4 ms·
And the best way to disempower auditors is not to react to them. When the police learn not to react to lawful activities, the "auditing" movement will be dead.
by Daviey 3y ago
And the best way to disempower auditors is not to react to them. When the police learn not to react to lawful activities, the "auditing" movement will be dead. The "plenty" will be happy with this situation, because that is what they want.
I am certainly no auditor, but last week I felt uncomfortable with how a stop-and-search of a person of colour was being conducted in England last week, so I filmed it from a reasonable distance. There was no provocation from me, and the police didn't react - which is the right thing, and makes a boring video (which I had no intention of uploading anyway).
Despite this, when one of persons friends got close (~15 feet away) to talk to him (which is entirely lawful with a stop-and search), one of the police pushed (with force) him away. I interjected and told the constable he "could use words, rather than force", and his response was "I could have pushed harder if I wanted". If the constable was willing to have this type of interaction on camera, imagine what it could have been like if it wasn't filmed.
- TheRealPomax 3y agoNot really the same thing as walking into the police station with the only reason you're doing so is to film the police as they work, or even heckle them with the camera rolling to see if you can rile them up enough to point your finger and say "ha! see? got you!".
- kelnos 3y ago> only reason you're doing so is to film the police as they work I think that's a fine reason to do it. If we can get to the point where cops acknowledge that they can and may be filmed anywhere when they're on duty, that's a good thing. Heckling and riling them up is crossing the line, though.
- kelnos 3y agoWhy aren't you planning to upload it (or send it to some oversight board, if your community has one)? That shitty interaction you describe at the end should be publicized, or at least reported in some way, no?
- indymike 3y ago> When the police learn not to react to lawful activities, the "auditing" movement will be dead. This is what most of the auditors are working towards.
- Teever 3y agoBroadly speaking this kind of behaviour is about aligning incentives. The police don't want auditors bugging them, and auditors don't want police bugging innocent people. Once these two groups understand the positions of each other, they'll invariably align incentives.
- jawns 3y agoThe incentives, unfortunately, are not so neatly aligned, and the NYPD arrest at the center of this lawsuit is a prime example. The officers were willing to make an arrest to retaliate against First Amendment protected activity because they knew they could do so with impunity. Would it have been less hassle to ignore him and let him do his thing? Yes indeed. But they assaulted and then arrested him anyway because it's a power thing.
- indymike 3y ago> The officers were willing to make an arrest to retaliate against First Amendment protected activity because they knew they could do so with impunity. It's worse than that, NY has an ordinance explicitly allowing people to film police. This is a case of the police enforcing laws that simply don't exist and prosecutors supporting them. It's by definition lawlessness inside the police force.
- Teever 3y agoThe first time someone drops a grenade from a quad UAV on a corrupt cop in America is gonna be a game changer. That will align some incentives.
- 3y ago