11 ms·

It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. Safety is important, protesters (and ev

It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. Safety is important, protesters (and even journalists...) have been livestreaming themselves innocently doing nothing (in contrast to other media's hyper-focusing on "looting") then getting shot with rubber bullets. One of them reportedly has permanent blindness in the left eye as a result. Police brutality in response to a protest against police brutality is truly disturbing.

samdamsamm 6y ago
Tonight I witnessed a young girl get knocked out cold by a tear gas canister shot into her face from about a 40 ft. range. She was holding her hands up. There was nothing but peaceful protesters standing around, not blocking traffic. No vandalism anywhere in sight. This was in Louisville, KY. The police fired rubber bullets at the group of people carrying her away to a place on the other side of the line of humvees blocking the street to where the ambulance could reach her. Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Middle America knows that police target minorities - they just don’t care.
  - seaknoll 6y ago
    I think that's an extremely unhelpful oversimplification. There isn't some subset of humans (as a high enough percentage of the population to be considered) that's simply missing empathy. At least in their own minds they are good people, so that's where they have to be met. So IMO we need to start by assuming that they DO care, but they have different assumptions about the difficulty and danger of police work. They live in safe communities and go into cities and see poverty and homelessness, mental illness on the streets, read about the gun crime, and think that it's scary. They're not entirely wrong. Where they ARE wrong is in failing to realize how often police officers are the ones to create violent situations. Why did they use force over a counterfeit bill? Why would they bust into someone's apartment in the middle of the night over a drug charge? Unless there is an in-the-moment violent situation going on, they should not be entitled to use force. They should be required to wait, plan, and deescalate. The last thing they should be allowed to do is play out their masturbatory fantasy on the public. If that makes police work more boring, so be it.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    it may seem that way, but I suspect it is a bit more nuanced than that. I think most people understand, at least on some level, that the news is generally about outlier events. when every interaction you have with the police is polite or even helpful, it's tempting to think that these incidences of police brutality are just isolated events. if you live somewhere that you experience aggressive policing in your daily life, it might seem more like the stories that make the national news are merely the tip of the iceberg. I think it's unfortunate that the national discussion centers so much around these high-profile killings. it obscures some of the more subtle impositions on marginalized communities and leaves gaps for motivated reasoning to reach a less uncomfortable conclusion.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      While death at the hands of police might be infrequent, you can find plenty of longitudinal studies showing that “pro-active policing” like stop and frisk and pulling people over disproportionately is aimed at Black people. Not to mention that statistically, Blacks are punished far more harshly than Whites. This isn’t new, it’s just being filmed more often. Rappers like NWA and Tupac have been speaking out against police brutality since the 90s. All the while White people preach to a Black people about how we “should act” not to the be beaten and shot by the police.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dessant 6y ago
  You don't even need to leave your porch to get shot. Police and National Guard are patrolling neighborhoods and shooting civilians with paint canisters on their own property in Minneapolis. In one case they yelled "Light 'em up!" before starting to shoot [1] with ammunition that could blind people. It's legal to be outside your house during the curfew in Minneapolis [2]. > Can I be outside my house (on my property) after 8 p.m. and before 6 a.m.? > Yes. [1] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 [2] https://dps.mn.gov/macc/Pages/faq.aspx https://dps.mn.gov/macc/Pages/faq.aspx
  - jagged-chisel 6y ago
    > shooting civilians with paint canisters on their own property Even if it weren't legal to be outside on your own property from 8p-6a, this isn't proper enforcement of the law.
