I will now ascend the soapbox...(ahem):

If anything happens to the police offices, it will happen 18 months from now, after all media attention has bled away. The officers will be lightly reprimanded for an insufficiently accurate police report and improper stop procedures. They will be assigned to desk duty for a few weeks, and then all will be forgotten.

This behavior you see here, however, is too-commonly the standard behavior of too many police officers all across America: they use POPO (pissed off police officer) charges to exact revenge against citizens they feel have been insufficiently respectful to them.

This culture of officers using law to dominate, not protect, is widespread and needs to be rooted out of our police departments. At its worst, this culture of dominance expresses itself in SWAT raids in utterly inappropriate circumstances.

The police need to be fixed in America. This is not a nation under siege from lawless hordes. We do not need scowling, angry police mistreating us. We should demand a professionalism and courtesy and restraint in all circumstances.

They. Work. For. Us. They need to remember that. Always.

We have reached a point w/video & audio recording technology that all evidence submitted by law enforcement should be corroborated with video and/or audio to be considered valid.
Why this isn't the case with confessions already cast a shadow of 'suspicion' over the process. When the justice system abandons the 'moral high ground' in favor of convenience, it fails to serve it's intended purpose. What is left is a justice industry, and you are not a customer, you are the raw material with 'value added' potential.

Q: How do you know a cop is lying?

A: He's testifying under oath. Or he's writing a police report. Or he's talking.

What everyone seems to forget is that lying is part of a policeman's job - they lie to suspects in order to obtain a confession. And they feel this is right and proper. It's just a small step from there to lying in court to achieve a conviction. There's even a police term for it - testilying. The one person you absolutely can not trust is a cop.

Q. How do you know a cop is lying?

A. Their lips are moving.

Remind me, again, why I shouldn't be permitted to record encounters with law enforcement?

TJIC:

You sound bitter!

Some juristictions now have police officers wear small video cameras on their person that records everything that happens while on their shift.

The police can't turn the cameras off, and it all goes into a video archive. I think this is a good thing. Both sides get access to the footage during discovery, and it gives an unbiased account of what actually went down.

Spartee said - This culture of officers using law to dominate, not protect, is widespread and needs to be rooted out of our police departments. At its worst, this culture of dominance expresses itself in SWAT raids in utterly inappropriate circumstances.

I absolutely agree, could not agree more, you are right, absolutely, no question about it. Now that I have made my absolute, steadfast agreement with your position sufficiently clear, I wish to point out that a culture of officers, not to mention bureaucrats and other officials at all levels of government with the mission to dominate, not protect citizens is absolutely required to support a system of laws that are made to dominate, not protect citizens. One may rail against the cop all one wants to - until the laws are returned to a constitutional framework, from which the single most important test a law must pass is whether it protects peoples immediate, here and now rights - not their feelings, not their perceptions, not what may happen down the road in some Rube Goldberg justification - this is what we get, what we will continue to get, and in the end, what we voted for.
And that is true today Whether the douchebag you voted for has an "R" or a "D" behind his name.

See today's joke comments for an additional consideration of this matter.

I've been contemplating buying a cheap $70 camcorder to mount above my mirror while driving, just in case there's an accident, but if it also records audio (cop probably won't go to the front of my car), that could be a bonus, as seen here.

What's interesting is this was an all-party consent state, and I'm assuming the PD could try to get it dismissed as the officers didn't consent to being recorded over telephone, but good for the woman. I wish her luck!

Doesn't anyone else see the irony between this post and our hostesses last audiotape post? In this same situation, Amy would be out of luck after telling Geico,"no way are you going to tape me. Oh, Hello Offic..."

It would be great if "Caustic" –who's presumably a regular here posting under a one-time pseudonym, and wearing a mask for obvious good reasons– could muster a reply to Amy's challenge.

You'd have to be a candy-addled four-year-old, a stupid one, to imagine that the two contexts have anything in common except that they might both be recorded.

Seriously, does "Caustic" think the Los Angeles Times record its sales calls because people might behave badly, and they'll need the evidence?

