The Eureka Police Video Csse
The North Coast Journal reports on a court case in which the City of Eureka is appealing a ruling a judge made giving the public access to video recordings of the arrest of a juvenile. I can understand the city appealing it, perhaps out of a sense of its own self interest- covering their ass, if you will-, but I'm of the mind pretty much all recordings of police activity should be public property.
I realize there could be legal considerations regarding a police officers right to privacy and to defend himself, but I'm not sure that applies. After all, police are the in- your- face cutting edge example of government force. As such they should be scrutinized and kept in line. I don't know that their use of force entitles them to any right to privacy.
We're often told "What are you worried about if you have nothing to hide?". The same could be said to those advocates of police who insist on keeping police use of force videos to themselves.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:36 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
If it's the full video, not a partial, release it.
Partial videos can be misleading. Both need released.
Accountability.
Yep. I've always felt it should be illegal to alter video to give the wrong impression of what happened.
I remember a video on the old Humboldt Herald blog of a homeless guy with a bike down on what appeared to be the boardwalk. Then a Eureka cop shows up, says something to him, then goes over and pushes the guy and his bike over. They had it set up so the pushing part was played over and over.
As far as I was concerned that video was altered to make the cop look bad. I thought there should be some sort of sanction for that sort of alteration, although it was fairly obvious.
What about the juvenile's privacy? Our juvenile justice system is confidential for a reason. The goal is to intervene and rehabilitate prior to becoming an adult offender.
Are we going to release videos of interviews with domestic violence victims and rape victims?
I can understand your argument about the officer not deserving privacy in his internal affairs investigation. I don't agree with it but I can understand it.
I have no idea why you would think all police interactions should be public. There are so many sensitive matters that police deal with. If my wife, daughter, or mother were raped I wouldn't want the video of her making a statement on the internet.
If my son did something stupid and got in trouble, I wouldn't want it on the internet. I'd like to think he would learn from his mistakes and move on. But when his potential employers google his name and find out he was arrested as a juvenile.
Its weird how people will demand privacy for themselves but don't believe anyone else deserves it.
Seems to me the other party involved, especially if it's a juvenile, should have the final word as to whether a video is made public.
As an aside, in this case,I believe the video has already been shown on TV. The kid in question, iirc, the kid in question dowsn't remember being kicked and seemed to have no complaints. I say no harm, no foul.
The city doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. If the video they're concealing is controversial, they'll look guilty as sin for withholding it for so long. They've handled this exactly backward.
And no, there is no expectation of privacy with dash cam video.
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