Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
In my mind and in my car
We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far.
-The Buggles
By Randall Grantham
I’ve been an outspoken advocate of videotaping all police/citizen encounters for a long time now. For better or for worse, it provides an unbiased version of the incident. And with digital technology and cutting-edge forensics now available to the government, more and more police and their cars are equipped with more and better video equipment.
Some have cameras that are running all the time and capture individual stops from start to finish and from several different vantage points. They often show date, time, direction of travel and even GPS pinpointed location.
While law enforcement agencies are all in favor of this technology when it helps their case, some seem to have a different point of view when it is them shown on film doing something that is not quite SOP.
Sometimes it’s their own camera that captures a less-than-flattering interaction between the officers and the public. Do you remember the incident in Miami where the cops’ camera shows them concocting a story about how a woman’s cat jumped out of her car window causing him to hit her as she swerved in front of him, when actually he had rear-ended her simply because he was not paying attention?
Years ago, the local sheriff’s office videotaped a “dynamic entry” by the SWAT team to execute a search warrant in a drug case. That was the first, last and only time they did that. Once I introduced that as evidence, the judge didn’t appreciate the discrepancies between it and the way the cops had testified the raid went down and threw out all the evidence.
Then there were the Polk County cops caught on tape playing Wii at the their drug suspect’s home on his home surveillance cameras
And now, there are videos everywhere. They’re all throughout every major retail outlet and even scan the parking areas at Walmart, Busch Gardens and other spots. They’re at ATMs and gas stations. And most threatening of all, they’re in citizens’ hands on nearly every cell phone sold today.
It may surprise you, but cops do not like being the subject of video taping when they are confronting a member of the public. They will actually arrest you for trying to film them in action.
Cops in Maryland recently raided a home to seize evidence and arrest a man for violating the state’s wiretapping statute. His crime was posting on YouTube a helmet-cam recording of his traffic stop where the unmarked officer drew down on him for no apparent reason. He faces up to 16 years in prison because he had the audio recording with the video.
Another woman in that state was recently arrested for filming police responding to a noise complaint in her apartment complex. According to her arrest report, she “confessed” to recording the encounter for the purpose of showing cops harassing people. She also recorded audio and video.
Now, some states have actually criminalized filming police in action. In Florida it is a crime to record audio of people who don’t consent to be recorded, but there’s no law on the books prohibiting a video-only recording of events taking place in public. So, usually the charge is trumped up to obstructing an investigation, or disorderly conduct, or, in one case where the officer blocked the camera, battery on a law enforcement officer.
Last year a model was arrested in Boynton Beach for videotaping an encounter between her teenage son and police in a movie theater. Prosecutors had the good sense not to file charges, but the ACLU is suing the police department for the arrest.
The president of the national Fraternal Order of Police defends these arrests, saying that filming cops on duty “can intimidate officers from doing their job.” Of course he also says that cops don’t lie.
I’m not saying cops lie. All I’m saying is that a video recording of something is more reliable and unbiased than having one or more parties give their version of what happened. There are bound to be omissions, exaggerations and personal spin there that would not be present with a video.
What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander and people, whether they be witnesses or participants, shouldn’t be intimidated or threatened out of preserving that kind of evidence. And criminalizing this type of thing just reminds me too much of those news feeds you see from Communist China or the like. It’s just un-American!
Randall C. Grantham is a lifelong resident of Lutz who practices law from his offices on Dale Mabry Highway. He can be reached at . Copyright 2010 RCG. To comment on this or anything else, e-mail the editor at and for past columns go to lakerlutznews.com.
