8 ms·

Virginia Police Caught Assaulting Teens, Video Deletion Fails

63 points by guiambros 12y ago

guiambros 12y ago
The scary part is: “The Virginia Beach Police Department immediately began investigating this incident based on the officer’s self-reported Use of Force Report and video captured from the officer’s TASER camera submitted the night of the incident. The department was previously unaware of the citizens recorded video until TODAY” [1]. (note the 'incident' happened in January). Police brutality will only stop when all officers are forced to wear head-mounted camera, 24x7. No dash-cam, taser-cam; Google Glass-like-cam, recording everything they say or do. In the meantime, the only solution is for citizens to do what the young woman rightly did: try to record - and hope evidence is not tempered with. [1] https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD
- rmxt 12y ago
  Note: I believe that calling it a "TASER camera" is simply using the name brand of the device. It's not a camera literally mounted on a electrical weapon, but rather a body mounted camera made by the company TASER. Say what you will about uninformed writers repeating catch phrases verbatim without understanding their meaning, or fat public contracts consistently going to the same vendors. Frankly, I'd rather have the body mounted cameras made by a company that doesn't also make weapons... seems like all too cozy a situation between the methods of force (weapons) and the tools used to keep that force in check (body mounted cameras and video storage and retrieval systems).
  - guiambros 12y ago
    Indeed: https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video It seems pretty good, in fact. Very much in line with what was suggested above.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I hope the smartphone industry will eventually go on a trend of making the cameras with bigger and bigger zoom capabilities. That should make it much easier (and safer) for other people to film from a distance what's going on - even from their own homes, at high quality.
- angersock 12y ago
  Asking cops to become full-time streaming surveillance cameras is also not the right answer. Surveillance state++. There's got to be some reasonable legal restriction to be placed on officers that prevents their use of unnecessary force.
  - patcon 12y ago
    Respectfully disagree. I'm personally entirely comfortable with the authorized force-wielding parties in my society also being localized units of high surveillance. This does not greatly affect my privacy, but rather my moments where I am least concerned with privacy (ie. the interactions of maximum likeliness for me to get legally injured or have my longterm rights revoked)
    - angersock 12y ago
      So, with the infrastructure we have in place, the idea of "localized" high surveillance is one map-reduce job away from being a joke. There won't be such a thing as "oh, this is the video database just for your local officers and nobody else". The data is going to be mined by other companies, used for other purposes--basically, all kinds of shit that is currently infeasible only because of the overall lack of installed mobile cameras that are dependable (mobile could've gone this way, but didn't). Also, as far as longterm-rights being revoked, this is a step down the road towards that revocation. Lastly, the big issue here is that, while you might be comfortable ceding your rights here, it doesn't just impact you: anybody else in camera frame is having their privacy violated. I don't care that you are willing to cede your rights, but don't go support something that'll harm others.
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        Localized, as in it only monitors the direct vicinity of officers. Something that doesn't expand exponentially more than manpower.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      I'm all for it but the police force should not be the recording agency. Their cameras tend to malfunction when you need them most.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Udik 12y ago
According to the article, three kids are stopped by the police over a broken license plate light, then one of them, apparently without any reason, is pepper sprayed twice and tasered four times, and finally they're arrested (one of them will be in jail till July), not before the cops have tried to delete the recordings of the whole scene from one of the boys' phone. Well, the first comment to the story (via Facebook) reads: "It's unbelievable that people actually justify these kids behavior!! I guess maybe it's because my parents raised me to respect police officers. They knew that camera was on them and they added fuel to the fire because of it. Just get out of the car, no taser, no spray...". The comment has 100 likes so far. What the hell is going on in the USA?
- paintrayne 12y ago
  These are not the most sympathetic victims so people shit on them. Welcome to the USA. It's a real shame because the escalation of force there was entirely unnecessary. Some comments even sarcastically ask, what should the police have done with the kid who refused to get out? Just leave? Obviously not. But the kid wasn't going anywhere and they could have waited for a legal guardian or negotiated further before escalating with the use of force. Not to mention the gratuitous use of TASER when the kid was attempting to comply. Unfortunately, my ultimate take away is that people who object to police abuse are in the minority. If someone is perceived as a punk or criminal, it is open season. Democracy at its finest. I'd really like to hear from a European counterpart how they think this scenario would have gone down across the pond. Not like this, I am sure. What good are cameras and recordings if the citizens are OK with what they see?
