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daedalus wrote:Having your brights on is a crime?

Under some circumstances you can get a ticket for that, yes.

Blackskullandy wrote:None of which matters if their superior is covering their ass... Or asses. 'Technical difficulties' can happen at awfully convenient times.

Consider two situations, in one an officer is part of a police force that doesn't have cameras. That officer has someone up for resisting arrest, and we're left with believing the policeman, or the feral that says the officer started beating on him for no reason. Unless something very odd is happening, we'll believe the policeman every time, because we really don't have a choice not to.

In the second situation, lapel cameras are standard, and just happen to have malfunctioned before the arrest took place. We are no longer used to just having to take the police at their word, instead we're used to having evidence of the accused doing whatever it is the accused is accused of having done. So when the cop says 'oh the camera broke down for bit' we are automatically more suspicious.

And when that officer is investigated for having his camera malfunction before five or six other arrests, well then things start looking really bad.

We all know the police close rank to protect their own. The point is that is much harder to do with these cameras in use.

sebster wrote:

Blackskullandy wrote:None of which matters if their superior is covering their ass... Or asses. 'Technical difficulties' can happen at awfully convenient times.

Consider two situations, in one an officer is part of a police force that doesn't have cameras. That officer has someone up for resisting arrest, and we're left with believing the policeman, or the feral that says the officer started beating on him for no reason. Unless something very odd is happening, we'll believe the policeman every time, because we really don't have a choice not to.

In the second situation, lapel cameras are standard, and just happen to have malfunctioned before the arrest took place. We are no longer used to just having to take the police at their word, instead we're used to having evidence of the accused doing whatever it is the accused is accused of having done. So when the cop says 'oh the camera broke down for bit' we are automatically more suspicious.

And when that officer is investigated for having his camera malfunction before five or six other arrests, well then things start looking really bad.

We all know the police close rank to protect their own. The point is that is much harder to do with these cameras in use.

But around here you don't even have to use that excuse.

Whenever our lovely Oklahoma Highway Patrol is accused of wrong doing, they will proceed with an internal investigation that takes years, during which time no footage from the event is released. Because following a FOI request takes a back seat in order not to harm an internal investigation.

It is a battle we are constantly fighting with the Department of Public Safety.

d-usa wrote:But around here you don't even have to use that excuse.

Whenever our lovely Oklahoma Highway Patrol is accused of wrong doing, they will proceed with an internal investigation that takes years, during which time no footage from the event is released. Because following a FOI request takes a back seat in order not to harm an internal investigation.

It is a battle we are constantly fighting with the Department of Public Safety.

Of course you don't have to have that excuse, because you don't have cameras on every officer, on all the time. If you did, they need to invent excuses why the images aren't available.

sebster wrote:

Blackskullandy wrote:None of which matters if their superior is covering their ass... Or asses. 'Technical difficulties' can happen at awfully convenient times.

Consider two situations, in one an officer is part of a police force that doesn't have cameras. That officer has someone up for resisting arrest, and we're left with believing the policeman, or the feral that says the officer started beating on him for no reason. Unless something very odd is happening, we'll believe the policeman every time, because we really don't have a choice not to.

In the second situation, lapel cameras are standard, and just happen to have malfunctioned before the arrest took place. We are no longer used to just having to take the police at their word, instead we're used to having evidence of the accused doing whatever it is the accused is accused of having done. So when the cop says 'oh the camera broke down for bit' we are automatically more suspicious.

And when that officer is investigated for having his camera malfunction before five or six other arrests, well then things start looking really bad.

We all know the police close rank to protect their own. The point is that is much harder to do with these cameras in use.

Oh, I quite understand how it should work, but at least as far as the UK goes we simply don't have any chance of that kind of transparency. The 'Old boys club' will win out every time. A lot of our Police Forces are actually run as corporations, and their loyalty goes not to the Law and certainly not to the public, but rather to the shareholders.

Ahtman wrote:

daedalus wrote:Having your brights on is a crime?

Under some circumstances you can get a ticket for that, yes.

If you approach a gate to a military base with your brights on you risk being shot. The reason is that the brights can be used to temporarily blind someone when you're approaching them, I'm sure that if you're driving around and have had a person driving towards you with their brights on you know how bothersome they can be.

Also the reason behind a cop covering another cop's rear is the fact that you never know if you're going to need that guy to save your ass in a real situation. Think about it, would you rather have someone on goods term with you have your back or would you rather have someone who's mad at you have your back? The same applies to military men, if one of them gets drunk then the others try to get them out of trouble as much as possible because there may be a day when he has to save their asses.