    - phalangion 6y ago
      That's because the National Guard isn't law enforcement.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - pmorici 6y ago
        That video wasn't of the national guard it was clearly police of some kind based on the uniforms. Also typically the national guard units they activate for stuff like this are often the MP units so they would be trained on law enforcement specific things. Either way it doesn't excuse or justify that blatant misconduct in the video.
        griffinkelly 6y ago
        I'm a member of the national guard and I, along with many of my friends, did not sign up to be police officers. That said, in Minnesota they called up every unit it seems. I'd understand civilians to easily confuse police with the military particularly after seeing a Humvee drive by, but if you take a closer look its easy to distinguish. Also note, we take orders directly from the governor of the state, not the police, nor the president of the US unless activated.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong. That statement is a bit vague, everyone is going to substitute their own interpretation in. The police don't target racial minorities because they are racist. People who want power over others sign up for policing - and then go after groups who have the least ability to fight back. The middle income might know the symptoms, but they are missing the cause. The cause is that if a fellow wants to hurl someone else to the ground, kick them and keep them down without a fair fight then their best chance as getting to that situation is to sign on to the police. This is an inescapable structural pressure that needs constant attention.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    > inescapable structural pressure I agree it's a severe problem, but I don't agree it's inescapable. It's a job that attracts brutal people only because it's a job that lets them get away with brutality. If the cycle of allowing brutality and attracting brutes could be broken, there's a good chance it'd stay broken. The police fraternity knows all about getting other cops to fall into line - just look at the "blue wall of silence" and police union "get out of jail free" cards. That same pressure couldn't be applied against brutality.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      I wonder if part of why it seems particularly bad (for a developed country) in the US is the local police force system. In countries with national police forces, misconduct investigations are often conducted by specialist staff who may be from the other side of the country, who likely aren't really in the same org chart, and so on. It seems intuitively less likely to produce a fair result if the people investigating work in the same place and under the same org structure as the people being investigated.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        The reason why it’s particularly bad in the US is that we’ve got insanely high levels of violent and organized crime. Baltimore, where I used to live, the homicide rate per 100,000 people is 30-50 times higher than in say Berlin, Madrid, London, etc. It’s almost double the rate of Bogota. That creates a police force that treats policing like its war, and public systems that give wide latitude to errors or misconduct, just as we would give soldiers in war.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong After moving to the suburbs, I realized that most Americans base their opinions on their own police forces. The last time I got pulled over in the exurbs where I live, the officer basically apologized for pulling me over. Things are very different an hour away from here in DC.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    This exactly. I have yet to hear any complaints about police in my town, but the next town over has one of the most corrupt police departments that I've ever heard of.
zodiac 6y ago
I know it's a weird choice of words, but I think the headline uses "ethical" to refer to "non-interfering" (e.g. see section 2 of the article)
IanCal 6y ago
> It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. That it is possible to film ethically is not the point. Particularly if you include sharing the video as part of "filming" then there's a lot to consider which this goes into. Two things to me are simple and good examples - does what I'm filming accurately reflect what's happening? If I deliberately avoid filming certain things then I can distort the facts. The other is around consent of the other people in the video (more important when it comes to sharing).
