Matt Taibbi: Are Cell Phones Changing the Narrative on Police Shootings?

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29548-focus-are-cell-phones-changing-the-narrative-on-police-shootings

Almost everyone's seen the video. The latest murder of an unarmed African-American man by police was captured in its entirety by a bystander named Feidin Santana, and the footage was so gruesome it basically precluded any controversy.

Former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager has already been fired and charged for the murder of Walter Scott. Still, one has to wonder: "Would this guy have gotten away with this without the video?"

Nonwhite America has watched police lie compulsively about incidents like this for as long as there have been police. You can open the law books and find cases like the Scott murder in almost any state of the union, in almost every year, going back decades and decades.

The only difference is that in the past, before everyone above the age of 2 had a cell phone, the insultingly lame explanations of the police ("The gun just went off"; "The suspect suddenly took a swing at me&quot were almost always swallowed whole, by juries and the media alike.

But even before cell phones became ubiquitous, the presumption that a police officer's testimony is sacrosanct started to die out. Public defenders in big cities long ago learned to deal with the frustration of police caught lying on the stand who were allowed to continue giving evidence in other cases.

Even judges, increasingly, aren't always buying the stories police officers give anymore, particularly when it comes to issues like probable cause. Earlier this year, a local defense attorney sent me a long list of cases, mostly here in New York, that involved judges ruling that police had fabricated testimony. It's clear even magistrates are losing patience.

[greymattermom]

1. After a few more of these videos

Juries will assume that police are lying. Police need to get their act together and act professionally.

[Enthusiast]

3. Police are lying. They are lying almost every single time.

Apparently police can no longer operate within the law and act professionally. I guess it is too hard for them.

[MADem]

2. Here's a link to the original source.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/are-cell-phones-changing-the-narrative-on-police-shootings-20150409

Taibbi works for RS now. Not sure if that site got permission to copy that piece. I didn't see a notation anywhere on the page.

Since even judges aren't believing cops anymore, it may push the popo into wearing cameras, even though they have been opposed to them, by and large. The cop who is telling the truth without video evidence is being "punished" by these murdering loons who kill "suspects" or "perps" and plant evidence.

[jtuck004]

4. Time for a taxpayer-funded investment. 400 m Go Pro Cameras, one for everybody. n/t

[libdem4life]

5. most everyone already has a cell phone. We need an app or link to stream it

Here is a good site to visit...www.wecopwatch.org Going to check it out by phone on Monday. Seems they have a good structure and communication vehicle. They will come into a community to set up a site...that's pretty cool.

[irisblue]

6. no lie Sherlock...

from the article...."The thornier problem will be what will happen with the thousands of other, smaller incidents that involve questionable car stops or searches, where cases are generated based on police seeing suspects making "furtive movements," or "leaning" in the direction of an officer's gun, or suspiciously "loitering," or smelling the "strong odor of marijuana," etc. (Not sure what body electronics they can install to check that last sort of probable cause issue)."


Cellphone videos are making a big difference. They make people in authority see actual on the job behavior, and when horrid ones like Mr. Scotts' murder get released on major news venues, lots & lots of people who would have taken the cops word are appalled. That will slowly move through and into and in to the social narrative and start the slow process of change.

[libdem4life]

7. No one knew the power of the internet when it started. Now we have the power of the

cell phone. Both radically changed civilization.