FBI director claims that videoing police is causing crime uptick The director of the FBI, James Comey, has again claimed that citizens' use of mobile phones to record the police is causing an increase in crime, despite previous direct criticism over the claim from President Obama. According to Comey, the recent spate of videos recorded by ordinary citizens that have shown the police acting …
Here is the problem, most these "videos" when they get uploaded they will neglect to show the whole incident either cause the fool was slow to start the recording or they cut it off and only show when the officer responses to other other person does. SO it makes cop look bad when other guy started the fight or scuffle. Its very common problem where something that happens is taken outta context and people take the video as 100% and never consider what person did to cause the officers response.
Completely true, but the issue I'm having with this is; where are the officer's video files? Every single police person needs to have the video recorder strapped on and running before they strap on their gun. You say "that's too much to deal with?" Then I say, fuck you, idiot, they have a camera in every single squad car now, they can get a camera (hey, gopro, are you guys getting a boner over there about this yet?) on every officer. We need new episodes of cops. And before you call me part of the problem, consider my young nephew is a new recruit at a nearby Sheriff's office, so I'm straddling the fence on this one. Hate the crime, don't hate the officers, love the video. It's the best solution thus far.
I know of one police force here in the UK where the wearing of body cams has become mandatory. The effect of this has been a reduction to near zero in complaints about that forces officers. where there is a complaint, the force simply produces the video of the incident or arrest as evidence. In that force, failure to wear your camera and have it working is a serious offence which can lead to dismissal.
I have no idea why so many downvotes on your post. It is VERY true that even the news deliberately edits out parts to make sensational news headlines. Just look at what they cut out of the Rodney King videos! I actually consider the news more criminal than any other organization.
Fools (your word) make that argument every time. Since viewers hear it every time, the viewers make their judgments understanding the video could have something missing.
But fine, if the cops want the whole picture to be released, then why not have the cameras roll constantly while an officer is on duty? And every bit needs to be made public to everyone instantly. The cops work for the public. The public should have access to their products.
As it is, the cops fight in court to keep the videos hidden. Sometimes they lose, and that's when we see how the cops behave. But often they win, and we don't see anything.
Our local police told us they were looking into body cams but unfortunately, budget pressures forced them to cancel the program. They are still getting the $350K armoured vehicle and $200K worth of fancy shootin' irons to poke out of the gunports but there just wasn't any money for cameras.
They are still getting the $350K armoured vehicle and $200K worth of fancy shootin' irons to poke out of the gunports but there just wasn't any money for cameras.
And that sort of choice of priorities just makes me wonder if they really know they are the police, rather than say a millitary occupation force.
And that sort of choice of priorities just makes me wonder if they really know they are the police, rather than say a millitary occupation force.
While the militarization of the police in the US (and elsewhere) is definitely a huge problem, this particular case may not be a "choice of priorities". In many cases the military hardware is being foisted on police departments through "grants" as a way of shuffling unwanted Department of Defense property around and cashing out stuff they don't want. It's a shadow budget for the DoD and a way to prop up the defense industry boondoggles.
So, a few years ago, Congresscritter X calls up the local Chief of Police and says, hey, fill out this form and we'll give you this armored vehicle plus some, er, "training" budget. Hard to pass that up - it's some extra cash for the always-tight budget, you don't want to piss off the 'critter, and you don't want to look "soft on crime", and if in some crazy situation the local populace thinks you could have used an armored vehicle you don't want to be the guy who turned it down.
But that's the offer on the table. It's not "hey, spend these fungible resources on body-cams or ridiculous military hardware". That is, for some departments it may well be, but often that's not the case.
JFTR, police departments in my neck of the woods have been evaluating body-cams from various suppliers, looking to equip all patrol officers with them.
Please don't use this argument.
"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is a bullshit argument that should be opposed, not adopted. If we force cops to wear cameras at all times, we're actually increasing the gulf between Us and Them, not closing it.
As Sam Vimes so pungently put it: "A policeman is a civilian, you inbred streak of piss!" Our rights are also their rights.
A policeman/woman is a civilian. But, unfortunately, increasingly one with military hardware s/he is ill-trained to use and not enough accountability.
Anyway, as I understand it, the police force in a modern, well-adjusted country is supposed to serve and protect the populace, no? They're employees of the people and so on. So checking how they do their job is not a bad place to start.