- hkai 6y ago
  Correct. If you are filming someone, be aware that your video may be used as proof in court - for example, to prove that a person was indeed resisting arrest. It's best to not release it to anyone except to the victim's lawyers who will make sure the video supports their case instead of undermining it.
  - belorn 6y ago
    Please elaborate, are you saying that resisting arrest is a law that should not exist even in the case where it can be proven?
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Only unethical lawyers? Suppressing evidence can get them disbarred.
    - curryst 6y ago
      Ianal, but I wouldn't think the defense attorney would be required to share that? Wouldn't it violate your clients right to not self-incriminate? The prosecution is definitely not allowed to suppress evidence that would demonstrate someone's innocence, but I don't think the same is true of the defense.
      - bzbarsky 6y ago
        Also not a lawyer, but as I understand it, both the defense and the prosecution tell each other and the judge what evidence they plan to bring; unlike crime shows, you generally don't spring surprises in court. In this case the defense would say "we have a video that shows we are innocent" and the prosecution would then request a copy of the video, and a warrant to acquire it. Providing said video doesn't seem any more self-incrimination than the prosecution asking for a warrant to get written evidence that is in possession of the accused, say, though the line there might start getting blurry if the video is something routinely filmed from the accused's viewpoint. But if it's filmed by a third party, I doubt the self-incrimination provisions would extend to it in any way...
rayiner 6y ago
> It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves The issue is filming what else might be going on around, which may be sensitive.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  In general, if you are able to film police misconduct, you are in the public sphere. If the stuff going an around them is sensitive, the ethical thing to do isn't to abstain from filming, but to be careful who you share the video with.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    As explained in the article, “filming ethically” might mean, for example, keeping the faces of bystanders out of the shot and things like that. You’re attacking a straw man.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
> It's always ethical to film police misconduct It is. What's not always ethical is to film and share identifiable features of people who are opposing it. The article discusses this. It should be discussed in much more detail. The history of police and vigilantes targeting people for harassment and retribution following mere involvement in protest against police brutality or abuse, especially targeting people of color who are already targeted for harassment and abuse by police, is as old as the force itself. The history of using video to identify targets is as old as access to film police brutality itself. There are dozens of videos from the last several days of obvious, criminal abuse by police around the US. Some of it is obviously responsive to nothing the victims are doing, obviously retaliation for the mere fact that people are standing up against the murder that sparked this set of protests. If that's what they're doing on film, what are they willing to do after the fact, when eyes are on other problems, with carelessly published videos of the faces of organizers?
- threatofrain 6y ago
  The end game is police bring drones to every protest, so the dilemma will fade in time.
downerending 6y ago
It depends on how the video is edited and presented. Certainly the initial video of the "Covington kids" scandal was highly unethical.
dennis_jeeves 6y ago
>It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. Excellent comment. But generally speaking people deserve the police they get, just like they get the govt. they deserve.
- balfirevic 6y ago
  Only if you really stretch what "generally speaking" might mean.
cycomanic 6y ago
Police seem to be deliberately targeting journalists: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd-protests-reporters-targeted-by-police-and-crowds https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd...
bradgessler 6y ago
It’s sad that reporters need to start wearing ballistic face shields and vests to report on this in the US. It’s going to look and feel like watching reporters when they were in war zones in Iraq.