  - oh_sigh 12y ago
    Does the officer need to wait for a legal guardian if the person is 17?
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      The answer is: yes.
oh_sigh 12y ago
revolution-news doesn't seem like a particularly unbiased source. A lot of news stations have reported on it, why not link to them instead if we want to talk about this story? My favorite sentence from the article: "the sensible young woman requests a sergeant be present to avoid her rights being further infringed."
nickysielicki 12y ago
"Smell" as probable cause needs to disappear. As an extension of this, the existence of drug dogs is extremely irritating to me. It's been seen more than a few times that they're commonly trained to react to a cue rather than genuinely detecting illegal substance. Dogs aren't conscious, and they don't have a sense of morality. I have a huge problem with them being used by police and that their 'opinion', if you want to call it that, is respected in a court of law. A dog cannot testify in court. A dog doesn't realize it is lying. It's insulting to the legal system.
- swift 12y ago
  I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I do think it goes too far to say that dogs aren't conscious. The evidence I have for dog consciousness is about as good as the evidence I have for human consciousness, as far as I'm concerned.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - wmeredith 12y ago
    You're either being absurdly reductive or you're stupid. Human consciousness has given us the works of Shakespeare and put a man on the moon. To equate the two is beyond the pale.
- patcon 12y ago
  Yeah, I was just thinking that there really should be a legal device that detects the chemicals, so the "strength" of the marijuana smell can be audited and it's not just a subjective way for an officer to justify gut assumptions in escalating
- aric 12y ago
  One simple trained motion of an officer's hand and a dog will go into frantic, "there must be drugs in the car" mode. Probable cause is created. Several videos have caught cops triggering dogs. Wars on drugs are abysmal entirely. Among many primary sources of havoc and waste on earth that such law creates, arguably the most reaching is its impetus to imbalance power and destroy individual rights and expectations of everyone. Mentality snowballs. A large portion of society is trained to accept increased authority and violation. They laugh at people who attempt to peacefully resist and exercise any remaining rights they have left in the face of 'deletion.'
mixmax 12y ago
I'm sorry to say, but looking from Europe America looks more and more like a policestate.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  I'm so not moving to the US ever now! On one hand Paul Graham's "the only place to be is Bay Area" gig, on other hand is this and similar stories. One can find a lot of unsafe places without changing continents. One more entry for my "rather kill myself than live there" list. Incidentally, the other one is where I currently reside.
plongeur 12y ago
Then again ... if a cop tells you to leave the car and you then start to argue and to fight back instead of following the order. What kind of reaction do you expect? This would happen in any country.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Police do not routinely carry pepper spray and tasers in every country.
  - plongeur 12y ago
    So? What country are you referring to? In Germany f.x. they do carry pepper spray and tasers and a gun and in most other countries as well. What's your point?
jqm 12y ago
I see the big offense not in forcibly removing the kid from the car (the police are probably within their rights as far as that goes), but in attempting to delete evidence. That's the real crime for which someone should be fired and possibly prosecuted as well.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Agreed. I'm interested in hearing how this plays out. I hope they can prove chain of custody of the phone and determine if the video was deleted at all, and if it was, if it was deleted when in the hands of an officer. Right now we just have it from the driver that the file was deleted. But this was the same driver that said "I wouldn't allow marijuana in my car", and the guy in the back seat ended up being busted for possession and intent to sell marijuana based off of that stop. I hope there is good evidence one way or the other if the file was deleted, and the officer is punished if it was in fact deleted while in an officers custody. I'm leaning towards the fact that it was not deleted while in the officers custody, but I'd love to see the forensic evidence. My reasons: 1) The driver already was caught lying 2) It's convenient that the driver had the technical know how to get undeleted files off of her device 3) The officer was already recording the entire course of events on his body cam.
kw71 12y ago
This corner of Virginia is plagued by disgusting behavior of police and other officials. Neither you nor your family are safe if you happen to be in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, or Portsmouth. The police departments and commonwealths attorneys in these jurisdictions have a disgusting perversion of the concept of 'equal protection of the laws,' they simply decide that some individuals deserve to be abused and the perpetrators of crimes against them shall be unsanctioned, free to roam the streets and able to possess firearms. Certain people in the community are free to commit crimes due to their political or social connections, and they are protected and permitted to hold government jobs within various agencies of these cities such as the police departments and school boards.

