What If There Was No Video?
Apr 8, 2015 Law Enforcement
I do not want to rush to judgement on the video of a South Carolina police officer shooting a man in the back. From all I have seen it appears as if the officer, Michael Slager, murdered the suspect but the officer will get his day in court and perhaps there is some valid reason for what happened. From what I saw it seems like it will be hard to find that reason.
I heard Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee on Sean Hannity’s show on the way home. Clarke and Hannity were discussing this shooting and Clarke stated he would not allow this shooting to be used to put down all other cops in America by any person.
Strong words there sheriff. You don’t get to decide what people use this shooting for. If they want to use it to indict all cops that is there business and nothing you can do will change that. How many cops use incidents by a few people to label all people of a certain group as bad? How about we work to make sure they don’t do that?
I like Sheriff Clarke and I agree with many of his views. I think that he probably used a poor choice of words and his intent was that he would not entertain that kind of thinking. I doubt, given his views, he meant that he would not allow people to express themselves as is their right.
In any event, I think people should question what took place in this incident. This police officer appears to have really crossed a line. It should be looked at and viewed from a wider angle.
I would ask a few questions. First, what would have happened if this incident had not been recorded? I think we know the answer to that. The police report filed by those involved showed it as a justified shoot. The officer lied on the report. It is unclear if the second officer lied because there is no way to know what he saw since he arrived later.
The officer lied and the police were ready to call this a good shoot when the recording arrived. Some guy walking to work saw it and recorded it. The recording contradicts everything the officer said. So I ask again, if there had been no recording what would have been the outcome?
He would have been free and clear. It would have been ruled a clean shoot and he would be on the street today. The recording made the difference.
To address Sheriff Clarke the second question would be how many times has something like this happened and it was ruled a clean shoot because there was NO recording? How many times have police officers gotten away with murder simply because there was no recording, the report was a lie and there were no other witnesses (though realistically a witness is useless when questioning the police as their word is always regarded as more truthful)?
I know there are plenty of good men and women in the police force who try to do a great job everyday and many of them are disillusioned by ticket quotas that are nothing more than revenue generators. But there are bad ones and lots of them. They get away with things because they lie and because the other officers will not speak up against them. The blue line is think and most officers will not cross it to do the right thing. When they protect the ones doing bad things they all get a bad rap.
As they should.
In this incident the police officer was fired and has been charged with murder. I think that is a correct thing to do and he will get his day in court. I know if I shot some guy running out of my house in his back and killed him this officer would be the first to arrest me for murder. His badge and uniform do not shield (see what I did there) him from the consequences of his actions.
At least not when there is recorded evidence.
Otherwise he would have walked…
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: david clarke, murder charge, police shooting, recording, south carolina
Eleanor Holmes Norton Needs Remedial Driver’s Ed
Mar 27, 2015 Political
The attitude in DC is that the laws and the things the commoners are required to do just don’t apply to the elites. They don’t pay their taxes, they exempt themselves from laws, they drive under the influence, they run their own servers and one of them uses his pen and phone to circumvent Congress and violate the Constitution.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non voting member from DC, is one such person who thinks she does not have to follow the same standards as the rest of us. Se was recently recorded as she attempted to park her car. The lines marking the spaces were on one angle and she tried to park on another angle. As seen in the video every other car is angled in the opposite direction in which Norton tries to park.
She wanted that spot and she wanted to park facing the direction she did and nothing, including the correct way, was going to stop her. She is recorded for a number of minutes and she rubs against a properly parked car at least once. There is no indication she left a note letting the other driver know his car had been struck. Once again, the rules don’t apply to her. Perhaps she could not fathom that she was wrong because she is an elitist member of Congress so it must have been the others who were in the wrong.
Of course there are many reasons this could have happened that might have nothing to do with entitlement though I am sure that mentality played into it. It is quite possible that at the age of 77 she could not comprehend that the other cars were parked on a completely opposite angle. Perhaps she thought she left a note like she claims (even though the recording does not show her doing it) but she was frazzled by the 30 minute parking ordeal and failed to do so.
Perhaps she is just incompetent.
Maybe, given her past of seeing racism in everything, she was dead set against parking in the direction of the lines because they were white.
Hell, for all we know she was distracted because she was practicing her hands up don’t shoot move so she could impress her friends.
Holmes has made some really stupid statements in the past so her intelligence has always been in doubt and her inability to park in the correct direction (forget the lines the cars were all facing a different way) does nothing to dispel the notion that she is not very bright.
I am glad that a few folks were there to record this otherwise she probably would have denied the entire thing. She did claim to leave a note even though we do not se her do it (she and someone else just walked away) so it would not be beyond reason that she would deny ever parking that way or ever striking another car.
After all, she is the one who said:
“You don’t have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government.”
You don’t have the right to know…
But we do know. We know you either can’t drive or don’t think you should have to do what everyone else does.
Probably a little of both.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: dc attitude. liberals, eleanor norton holmes, elitist, fail, lies, parking, recording
Chalk Up One For Liberty
Sep 29, 2010 Political
Some time ago Anthony Graber was riding his motorcycle in a reckless manner on Interstate 95 in Maryland. Graber had a helmet camera on and was filming his antics, antics that caught the attention of an off duty Maryland State Trooper. The trooper stopped Graber and got out of his car with his gun drawn. He did not immediately identify himself as a police officer and Graber thought he would be killed by some crazy guy with a gun.
Once the man identified himself (I never saw if he flashed a badge) Graber got off his motorcycle. After he was released he posted the video of the encounter with the trooper on You Tube. A few days later the police arrived at his house with a warrant and confiscated his computer equipment and the camera.
Graber was charged with violating Maryland’s wiretapping laws which make it illegal to record private conversations.
That case went to court and the charges against Graber were dropped. The Judge, Emory A. Plitt Jr, ruled the wiretap law did not apply because the conversation was not private.
This is the absolute correct decision. No public conversation is private and, as Graber’s lawyer points out, when a police office arrests you he informs you that what you say can be used against you thus meaning the conversation is not a private one. Wiretapping laws are meant for conversations where one can reasonably expect privacy. A conversation on a public street, particularly one with a representative of the government, is not private.
It is not illegal to audio or video record anyone on the street but the cops want it both ways with regard to privacy. They want to be able to put a GPS on your car because you have no reasonable expectation of privacy on a public street but they expect privacy on a public street when they have an encounter with you.
It is all bogus and Judge Plitt made that very clear.
Of course, the police will just continue to do what they want. The Maryland State Police have stated they respect the judge’s decision and will review how they handle things but they will not change how they handle stops. This means if you are recording them there could be problems, particularly if they discover it at the time.
The police record people when they stop them and the recording is done without the permission of the person who was stopped. Is this another blanket abuse of our rights based on the idea that driving is not a right and that in order to drive you give consent to be recorded if stopped?
The way I see it, the police work for US and we have the right to record them doing their jobs.
In any event, nothing they do is private because they are PUBLIC servants. Everything they do is and should be in the public’s eyes.
Judge Plitt made that clear so record them all you want.
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: lies, maryland state police, public, recording