Finally, if you find yourself essentially agreeing with the policies of the Eternal Regime in the DPRK, then it's probably a good idea to take a few steps back and check if maybe you've gone wrong, somewhere.
Actually, no. Once you take up a martial role in society (martial in this case meaning you have the capacity to act with force to defend it), your status changes. You're no longer a civilian because you've taken up arms in an official capacity (that's why military and civilians are considered mutually exclusive--police as law enforcers are the former rather than the latter). As Vimes himself once said, that badge doesn't come off even when you're off duty. Anyway, martial power carries intrinsic power (including the ability to influence anything with the power to restrain them), and with it comes intrinsic responsibility.
Civilians don't own attack helicopters and APCs. Police forces do.
And therein lies the rub. A modern police force should not function as a military organization. I know that we here in the US have a tendency to wage war on everything, including Crime. The problem with this is that in a war, there has to be an enemy and in this case there is little to differentiate combatants from non-combatants. Our criminal justice system has created massive incentives to incarcerate people and to take their stuff on the slimmest of pretexts. In other words, we have set up a system in which there are rewards for the police to act as de facto kidnappers and thieves. None of this is the way it should be done.
As far as citizens filming police while on duty, I have not heard a reason why there should be an expectation of privacy for a public official performing their job in a public venue. There is just no way around this. I understand there are a number of issues concerning body cams that still need to be worked out - costs, chains of custody, when they should be turned on, what can be released to the public and when, training... OK, more than a few issues, but none of these things are that much different from what has been dealt with during the introduction of similar tech, especially dash cams.
Concerning the FBI director's claims concerning crime: there are lies, damn lies and statistics. He admitted to a lack of statistics.
Trevor:
Have to admit that on average our police forces (up here) are generally much better behaved than they are down south.
But I'll agree that the ones down south have been more or less loosing the war, and their minds. Which makes those armouries kinda scary scary boom boom bang.
@veti
Please don't use this argument."Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is a bullshit argument that should be opposed, not adopted.
It was fairly obvious to me that he was taking the mick with that comment. The cops/law enforcement/politicians use it all the time, so he was turning it around on them.
Much as it's fun to sit and watch people debate what they think I meant, it's probably time to clarify - I was most definitively being ironic. Quite apart from the context, there was a clue in my use of the word "surely", so apologies to anyone whose command of ironic English wasn't up to spotting the subtlety.
As Sam Vimes so pungently put it: "A policeman is a civilian, you inbred streak of piss!" Our rights are also their rights.
Our laws their laws, so I see no problem unless you think they are above the law and should not be accountable for their actions.
The police should be jumping at the chance to wear body cams as it proves they act within the law. However the fact that some are not says something different about the state of policing in America.
Our laws their laws
But the laws are in favor of THEM.
For example, murder of a police officer (not for hire, not while committing another crime) usually qualifies you for a Capital Murder charge, where murder of a optometrist in the same circumstances would not.
Everything a given police officer does while on duty (or off-duty if still in uniform or if he identifies himself as an officer) is, by proxy, an action taken by each member of the community he represents. Every action he takes is in our names, using authority that is delegated to him by us. We certainly have every right to know what people we employ are doing while on the clock, just as assuredly as Microsoft has the right to monitor what employees in its call centers are saying to customers.
There's one big difference, though: Microsoft employees don't wear armor, carry guns, pepper spray, tasers, or clubs to do their jobs. They don't have the power to bind and capture people and put them in cages, or to sometimes beat or kill them. The call center employee's words aren't considered so inherently trustworthy that a simple statement while on a witness stand can destroy a person's life, and they're not called on to deliver those trusted-by-default words that can change lives nearly every week of their career.
If Microsoft can monitor calls for quality assurance, and the worst their employees can do is not help you find an answer as to why Office or Windows are screwing up, isn't it even more important that we monitor those who, at worst, can kill people or send them to jail wrongfully (in our names) if they decide to do so?
Sorry, but no, our rights are not also their rights. Not while they're on duty as heavily-armed agents of the community they serve. It's more like their ACTIONS are our ACTIONS. We have every right to know what those actions are, and if they don't want those actions to be known by the very people they are supposed to be serving, there's probably something very bad going on.
You're right when you say that "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is a terrible argument. It's wrong because the government is ALWAYS something to fear, and it is the fool who forgets that power corrupts. It's the cops who represent the government in that example, and it is they who have the power that corrupts. The argument simply doesn't apply (or even make sense) in reverse.
