Glare of Video Is Shifting Public’s View of Police

[kristopher]

Glare of Video Is Shifting Public’s View of Police
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and TIMOTHY WILLIAMSJULY 30, 2015

They began as workaday interactions between the police and the public, often involving minor traffic stops in places like Cincinnati; North Charleston, S.C.; and Waller County, Tex. But they swiftly escalated into violent encounters. And all were captured on video.

Those videos, all involving white officers and black civilians, have become ingrained in the nation’s consciousness — to many people, as evidence of bad police conduct. And while they represent just a tiny fraction of police behavior — those that show respectful, peaceful interactions do not make the 24-hour cable news — they have begun to alter public views of police use of force and race relations, experts and police officials say.

Videos have provided “corroboration of what African-Americans have been saying for years,” said Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law School and a former prosecutor, who called them “the C-Span of the streets.” On Thursday, the family of Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man who was shot to death by a University of Cincinnati police officer on July 19, said the officer would never have been prosecuted if his actions had not been captured by the body camera the officer was wearing.



Ray Tensing was fired as a University of Cincinnati police officer and charged, while two others were placed on leave after video contradicted their account of an encounter with a black man. Credit John Minchillo/Associated Press

To the police, that poses a new challenge in trying to regain public confidence. “Every time I think maybe we’re past this and we can start rebuilding, it seems another incident occurs that inflames public outrage,” said James Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “Police officers literally have millions of contacts with citizens every day, and in the vast majority of those interactions, there is no claim of wrongdoing, but that’s not news.”

Some polling bolsters such concerns....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/us/through-lens-of-video-a-transformed-view-of-police.html

[peacebird]

1. So, cops need to stop protecting bad apples. Weed out the thugs and white supremacists on the force

Let cops get charged and punished for killing citizens. Stop letting dirty cops get off by claiming they feared for their lives. Prosecute depraved heart indifference when cops refuse to provide medical care, leaving people to bleed out.

[kristopher]

2. To do that will probably require us to change a lot of laws.

WE (the public) have allowed this problem to be institutionalized by writing protections for these psychopaths into law. Even well intended oversight is often useless in achieving accountability because the laws, as written and interpreted by the courts, allow the behavior.

[peacebird]

3. Time to rewrite the laws. That and do an in depth intelligence dive into the rolls of

kKK, and white supremacist groups. Weed out all cops who are members. I don't think it will be easy but it is past time to put cops back under comtrol of the law. Enough of this racist, bullyboy Judge Dredd thuggery. Enough of open season on POC

[Chakab]

4. "And while they represent just a tiny fraction of police behavior"

You're damn right they do. You think that these guys who've been caught murdering people on camera and then brazenly trying to cover up their crimes were perfectly professional and respectful the rest of the time that they were on the street?

Off the top of my head, I know that Darren Wilson, Daniel Pantaleo and Michael Slager all had serious accusations of misconduct against them stemming from incidents other than the ones that they made national headlines for. Even though the justice department didn't find enough evidence to indict Wilson, their other report on Ferguson detailed systemic mistreatment of African Americans by police departments all over St. Louis County.

These police killings aren't the aberrant acts committed by "bad apples." They're just the tip of the iceberg regarding the mistreatment from police that certain communities have to deal with day in and day out.

[kristopher]

5. +1

[Chakab]

6. Case in point, here's officer Ray Tensing conducting another unjustified traffic stop on a black

motorist last year.

[starroute]

7. And it's not just the direct killings that are a problem

I saw this at the supermarket checkout line today, but I see there's a lot more to it than was visible on the front of the paper.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/30/police-pursuits-fatal-injuries/30187827/

More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The bystanders and the passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA TODAY found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.

Police across the USA chase tens of thousands of people each year -- usually for traffic violations or misdemeanors -- often causing drivers to speed away recklessly. Recent cases show the danger of the longstanding police practice of chasing minor offenders. . . .

Some police say drivers who flee are suspicious, and chasing them maintains law and order. "When crooks think they can do whatever they choose, that will just fester and foster more crimes," said Milwaukee Police Detective Michael Crivello, who is president of the city's police union.