16 replies to this topic

[ChriSOL]

http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

Wow, maybe its just the way the article was slanted but it seems like, from the cases it cites, that police are trying to fuck us into making them the judge and jury too.

We probably all know what it is like to get pulled over, you're basically at the mercy of the cop. Even if you did nothing wrong, as long as he says you did you can be stopped, ticketed and even arrested wasting your time and money and in some cases damaging your reputation. They know they have that power, its like even at a routine traffic stop they are daring you to say something they don't want to hear so they can power trip all over your ass.

So what is to stop them from writing you frivolous tickets, making up arrestable charges for the excuse to put you in handcuffs, or even beating the fuck out of you knowing you can't do anything back? Or in one case, shooting you in the back as you drive away? What if they wait to arrest you until days or weeks later, pulling you out of your job or school? Even if you're innocent you're treated like you are guilty from the start.

The dash cameras on their cars won't count for shit if they are strategically positioned or blocked by something. Eyewitnesses only count for so much in court. The only hard evidence you have is the fact that most people carry phones with cameras on them these days. And they want to take our only method of making sure they are doing their jobs right and not abusing their power away?

Fucked. Up.

[Hen(Tai)]

Are you fucking kidding me!? this is bullshit. And people wonder why everyone hates the police, they have more rights than the citizens.

[Kyle]

Holy shit! I wonder if this affects Texas? How can it be fair that they can record us, but we can't record them? That gives them the option to cut off or block recording equip like Chris says and have free reign. Last august a friend and I eluded city cops only to be tailed by TABC officers who had heard of the incident on the radio. These 3 officers never turned on lights which I am assuming because it automatically turns on the camera. I got away by miracle on foot, my friend took three bullets to the head and died. Two officers fired more than 13 times ( by my count that I heard as I ran). They claimed he tried to run them over and smashed into their car, but it's plain as day in the pics who clipped who. How does an f250 sustain door damage and a crown Vic have front end damage when they had him blocked in and claim he went in forward and reverse. There were no recordings, and all 3 officers involved lawyered up at the scene. My testimony was inadmissable because my friend and I both have a history as a "violent drug dealer" and a pistol was found in the crew cab truck, bhind the back seat, behind the panel. My friend was shot in the drivers seat, nowhere near the alleged weapon. The truck was registered to a old woman, so there was no way of knowing about criminal history before hand. This just luckily worked out in their favor to acquit those assholes. All over a suspected dwi stop. Now every time I am stopped I use the voice recorder function on my phone and place it discreetly out of view because I am downright scared of being killed by one of those fuckers! Oh, and the first thing they seized was my phone when they caught up with me. Be careful out there guys, you never know what kind of person is behind that badge.

[Big Fuckin Shooter]

Edit: ^^ Holy fuck. Well'ard. That's some crazy shit..


This is one reason why I'm glad to be Canadian. It seems like US law enforcement is slowly and steadily encroaching on people's civil rights day by day. Protection and service is a thing of the past now, IMO.

Every time I get pulled over I always have my phone camera going, you never know when this shit can go down. Maybe I should start using my GoPro to capture them fuckin with me in HD. In my city, anyone who drives a RHD car is a huge target for harassment by police, and they spend so much effort to give us trivial tickets and vehicle inspections even if we obey all the laws. It's no wonder we have the highest % of crime per capita in the country..

[ChriSOL]

also: http://jalopnik.com/5553772/court-ruling-a...ed-on-estimates

police in ohio can now TELL YOU you were speeding based on just their visual estimation.

[bradlee]

they do that now anyway. my past two tickets have been EXACTLY "60mph" in 45mph zones, making them 15 over, which puts the tickets in the next $ bracket. doesn't change the fact that i was still speeding, but they certainly like to round up. that was when i made a run of these t-shirts...



but yeah, all this stuff pisses me off. i've had some friends who went down for "street racing" related stuff, and the dash cam footage was conveniently misplaced...

[white_raven]

its fuckin big brother... they are cracking down on the citizens to get ready for all out oppression!

Watch this movie to learn more about the shit going on! "Police State 4" <-- on youtube and google.com/video

The government doesnt serve the people anymore, we serve them.

[CelicaDRIFTER]

wow, this is retarded.
often you'll see shit on the news about cops doin shit they werent supposed to do like kick down bicyclists, yell abusively at a kid skater, racial profiling? and other shit.
and now this will allow them to do shit and get away with it.

[Kyle]

Like Chris says, the judge and the jury, and, in the right circumstances, the executioner as well. With laws like that in place, even if I filmed somethimg like that, I'd be worried about the repurcussions fucking me in the ass. I can't afford a felony. No pun intended with the last two sentences.

[JimmyHoffa]

They need to get on this law ASAP, fix that shit. IMO every cop in the country should have to wear a head mounted camera so that everything they see and do is recorded and available to the public, to the defence and the prosecution. Live streaming straight out to a central recording location. It would make for a lot more honest and transparent policing and a lot less cops acting like the Nazi SS.