samdamsamm 6y ago

Tonight I witnessed a young girl get knocked out cold by a tear gas canister shot into her face from about a 40 ft. range. She was holding her hands up. There was nothing but peaceful protesters standing around, not blocking traffic. No vandalism anywhere in sight. This was in Louisville, KY. The police fired rubber bullets at the group of people carrying her away to a place on the other side of the line of humvees blocking the street to where the ambulance could reach her. Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong.

scarface74 6y ago
Middle America knows that police target minorities - they just don’t care.
- seaknoll 6y ago
  I think that's an extremely unhelpful oversimplification. There isn't some subset of humans (as a high enough percentage of the population to be considered) that's simply missing empathy. At least in their own minds they are good people, so that's where they have to be met. So IMO we need to start by assuming that they DO care, but they have different assumptions about the difficulty and danger of police work. They live in safe communities and go into cities and see poverty and homelessness, mental illness on the streets, read about the gun crime, and think that it's scary. They're not entirely wrong. Where they ARE wrong is in failing to realize how often police officers are the ones to create violent situations. Why did they use force over a counterfeit bill? Why would they bust into someone's apartment in the middle of the night over a drug charge? Unless there is an in-the-moment violent situation going on, they should not be entitled to use force. They should be required to wait, plan, and deescalate. The last thing they should be allowed to do is play out their masturbatory fantasy on the public. If that makes police work more boring, so be it.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  it may seem that way, but I suspect it is a bit more nuanced than that. I think most people understand, at least on some level, that the news is generally about outlier events. when every interaction you have with the police is polite or even helpful, it's tempting to think that these incidences of police brutality are just isolated events. if you live somewhere that you experience aggressive policing in your daily life, it might seem more like the stories that make the national news are merely the tip of the iceberg. I think it's unfortunate that the national discussion centers so much around these high-profile killings. it obscures some of the more subtle impositions on marginalized communities and leaves gaps for motivated reasoning to reach a less uncomfortable conclusion.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    While death at the hands of police might be infrequent, you can find plenty of longitudinal studies showing that “pro-active policing” like stop and frisk and pulling people over disproportionately is aimed at Black people. Not to mention that statistically, Blacks are punished far more harshly than Whites. This isn’t new, it’s just being filmed more often. Rappers like NWA and Tupac have been speaking out against police brutality since the 90s. All the while White people preach to a Black people about how we “should act” not to the be beaten and shot by the police.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dessant 6y ago
You don't even need to leave your porch to get shot. Police and National Guard are patrolling neighborhoods and shooting civilians with paint canisters on their own property in Minneapolis. In one case they yelled "Light 'em up!" before starting to shoot [1] with ammunition that could blind people. It's legal to be outside your house during the curfew in Minneapolis [2]. > Can I be outside my house (on my property) after 8 p.m. and before 6 a.m.? > Yes. [1] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 [2] https://dps.mn.gov/macc/Pages/faq.aspx https://dps.mn.gov/macc/Pages/faq.aspx
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  > shooting civilians with paint canisters on their own property Even if it weren't legal to be outside on your own property from 8p-6a, this isn't proper enforcement of the law.
  - phalangion 6y ago
    That's because the National Guard isn't law enforcement.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - pmorici 6y ago
      That video wasn't of the national guard it was clearly police of some kind based on the uniforms. Also typically the national guard units they activate for stuff like this are often the MP units so they would be trained on law enforcement specific things. Either way it doesn't excuse or justify that blatant misconduct in the video.
      - griffinkelly 6y ago
        I'm a member of the national guard and I, along with many of my friends, did not sign up to be police officers. That said, in Minnesota they called up every unit it seems. I'd understand civilians to easily confuse police with the military particularly after seeing a Humvee drive by, but if you take a closer look its easy to distinguish. Also note, we take orders directly from the governor of the state, not the police, nor the president of the US unless activated.
roenxi 6y ago
> Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong. That statement is a bit vague, everyone is going to substitute their own interpretation in. The police don't target racial minorities because they are racist. People who want power over others sign up for policing - and then go after groups who have the least ability to fight back. The middle income might know the symptoms, but they are missing the cause. The cause is that if a fellow wants to hurl someone else to the ground, kick them and keep them down without a fair fight then their best chance as getting to that situation is to sign on to the police. This is an inescapable structural pressure that needs constant attention.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > inescapable structural pressure I agree it's a severe problem, but I don't agree it's inescapable. It's a job that attracts brutal people only because it's a job that lets them get away with brutality. If the cycle of allowing brutality and attracting brutes could be broken, there's a good chance it'd stay broken. The police fraternity knows all about getting other cops to fall into line - just look at the "blue wall of silence" and police union "get out of jail free" cards. That same pressure couldn't be applied against brutality.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    I wonder if part of why it seems particularly bad (for a developed country) in the US is the local police force system. In countries with national police forces, misconduct investigations are often conducted by specialist staff who may be from the other side of the country, who likely aren't really in the same org chart, and so on. It seems intuitively less likely to produce a fair result if the people investigating work in the same place and under the same org structure as the people being investigated.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      The reason why it’s particularly bad in the US is that we’ve got insanely high levels of violent and organized crime. Baltimore, where I used to live, the homicide rate per 100,000 people is 30-50 times higher than in say Berlin, Madrid, London, etc. It’s almost double the rate of Bogota. That creates a police force that treats policing like its war, and public systems that give wide latitude to errors or misconduct, just as we would give soldiers in war.
rayiner 6y ago
> Everything most middle-income Americans think about our police forces is wrong After moving to the suburbs, I realized that most Americans base their opinions on their own police forces. The last time I got pulled over in the exurbs where I live, the officer basically apologized for pulling me over. Things are very different an hour away from here in DC.
- Shared404 6y ago
  This exactly. I have yet to hear any complaints about police in my town, but the next town over has one of the most corrupt police departments that I've ever heard of.

