (after the officers had already swarmed the suspect) and turned off far too early (before the suspect was actually in custody). If this had been the only recording available, "our word against yours" would have been completely unassailable. After all, the police department had footage of a highly-physical struggle with a combative suspect. Without the footage captured by an impartial surveillance cam, everything about the arrest would have appeared justified.

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Filed Under: aclu, law enforcement, nypd


Reader Comments

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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2016 @ 12:11pm

    Has the cop who knees this guy all those times been prosecuted?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Ninja (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 12:27pm

    Re:

    Good question. If cops start being punished for such things they would think twice. You never know when there will be a concealed camera so even when you don't have one they will think twice before abusing their position.

    Of course, better screening when hiring cops could help too. You know, keep the sociopaths away from the PDs effectively not giving them an extra tool to exercise their sociopathy.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    jupiterkansas (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 12:43pm

    Those aren't angry cops. Those are cops that are happy they get to beat on someone.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2016 @ 1:20pm

    So someone remind me why I should "back the badge"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    klaus (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 1:54pm

    Re: Re:

    All four cops doing the beating should be prosecuted. The fifth cop looks like he wanted to join in but there wasn't space.

    An ingrained pack thug mentality with no accountability.

    *sigh*

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Daniel, 8 Apr 2016 @ 2:08pm

    #InAwe

    What amazes me about the video is that the negative fifty IQ officers thought they could convince anyone with that performance.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    doodles, 8 Apr 2016 @ 2:46pm

    Your word against ours

    How does "your word against ours" work in the cops' favor when everyone knows not only that cops lie all the time but also that they are legally allowed to do so and formally encouraged by their superiors to do so?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 3:10pm

    Can this incident be used as an example in future cases...

    ...to discredit the precinct (or even these officers) should they ever get into another altercation?

    I think this demonstrates that their word and their cameras aren't to be trusted and should need to be validated by additional, neutral parties.

    Or are we just going to see judges continue to side with law enforcement with much winking and nudging and subsequent blowjobs?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 3:11pm

    Re: Your word against ours

    Because the judge decides, or a select jury of police loyalists.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Derek Kerton (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 5:14pm

    Re: Your word against ours

    I don't think "everyone knew this" prior to the advent of so much smartphone video evidence.

    The question is why does it still work. "The police's word against yours" should result in a "tie goes to the runner," innocent until proven guilty verdict.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2016 @ 5:35pm

    The more they try to hide the corrupt cops the closer we get to people actually declaring war on the police. Who will be seen as just another violent and murderous gang of criminal thugs save with state protection.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2016 @ 5:35pm

    Re:

    They will murder and/or beat you half yo death if you don't

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    pixelpusher220 (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 5:54pm

    Re: Can this incident be used as an example in future cases...

    What flavor lube would you like?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 5:55pm

    Oh shit!

    Florida Man is a cop?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 7:01pm

    They will murder or beat you to death if you do.

    It appears that dead witnesses are more compliant and easier to process than live ones. Especially when towns are as casual regarding filing weapon discharges and police-on-civilian homicides as Ferguson or New York City.

    And we really have no cause whatsoever to assume that any given town is better than those two before actually looking at their statistical history.

    Given the FBI fails to account for police-on-civilian murder, despite they are required to by the US Congress, that kinda indicates they have something to hide.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 9 Apr 2016 @ 1:18pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    And that fifth should be prosecuted too, for not reporting the abuse.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 9 Apr 2016 @ 1:20pm

    Re: Re: Your word against ours

    "I don't think "everyone knew this" prior to the advent of so much smartphone video evidence."

    Maybe not a lot of middle America really believed it, but they certainly had heard the news. But everyone in the judicial and criminal justice system has known that cops are liars for longer than I've been alive.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 9 Apr 2016 @ 2:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: Your word against ours

    I was pretty naive into my young adulthood. I was taught to call the police when there are situations that couldn't be managed without responders, and I believed the countless instructors and safety videos and family that so advised me.

    It's a sore sticking point.

    Friends of mine who are darker skinned than I am learned very early on that neither police nor most authorities could be trusted to do anything but preserve their peace, which usually meant to dispatch the oddballs. Which usually meant they were on the receiving end of abuse, or imprisonment, or gunfire.

    Some of them grew up in the 70s when police brutality was expected in their neighborhoods, so yeah. This isn't a new problem, it's just newly uncovered.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 9 Apr 2016 @ 4:53pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Your word against ours

    "This isn't a new problem, it's just newly uncovered."

    True, but in a very particular way: it's only relatively recently that white-bread middle Americans have been in the crosshairs in a systematic way, so it's only relatively recently that they have discovered there's a problem.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    David, 10 Apr 2016 @ 11:50am

    "You got that wrong, your honor."

    "I wasn't trying to put on an act. What I was shouting was "stop existing". But that guy defied me."

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2016 @ 3:49pm

    I vote this article as most inciteful and insightful!

    All of the officers involved are being charged and all but one has already resigned. The one who is fighting it is probably the last guy to show up but it is hard to tell from the video and pictures.

    No matter what he should still lose his case because he was complicit in his failure to protect Mr. Price from his fellow officers.

    https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/01/28/award-winning-florida-deputy-indicted-for-beating-non- resisting-man-in-surveillance-video/

    As to body cameras, what a sad state of affairs we're in. I've lived many places around the world and have seen corruption at many levels. However, the only place I have ever seen this level of repeated police brutality, except perhaps in a war zone, is in the U.S. I'm sure it happens in other places as well but I haven't personally seen it very often.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2016 @ 12:46am

    So... how do you still leave your house without fear of death by cop? How can you be anywhere any cop can be seen without fleeing as subtly and quickly as possible? I mean, obviously any cop you don't know personally as a very good friend carries the implied possibility of being beaten, raped or shot without any real risk to the officer. Lots of your cops do stuff like that, and the rest covers for them in any circumstance.
    As a child I always wanted to visit the USA sometime. As a grownup, I've learned I should travel to safer places. Like China.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 11 Apr 2016 @ 1:32am

    I find myself doing just that.

    When law enforcement officers are on duty, e.g. managing a situation or driving somewhere in a hurry, then yeah, it's a compulsion to move away from them as quickly as possible, yet not quickly enough to draw attention.

    When they're in cafes getting coffee it's less of an issue and they seem more human.

    I suspect it's a lot like having knights or yeomen around when you're a serf. We'll learn to keep our heads down and stay shit-covered.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2016 @ 6:33pm

    Those cops are terrorists.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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