63 points by guiambros 12y ago

The scary part is: “The Virginia Beach Police Department immediately began investigating this incident based on the officer’s self-reported Use of Force Report and video captured from the officer’s TASER camera submitted the night of the incident. The department was previously unaware of the citizens recorded video until TODAY” [1]. (note the 'incident' happened in January). Police brutality will only stop when all officers are forced to wear head-mounted camera, 24x7. No dash-cam, taser-cam; Google Glass-like-cam, recording everything they say or do. In the meantime, the only solution is for citizens to do what the young woman rightly did: try to record - and hope evidence is not tempered with. [1] https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD

rmxt 12y ago
Note: I believe that calling it a "TASER camera" is simply using the name brand of the device. It's not a camera literally mounted on a electrical weapon, but rather a body mounted camera made by the company TASER. Say what you will about uninformed writers repeating catch phrases verbatim without understanding their meaning, or fat public contracts consistently going to the same vendors. Frankly, I'd rather have the body mounted cameras made by a company that doesn't also make weapons... seems like all too cozy a situation between the methods of force (weapons) and the tools used to keep that force in check (body mounted cameras and video storage and retrieval systems).
- guiambros 12y ago
  Indeed: https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video It seems pretty good, in fact. Very much in line with what was suggested above.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I hope the smartphone industry will eventually go on a trend of making the cameras with bigger and bigger zoom capabilities. That should make it much easier (and safer) for other people to film from a distance what's going on - even from their own homes, at high quality.
angersock 12y ago
Asking cops to become full-time streaming surveillance cameras is also not the right answer. Surveillance state++. There's got to be some reasonable legal restriction to be placed on officers that prevents their use of unnecessary force.
- patcon 12y ago
  Respectfully disagree. I'm personally entirely comfortable with the authorized force-wielding parties in my society also being localized units of high surveillance. This does not greatly affect my privacy, but rather my moments where I am least concerned with privacy (ie. the interactions of maximum likeliness for me to get legally injured or have my longterm rights revoked)
  - angersock 12y ago
    So, with the infrastructure we have in place, the idea of "localized" high surveillance is one map-reduce job away from being a joke. There won't be such a thing as "oh, this is the video database just for your local officers and nobody else". The data is going to be mined by other companies, used for other purposes--basically, all kinds of shit that is currently infeasible only because of the overall lack of installed mobile cameras that are dependable (mobile could've gone this way, but didn't). Also, as far as longterm-rights being revoked, this is a step down the road towards that revocation. Lastly, the big issue here is that, while you might be comfortable ceding your rights here, it doesn't just impact you: anybody else in camera frame is having their privacy violated. I don't care that you are willing to cede your rights, but don't go support something that'll harm others.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      Localized, as in it only monitors the direct vicinity of officers. Something that doesn't expand exponentially more than manpower.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I'm all for it but the police force should not be the recording agency. Their cameras tend to malfunction when you need them most.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Udik 12y ago

According to the article, three kids are stopped by the police over a broken license plate light, then one of them, apparently without any reason, is pepper sprayed twice and tasered four times, and finally they're arrested (one of them will be in jail till July), not before the cops have tried to delete the recordings of the whole scene from one of the boys' phone. Well, the first comment to the story (via Facebook) reads: "It's unbelievable that people actually justify these kids behavior!! I guess maybe it's because my parents raised me to respect police officers. They knew that camera was on them and they added fuel to the fire because of it. Just get out of the car, no taser, no spray...". The comment has 100 likes so far. What the hell is going on in the USA?

paintrayne 12y ago
These are not the most sympathetic victims so people shit on them. Welcome to the USA. It's a real shame because the escalation of force there was entirely unnecessary. Some comments even sarcastically ask, what should the police have done with the kid who refused to get out? Just leave? Obviously not. But the kid wasn't going anywhere and they could have waited for a legal guardian or negotiated further before escalating with the use of force. Not to mention the gratuitous use of TASER when the kid was attempting to comply. Unfortunately, my ultimate take away is that people who object to police abuse are in the minority. If someone is perceived as a punk or criminal, it is open season. Democracy at its finest. I'd really like to hear from a European counterpart how they think this scenario would have gone down across the pond. Not like this, I am sure. What good are cameras and recordings if the citizens are OK with what they see?
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Does the officer need to wait for a legal guardian if the person is 17?
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    The answer is: yes.