zodiac 6y ago

I know it's a weird choice of words, but I think the headline uses "ethical" to refer to "non-interfering" (e.g. see section 2 of the article)

IanCal 6y ago

> It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. That it is possible to film ethically is not the point. Particularly if you include sharing the video as part of "filming" then there's a lot to consider which this goes into. Two things to me are simple and good examples - does what I'm filming accurately reflect what's happening? If I deliberately avoid filming certain things then I can distort the facts. The other is around consent of the other people in the video (more important when it comes to sharing).

hkai 6y ago
Correct. If you are filming someone, be aware that your video may be used as proof in court - for example, to prove that a person was indeed resisting arrest. It's best to not release it to anyone except to the victim's lawyers who will make sure the video supports their case instead of undermining it.
- belorn 6y ago
  Please elaborate, are you saying that resisting arrest is a law that should not exist even in the case where it can be proven?
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Only unethical lawyers? Suppressing evidence can get them disbarred.
  - curryst 6y ago
    Ianal, but I wouldn't think the defense attorney would be required to share that? Wouldn't it violate your clients right to not self-incriminate? The prosecution is definitely not allowed to suppress evidence that would demonstrate someone's innocence, but I don't think the same is true of the defense.
    - bzbarsky 6y ago
      Also not a lawyer, but as I understand it, both the defense and the prosecution tell each other and the judge what evidence they plan to bring; unlike crime shows, you generally don't spring surprises in court. In this case the defense would say "we have a video that shows we are innocent" and the prosecution would then request a copy of the video, and a warrant to acquire it. Providing said video doesn't seem any more self-incrimination than the prosecution asking for a warrant to get written evidence that is in possession of the accused, say, though the line there might start getting blurry if the video is something routinely filmed from the accused's viewpoint. But if it's filmed by a third party, I doubt the self-incrimination provisions would extend to it in any way...

rayiner 6y ago

> It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves The issue is filming what else might be going on around, which may be sensitive.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
In general, if you are able to film police misconduct, you are in the public sphere. If the stuff going an around them is sensitive, the ethical thing to do isn't to abstain from filming, but to be careful who you share the video with.
- rayiner 6y ago
  As explained in the article, “filming ethically” might mean, for example, keeping the faces of bystanders out of the shot and things like that. You’re attacking a straw man.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

> It's always ethical to film police misconduct It is. What's not always ethical is to film and share identifiable features of people who are opposing it. The article discusses this. It should be discussed in much more detail. The history of police and vigilantes targeting people for harassment and retribution following mere involvement in protest against police brutality or abuse, especially targeting people of color who are already targeted for harassment and abuse by police, is as old as the force itself. The history of using video to identify targets is as old as access to film police brutality itself. There are dozens of videos from the last several days of obvious, criminal abuse by police around the US. Some of it is obviously responsive to nothing the victims are doing, obviously retaliation for the mere fact that people are standing up against the murder that sparked this set of protests. If that's what they're doing on film, what are they willing to do after the fact, when eyes are on other problems, with carelessly published videos of the faces of organizers?

threatofrain 6y ago
The end game is police bring drones to every protest, so the dilemma will fade in time.

downerending 6y ago

It depends on how the video is edited and presented. Certainly the initial video of the "Covington kids" scandal was highly unethical.

dennis_jeeves 6y ago

>It's always ethical to film police misconduct, in fact what's unethical is that they're not already filming themselves. Excellent comment. But generally speaking people deserve the police they get, just like they get the govt. they deserve.

balfirevic 6y ago
Only if you really stretch what "generally speaking" might mean.

cycomanic 6y ago

Police seem to be deliberately targeting journalists: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd-protests-reporters-targeted-by-police-and-crowds https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd...

bradgessler 6y ago

It’s sad that reporters need to start wearing ballistic face shields and vests to report on this in the US. It’s going to look and feel like watching reporters when they were in war zones in Iraq.