Bothersome, sure. An offense? I don't know. On a lot of the newer cars, I feel as though a lot of people's 'dims' are offensively bright.

daedalus wrote:Bothersome, sure. An offense? I don't know. On a lot of the newer cars, I feel as though a lot of people's 'dims' are offensively bright.

It all comes down to the amount of relative danger an officer can personally think you're causing. If you're on a twisting road with your brights on and could blind the oncoming vehicle enough that it could go off the road then you can potentially be charged. Tickets are mostly used to coerce people to drive safely or at least in a way that conforms to the way the law wants you to drive. Its all personal and context, you could be driving speed limit in the rain and get charged with reckless driving if there are kids playing nearby. Heck, you can get ticketed for doing speed limit on a sunny day if kids are playing nearby because there is a potential that the sun would have enough glare to temporarily blind you and make you hit a kid. Its all about context and personality of the officer.

Cops have to deal with a lot of garbage ranging from seeing people die to pulling over someone for running a red light. I know the cops around here have dealt with things like a father sawing his elementary school child's head off.

Oh man I didn't know this was a thread. I'm gonna have to read this now!

Blackskullandy wrote:Oh, I quite understand how it should work, but at least as far as the UK goes we simply don't have any chance of that kind of transparency. The 'Old boys club' will win out every time. A lot of our Police Forces are actually run as corporations, and their loyalty goes not to the Law and certainly not to the public, but rather to the shareholders.

Sure, that kind of thing is going on to a greater or lesser extent in every police force in the world.

My point is that the cameras aren't relying on a 'wouldn't it be nice if' world. They are a response to the world we have, in which police forces will protect their own. The fact is the cameras make it much harder for police forces to shut down investigations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

halonachos wrote:Also the reason behind a cop covering another cop's rear is the fact that you never know if you're going to need that guy to save your ass in a real situation. Think about it, would you rather have someone on goods term with you have your back or would you rather have someone who's mad at you have your back? The same applies to military men, if one of them gets drunk then the others try to get them out of trouble as much as possible because there may be a day when he has to save their asses.

Sure, but it isn't just about a potential physical threat down the line, it's also that at some future date it could be your ass on the line for some breach. The thing to think about there is that in addition to public claims of real abuse, there's countless silly or even downright fraudulent cases.

And then there's the problem that most genuine cases won't be entirely clear, it might be just another fraudulent claim, or it could be the real deal. Are you going to hang another cop out to dry because you don't know, or are you going to help him, and expect he'll help you when you get a complaint against you?

sebster wrote:And then there's the problem that most genuine cases won't be entirely clear, it might be just another fraudulent claim, or it could be the real deal. Are you going to hang another cop out to dry because you don't know, or are you going to help him, and expect he'll help you when you get a complaint against you?

Exactly, in fact if you're an EMT and get pulled over chances are they'll let you off with a warning. That was the third thing we learned in our EMT class, the first was legal issues.

Should the people enforcing the law not be held accountable to it then? Or should we be able to expect the police to have the integrity to ensure that their entire team plays by the rules? If someone was supposed to be covering my back, i would want to know that they were a stand up guy who was doing it because it was the right thing to do not because i had the dirt on them, or they owed their continued employment to my complicity in covering up their mistakes/offenses. Surely law enforcement should hold themselves to a higher standard, or they don't have a leg to stand on...

daedalus wrote:Having your brights on is a crime?

Depending on how bright your brights are then yes.

On a similiar note there as a massive difference on a car/bike between what's safe and what's legal. it's often much easier to be safe than it is legal.

Blackskullandy wrote:Should the people enforcing the law not be held accountable to it then? Or should we be able to expect the police to have the integrity to ensure that their entire team plays by the rules? If someone was supposed to be covering my back, i would want to know that they were a stand up guy who was doing it because it was the right thing to do not because i had the dirt on them, or they owed their continued employment to my complicity in covering up their mistakes/offenses. Surely law enforcement should hold themselves to a higher standard, or they don't have a leg to stand on...

You would think so but he's the one with the power, argue that point with them though and see how far you get.

Nom

nomsheep wrote:]

You would think so but he's the one with the power, argue that point with them though and see how far you get.

Nom

I'm always scrupulously polite when dealing with the police and even when they condescend and snipe cos i know from experience that nothing bugs them more than disrespect and sarcasm...