So many cops act like they're in Iraq or Afghanistan in the middle of a war, but they're better trained and equipped than the soldiers, outnumber their "enemy" (the public) most of the time they're making an arrest or even a traffic stop .I've seen 4 squad cars at one routine traffic stop on numerous occasions, and our gun crime rate is insanely low compared to anywhere in the US. last year there were 18 murders in Ottawa, a city of 1 million people and most were not gun related. The cops barely need vests here. Cops are whiny power hungry bitches with too much power and too many weapons. Fuckin tazing people because they're too lazy to fight them.

I think things are a bit over the top here in Canada, in the states they're just crazy. In a bunch of states if you have a large amount of money on you they can just seize it claiming it's proceeds of crime with no proof, and if you want it back you have to undeniably prove it's not. I heard a case of a business man going to buy a tractor for his family's farm, he'd already put a down-payment on it, had the paperwork proving he owed the farm equipment dealer X number of dollars for it, had that amount of cash in his briefcase (IIRC it was something like 17,000). He got pulled over for speeding or something, and the cop just took the money as proceeds of crime or intended for a drug transaction or something. Ok, it's odd to have that kind of cash on you, but if you have paperwork proving what it's for, how can they seriously do that?

[bradlee]

cops don't just use the taser because they're lazy. it's the safest (99% of the time) way to subdue someone who is resisting. fighting the person would only lead to more injuries (therefore more of a liability to the cop/city/state). i have no problem with bringing back the nightsticks though, perhaps people would eventually get the idea to not resist. if you resist over something stupid, you're just going to get slapped with another charge or "obstructing" the investigation or some shit. it's much easier to fight a weak case where you get in the back of the cop car quietly, rather than one where you're yelling out "what did i do?!" or trying to argue with the cops that you "know your rights" (when you clearly don't).

i agree that cops still need to be held accountable to a very high standard. it has to be transparent enough to gain trust from the public, but i don't think everything should be wide open to the public, since there's a reasonable expectation of privacy for those non-public figures involved. but anyway, the truth that 4+ cops often respond to traffic stops is an indicator of how screwed up the priorities are and how inefficiently police resources are being utilized. i know they're all just out on patrol and have nothing better to do, but it's like hiring 4 contractors to build your house, 1 actually does the work, the others just hang out for moral support. these "resources" could be much better spent elsewhere. i vote more driver education, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

[ChriSOL]

Want to steal a car and get away with it? Come to Benbrook, TX. 5 cars from just around my parents' block were stolen, taken for joyrides, then burned on a back road behind the lake. Benbrook will take a police report and listen intently as you tell them you KNOW who did it, then never follow through because they don't have the resources and need every available officer generating city revenue by issuing speeding tickets for 5mph over.

My first car was stolen this way, we had an eyewitness (my neighbor) and the fact that someone at my school had been bragging about stealing cars in my area for weeks prior to it happening. The next large city around us who supposedly loans us their detectives is Fort Worth and it took them 2 YEARS to get to my friend's court case for his speeding ticket - which was summarily dismissed wasting everyone's time.

There needs to be some serious ground-up reform within the law enforcement community.

[Mo]

I got busted doing 75mph in a 55mph zone in Ohio even though I had proof i was doing 57mph from my Copilot GPS software with speed and cooridnates when I got pulled over and 20 minutes prior yet my shit was thrown out and I got dinged 1.5 points and had to pay $178. Not to mention, I also had Qualcomm Satellite tracking from my EOBR and they still threw out the proof and the judge made me pay. Fucking sucks but oh well.

[mcfizzle]

Bullshitting about tickets is one thing.

This law is pretty serious.

[Hen(Tai)]

[JimmyHoffa]

^^ I don't think the ticket issues are bullshit. He had proof, he bothered to show up to court to plead his case, they told him to go fuck himself and pay the fine. The cop is right you're wrong just because he has a badge, that is the whole point here. The police are being held up on a pedestal and given all kinds of rights and freedoms that they abuse, while our rights and freedoms are being infringed upon and blatantly shit on by the people that are supposed to be serving and protecting us. The worst part is, our elected officials are doing nothing but making it easier for them to shit on our rights.

[mcfizzle]

The same thing has happened to me, I got a completely unjustified 100% fabricated speeding ticket (eventually resulted in my license being suspended) and even though I managed to get what I thought was viable evidence that the ticket was BS, the judge's response was basically "he has a badge, you're fucked."

Even though I've been a victim of it, it's pretty near the bottom of the barrel of police misconduct.

There have been instances of other things happening where police departments literally get shut down or fired from top to bottom and replaced. I'm way more concerned about things like brutality and murder and why entire communities live in fear of the police rather than the inconveniences we experience as car enthusiasts.

As a side note, I heard a funny thing on TV the other day. I was watching the ESPN documentary on Ricky Williams. He was allegedly sexually abused (annoyed was the legal term used) as a kid by his dad, and eventually grew up without him around. So of course Ricky comes to resent him later on in adolescence. His mother said Ricky made a comment at a young age something along the lines of "I want to become a police man when I grow up so I can kill him and get away with it, since the police can get away with anything."