oh_sigh 12y ago

revolution-news doesn't seem like a particularly unbiased source. A lot of news stations have reported on it, why not link to them instead if we want to talk about this story? My favorite sentence from the article: "the sensible young woman requests a sergeant be present to avoid her rights being further infringed."

nickysielicki 12y ago

"Smell" as probable cause needs to disappear. As an extension of this, the existence of drug dogs is extremely irritating to me. It's been seen more than a few times that they're commonly trained to react to a cue rather than genuinely detecting illegal substance. Dogs aren't conscious, and they don't have a sense of morality. I have a huge problem with them being used by police and that their 'opinion', if you want to call it that, is respected in a court of law. A dog cannot testify in court. A dog doesn't realize it is lying. It's insulting to the legal system.

swift 12y ago
I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I do think it goes too far to say that dogs aren't conscious. The evidence I have for dog consciousness is about as good as the evidence I have for human consciousness, as far as I'm concerned.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wmeredith 12y ago
  You're either being absurdly reductive or you're stupid. Human consciousness has given us the works of Shakespeare and put a man on the moon. To equate the two is beyond the pale.
patcon 12y ago
Yeah, I was just thinking that there really should be a legal device that detects the chemicals, so the "strength" of the marijuana smell can be audited and it's not just a subjective way for an officer to justify gut assumptions in escalating
aric 12y ago
One simple trained motion of an officer's hand and a dog will go into frantic, "there must be drugs in the car" mode. Probable cause is created. Several videos have caught cops triggering dogs. Wars on drugs are abysmal entirely. Among many primary sources of havoc and waste on earth that such law creates, arguably the most reaching is its impetus to imbalance power and destroy individual rights and expectations of everyone. Mentality snowballs. A large portion of society is trained to accept increased authority and violation. They laugh at people who attempt to peacefully resist and exercise any remaining rights they have left in the face of 'deletion.'

mixmax 12y ago

I'm sorry to say, but looking from Europe America looks more and more like a policestate.

guard-of-terra 12y ago
I'm so not moving to the US ever now! On one hand Paul Graham's "the only place to be is Bay Area" gig, on other hand is this and similar stories. One can find a lot of unsafe places without changing continents. One more entry for my "rather kill myself than live there" list. Incidentally, the other one is where I currently reside.

plongeur 12y ago

Then again ... if a cop tells you to leave the car and you then start to argue and to fight back instead of following the order. What kind of reaction do you expect? This would happen in any country.

DanBC 12y ago
Police do not routinely carry pepper spray and tasers in every country.
- plongeur 12y ago
  So? What country are you referring to? In Germany f.x. they do carry pepper spray and tasers and a gun and in most other countries as well. What's your point?

jqm 12y ago

I see the big offense not in forcibly removing the kid from the car (the police are probably within their rights as far as that goes), but in attempting to delete evidence. That's the real crime for which someone should be fired and possibly prosecuted as well.

oh_sigh 12y ago
Agreed. I'm interested in hearing how this plays out. I hope they can prove chain of custody of the phone and determine if the video was deleted at all, and if it was, if it was deleted when in the hands of an officer. Right now we just have it from the driver that the file was deleted. But this was the same driver that said "I wouldn't allow marijuana in my car", and the guy in the back seat ended up being busted for possession and intent to sell marijuana based off of that stop. I hope there is good evidence one way or the other if the file was deleted, and the officer is punished if it was in fact deleted while in an officers custody. I'm leaning towards the fact that it was not deleted while in the officers custody, but I'd love to see the forensic evidence. My reasons: 1) The driver already was caught lying 2) It's convenient that the driver had the technical know how to get undeleted files off of her device 3) The officer was already recording the entire course of events on his body cam.

kw71 12y ago

This corner of Virginia is plagued by disgusting behavior of police and other officials. Neither you nor your family are safe if you happen to be in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, or Portsmouth. The police departments and commonwealths attorneys in these jurisdictions have a disgusting perversion of the concept of 'equal protection of the laws,' they simply decide that some individuals deserve to be abused and the perpetrators of crimes against them shall be unsanctioned, free to roam the streets and able to possess firearms. Certain people in the community are free to commit crimes due to their political or social connections, and they are protected and permitted to hold government jobs within various agencies of these cities such as the police departments and school boards.