... not even crime.

Blackskullandy wrote:
I'm always scrupulously polite when dealing with the police and even when they condescend and snipe cos i know from experience that nothing bugs them more than disrespect and sarcasm...







... not even crime.

I am also it's not worth the gak you get otherwise and from personal experience, I agree with you. my friend turned something rather easy and quick into a night in the cells by (as they believed) being cocky and laughing at them (the truth was he was just high and scared out of his mind, it was nervous laughter). but It's annoying when they get away with acting that way towards you but you don't. :/


nom

I'm suuuper pro-police and have argued as such in MANY threads here, and I am pro-camera.

The only issue is that people often misinterpret video, so there will be harder fights sometimes. For instance, that mistaken taser shooting a while back where the department had swapped an officer's gear so much that his muscle memory had the gun and taser backwards, it was only proven because a grainy surveillance video showed his thumb swiping the gun where the taser selector switch should have been. A tiny tiny detail proved the whole thing.

Issue is, average joe sees it and doesn't want to listen to any of that pig nonsense and decides the cop is guilty.

Doesn't mean I don't think average joe should SEE it, just that he very well might come to the wrong conclusion when he does.

nomsheep wrote:
I am also it's not worth the gak you get otherwise and from personal experience, I agree with you. my friend turned something rather easy and quick into a night in the cells by (as they believed) being cocky and laughing at them (the truth was he was just high and scared out of his mind, it was nervous laughter). but It's annoying when they get away with acting that way towards you but you don't. :/


nom

A lot of folks I know are nervous about dealing with the police too (high or not). I believe that this is due to the apparent assumption by the police that everyone must have done something wrong. They certainly seem to approach people with this attitude (in my experience) YMMV.

Blackskullandy wrote:

A lot of folks I know are nervous about dealing with the police too (high or not). I believe that this is due to the apparent assumption by the police that everyone must have done something wrong. They certainly seem to approach people with this attitude (in my experience) YMMV.

I'm only nervous around them in a situation where i've done something wrong, it's stupidly late and they approach me or where i'm not sure if i've done something wrong. But that's me not them. As a general rule they are just people like us and me and my mates have had several random conversations with random policemen about nothing and they were polite and friendly.

They even put up with me running around a corner yelling 'stop police' at them then realising they actually were police. Not my proudest moment. (this was during the london riots, so our town was on alert for kids starting trouble).


They have never really adopted a 'everyone is guilty unless they can prove otherwise' attitude with me or if they did I hadn't noticed because I was guilty.

Nom

nomsheep wrote:I'm only nervous around them in a situation where i've done something wrong, it's stupidly late and they approach me or where i'm not sure if i've done something wrong. But that's me not them. As a general rule they are just people like us and me and my mates have had several random conversations with random policemen about nothing and they were polite and friendly.

They even put up with me running around a corner yelling 'stop police' at them then realising they actually were police. Not my proudest moment. (this was during the london riots, so our town was on alert for kids starting trouble).


They have never really adopted a 'everyone is guilty unless they can prove otherwise' attitude with me or if they did I hadn't noticed because I was guilty.

Nom

It's entirely possible that the way I look and carry myself influenced the way I was percieved by them... 12'' blue/red/purple Mohawk, full of piercings, covered in tats, confident (some say arrogant) posture, stomping through middle class suburbia. Granny's worst nightmare!

Blackskullandy wrote:

nomsheep wrote:I'm only nervous around them in a situation where i've done something wrong, it's stupidly late and they approach me or where i'm not sure if i've done something wrong. But that's me not them. As a general rule they are just people like us and me and my mates have had several random conversations with random policemen about nothing and they were polite and friendly.

They even put up with me running around a corner yelling 'stop police' at them then realising they actually were police. Not my proudest moment. (this was during the london riots, so our town was on alert for kids starting trouble).


They have never really adopted a 'everyone is guilty unless they can prove otherwise' attitude with me or if they did I hadn't noticed because I was guilty.

Nom

It's entirely possible that the way I look and carry myself influenced the way I was percieved by them... 12'' blue/red/purple Mohawk, full of piercings, covered in tats, confident (some say arrogant) posture, stomping through middle class suburbia. Granny's worst nightmare!

I've been involved with the training of new police officers, and bias like that is really hard to train out unfortunately. The biggest group that has this issue is the very old and the very young cops. It's getting better over time though.