So if the cops are left alone to club, tase, and shoot whomever they want, then the murder rate will go down
The Daily Fail (and itis local equivalent) readership will support it. Martial law tends to cut down crime quite a bit (at the expense of the thing called Freedom which they are unable to grok).
"Martial law tends to cut down crime quite a bit [...["
It may cut down officially recorded crime. However as such power corrupts it often leads to the law enforcers demanding bribes - or even setting up their own criminal operations with impunity.
IIRC In the early 1970s there was a scandal in South Africa when a large proportion of Pretoria police officers were found to have been committing burglaries.
In Germany immediately after the war many in the the occupying forces were guilty of crimes against both the local population and their own organisations. Also see the more recent UN peace keepers' crime scandals.
"The rate of murders in cities across America have been going up this year, raising questions over why. "
Probably something to do with the incredible disparity between rich and poor. There is a very large group of people who basically have nothing. Well, nothing, except for very easy access to guns. Quite a potent mix...
"... disparity of income doesn't cause crime. People having more stuff than you doesn't make you go out and kill people."
For certain values of "more stuff". When the "more stuff" is access to food, healthcare, shelter etc*, and the difference is they have some and you have none, then there is a change in the view of respect for life. If society has basically said "You are poor, you can die", then it is no surprise that you take n a reciprocal point of view -"I am poor, you can die". The USA has a lot of places where this is the case, so it comes as no surprise to me that the haves are the victims of the have-nots (even if the difference is small in real terms, in relative terms it can be huge).
* Yes, drugs would count too - relief from the reality of a no-hope existence is worth a great deal.
No, disparity of income doesn't cause crime. People having more stuff than you doesn't make you go out and kill people.
Please explain the reasoning behind that because it goes against what I thought, that poverty can be a major factor in the cause of some crimes. (I'm not talking white collar stock fraud, or say running a bank ).
"disparity of income doesn't cause crime."
Bullshit. Our society functions only because everyone agrees to play by the rules. Why would anyone agree to play by the rules if the rules say that you can't get enough food/water/shelter/clothing/health care/education/honest work?
The only incentive for the poor to obey the laws of society is the threat of force. Once you impoverish an individual - let alone a group! - enough, they have nothing to lose (because they're dead either way) and so the threat of force is meaningless.
Income disparity doesn't just lead to crime, it leads to revolution. The totality of human history is that tale told over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
May all those that weren't able to learn from it be first against the wall when the proles rise up.
Probably something to do with the incredible disparity between rich and poor. There is a very large group of people who basically have nothing. Well, nothing, except for very easy access to guns.
So, you'd think Republicans would be in favor of gun control, requiring huge licensing fees ($20000) to anyone who wants one (so the rich can have the guns, but the poor can't).
Then you realize that without the crime, there would be nobody to fill the private prisons, and spending on police would be reduced [On a side note, why do they keep wanting to cut "wasteful" spending such as medical research but keep increasing military spending??].
The high crime rate is another reason for the right want to keep the wealth inequality gap.
I believe it was the New Orleans police department that was investigated some years back. by the time internal affairs had finished going through them and making some arrests, they found the murder rate, armed robbery rate and corruption/ organised crime rate in the city as a whole dropped.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that Mr. Comey is a politician and is doing what politicians do, pander to their constituency.
In this case that would be the extremely powerful police unions. The fact that the unions have come out against his statement says to me that he hasn't explained his thinking to them yet.
His thinking might be along the lines of:
Create a climate of fear (videoing police at work encourages crime)
Panic legislators into knee-jerk reactions (new laws outlawing the filming of police at work).
Police are now free to shoot people without the fear of independent evidence.
Sure, he's pandering. But what "powerful police union?" All you truly need to do is to look up his poltical affiliation: Republican.
The 'pandering' that he is doing is to the authoritaian wing of his political party, the same authoritanians who are, right now, fighting to make sure that "their" candidate (Mr "T") represents the entire party during the elections.
"Small government"...except when said government needs to serve their interests - military spending, "moral" legislation, (excessively) strong police enforcement including military tactics and equipment - then they are all FOR bigger government. Their belief? Government shouldn't get in the way of free enterprise, the freedom to make money, but it should enforce quality-of-life issues by making sure those who aren't socially worthy are kept, errr, "in their place". Women in the kitchen, and all that.
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