That reasoning is good so far as it goes, I guess. But until I removed my landline last month, I got a few sales calls every year. And I said horrible, horrible things to those people... In the parlance of the Supreme court of the United States, "Fighting Words". OK? I verbally assaulted my callers with grotesque, gratuitous insults and imagery, language that was morally (and quite probably legally) indefensible.

But they didn't prosecute the matter: They'd hang up, and wouldn't bother me again. After all, they were breaking the law by phoning me.

Caustic, try that on a cop sometime; try it on a fully deputized law enforcement officer who's stopping you in traffic with probably cause.

And let us know how it works out for you. Because we can only guess.

Patrick:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=BLK-MINIDVR-US

Crid:

"Can't we all... just... get along?”
-- Rodney King

Apparently not.

Sorry, I couldn't muster a reply earlier, Crid, but I was doing that job thing and was away from my desk. The moniker is real and was bestowed upon me back in the mid-80s by a Senior Chief who felt that a young PO2 shouldn't talk to him with that particular tone of voice. He then proceeded to show me why I should not have used that tone of voice. If you don't believe that, I have no problem with Amy giving you my email address privately. I, however, will not publish it here for one and all to suddenly let me know how much I mean to them via my mailbox.

I am a regular reader here but I do not post frequently so this is no nefarious plan from lujlp, Patrick, or any of your other frequent combatants to hide from you.

I too say mean horrible things to Telemarketers that could be considered "Fighting Words." I do it because I myself do not like being interrupted in my private time with unnecessary calls. I find that much more annoying than the idea they might record me against my will so I scream at them and hang up.

Amy,

I do see the difference and ,frankly, skimmed the article during lunch and was a might too quick to make fun. I will say this though...my first thought when I read about the police swearing about a chain of events is not that they are lying. I think most cops are doing their job the right way and I am thankful that there are people willing to put themselves out there everyday to keep the wolves away. Those who break our trust should have the book thrown at them.

Frankly given the ease with which public interaction can be recorded, there is no longer any good reason why all officers should not be recording at all times.

If it were up to me, no report, no arrest, no stated interaction between officers and the public, would be considered viable or valid UNLESS it were accompanied by video.

I realize I am a little late to this party, but I needed to find time to listen to the tape before commenting. You guys are wrong. Sorry. Listen to the tape. She started resisting them from the word go. She was so afraid of doing damage to her Lexus that she refused to move it off of the road. Not only was she blocking traffic, but she was creating a hazard. She was rude and disrespectful and deserved what she got. I don't see where that tape exonerates her at all. Its clear that she had been arguing with them for some time and refusing to hand over her driver's license.

I know this won't be popular with the "cops is pigs crowd" but these guys do a dangerous job and never know what they are going to encounter when they stop someone. I have had the opportunity to work with law enforcement on various occasions and when you hear the stories of how they have had guns pulled on them you begin to appreciate what they do for a living. I spent 6 months working with the Colorado State Patrol and these guys that you have labeled liars and creeps are the first people who will be on the scene to pull your fat, bigoted ass out of a wreck should you need it. I remember the Head of the Patrol telling me how he spent a snowy night on the I70 corridor pulling a woman out from under the dash-board of her car. To get to her, he had to crawl over the decapitated remains of her husband. He was so covered in gore that he had to stand in the shower fully dressed to get it off. He then went back out and finished his shift. How many people do you know that will do that for $45,000 a year?

I wouldn't treat a grocery checker the way this woman talked to the police. She was rude and she was RESISTING. They didn't just target her for nothing. You all who think she was right should spend sometime listening to the tape.

She was rude and she was RESISTING. They didn't just target her for nothing.

Yes, I often wish I could fabricate felony charges when people are rude to me, too.

But the issue was she did not RESPECT THAR AUTORITAH!

How Rude!

Unix,
Ummm, yeah... that's the point. When you get a drivers license you have to obey the rules of the road. One of those rules is that when the cops ask to you to present your id you do it...without resisting. Why is this hard? Do you routinely smart off to the cops in your town? I'll bet not. It is easy to come out here and shoot off your mouth, but in real life (where I live) if a uniformed officer of the law asks for your id, you present it post haste. She was asked for id several times and clearly even before the tape begins and she refused to hand it over... this is technically considered resisting. The rude thing was just a bonus.

Technically you just have to identify yourself, not provide a gov issue ID card.