Blackskullandy wrote:
It's entirely possible that the way I look and carry myself influenced the way I was percieved by them... 12'' blue/red/purple Mohawk, full of piercings, covered in tats, confident (some say arrogant) posture, stomping through middle class suburbia. Granny's worst nightmare!

That could have something to do with it. Mohawks always give off a bad impression for some reason.

Whereas I look like your typical 'emo' kid so I apparantly look young and innocent.

Nom

nomsheep wrote:

Blackskullandy wrote:
It's entirely possible that the way I look and carry myself influenced the way I was percieved by them... 12'' blue/red/purple Mohawk, full of piercings, covered in tats, confident (some say arrogant) posture, stomping through middle class suburbia. Granny's worst nightmare!

That could have something to do with it. Mohawks always give off a bad impression for some reason.

Nom

Its all front! Honest! Most of the people I know who are brave enough to express themselves in such a way are the nicest, most sweetnatured folk one could ever hope to meet. And generally quite passive too, despite the negative assosciations some people have.

edit for spelling

Blackskullandy wrote:
Its all front! Honest! Most of the people I know who are brave enough to express themselves in such a way are the nicest, most sweetnatured folk one could ever hope to meet. And generally quite passive too, despite the negative assosciations some people have.

edit for spelling

Same,(my closest friend dresses in a similiar manner to this) in my experience they also tend to be honest to the point of bluntness(which i prefer). whereas I avoid those who dress in a similiar way to me as they tend to be rather sweet sweet to your face but backstab you at the first opportunity. This is stereotyping at it's worst but it's all from experience though YMMV.

Nom

Rented Tritium wrote:I'm suuuper pro-police and have argued as such in MANY threads here, and I am pro-camera.

The only issue is that people often misinterpret video, so there will be harder fights sometimes. For instance, that mistaken taser shooting a while back where the department had swapped an officer's gear so much that his muscle memory had the gun and taser backwards, it was only proven because a grainy surveillance video showed his thumb swiping the gun where the taser selector switch should have been. A tiny tiny detail proved the whole thing.

Issue is, average joe sees it and doesn't want to listen to any of that pig nonsense and decides the cop is guilty.

Doesn't mean I don't think average joe should SEE it, just that he very well might come to the wrong conclusion when he does.

I used to be pro-police now I find myself in a sort of Missouri Limbo. Missouri as in the "show me" state. I think it was building there until this May when a regional SWAT team shot and ex-Marine Jose Guerena. At first it seemed pretty legit, suspected drug cartel bad guy points gun at cops and gets waxed. After the dust settled I had a hard time believing that a drug dealer works 12 hour night shifts at a mine. Or that the officers didn't meet up and decide on their story (there's a tape where their talking prior to their official statements) or the video where you can see them shooting into the house. 6 months later no arrests have been made and there's still a dead guy and what looks to be a team of cops with blood on their hands.
Now I'm wary of being pro-police, I'm not anti and probably won't ever be, but it really has become an issue where I don't trust EITHER the suspect or the police until there's proof either way. And I'm still skeptical. Like that CBP agent that going to jail to handcuffing and slamming a perp...really? Who did that make sense to? Well I guess about 12 people, for shame.

I've always been good. Only one run in with police, and that was kinda random. Id been out drinking with a few mates and one, a rather large fella of 6'5" and around 300lbs, got himself extremely gak faced and fell asleep in the road... At 2am...myself and a few others tried to wake him up and failed, just as we were wondering what to do a police van cruised around the corner. They were super nice about it and helped us get him into the back of the van, they asked us where we were headed (about 1 mile away) and proceeded to drive us all back to my house.. They even helped unload him and carried him too the sofa. Nice guys!

Blackskullandy wrote:Should the people enforcing the law not be held accountable to it then? Or should we be able to expect the police to have the integrity to ensure that their entire team plays by the rules? If someone was supposed to be covering my back, i would want to know that they were a stand up guy who was doing it because it was the right thing to do not because i had the dirt on them, or they owed their continued employment to my complicity in covering up their mistakes/offenses. Surely law enforcement should hold themselves to a higher standard, or they don't have a leg to stand on...

Of course they should be accountable. We work to make them accountable wherever practically possible.

But the plain and simple reality is that policemen cop one hell of a lot of flack, even when they do their jobs well. It is inevitable that this will produce an un vs them situation. Recognising and understanding that doesn't mean accepting it, but instead is a very important step in resolving the issue.