Dash Cams Are Good
Been out of town and the laptop was geeking out on me. That's why no posts for a day or so.
Reason magazine has a brief mention of a guy cleared by a police dash cam. He was facing 5 years in the slammer. Turns out the cops who stopped him weren't quite truthful but another police car recorded enough stuff to clear the guy and get the cops in trouble.
Details are sketchy, which doesn't make me happy. I'd like to see the video that cleared him as I've often taken issue with others over how they interpret police videos. Regardless, the bottom line is videos can both help or hurt the police. That's why they're a good thing.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:30 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Any time dash cams (or helmet cams) are used, there should be legislation making it illegal to erase footage, and it should be the responsibility of the police department to confirm cams are in good working order every day.
Agreed, although the actual nuts and bolts of enforcing it are problematic.
Another thing brought up years ago on the now defunct Humboldt Herald, is manipulating videos for a desired effect- also problematic. But, if someone adulterates a video being used for legal purposes, that certainly should be subject to sanctions, as well.
In the Humboldt Herald example.Heraldo posted a video with a scene repeated of a Eureka cop pushing what seemed to be some homeless type guy off a bike. The video was meant to be inflammatory and showed the same thing over and over again with no mention of the circumstances of the incident.
I'm not saying someone should necessarily go to jail or be sued for posting an inflammatory video, but is it ok to do that? And who should decide whether it's ok?
In that case, I think it was obvious the video was edited for a given effect, but what if it wasn't so clear? And what "experts" are to decide whether it's clear or not?
Arcata police caught on dash cam video Casey Arndt getting the living daylights beaten out of him by officer Delmar Tompkins. A public records request was denied and this isn't the first time the same cop has been charged with this crime. Case is now in Federal court
ardnt vs. arcata
how to get that dash cam video released???
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