"If You See Something, Say Something" -- Uh...Except If You See A Cop
The ACLU is representing Roxbury (Boston) resident Mary Holmes in her case against two Boston transit cops for police brutality and violation of her constitutional right to free speech. From the ACLU's website:
Ms. Holmes was pepper-sprayed, beaten, and arrested by the officers because she spoke out to prevent MBTA police from abusing a person in her community.In March 2014, Ms. Holmes was at the Dudley Square MBTA station in Roxbury when she saw Officer Jennifer Garvey scream at and shove an older Black woman. The situation worried Ms. Holmes so she tried to calm the woman and asked Officer Garvey to stop being so aggressive. When these efforts failed, she called 9-1-1 for help. In response, Officer Garvey and her partner, Officer Alfred Trinh, pepper-sprayed Ms. Holmes in the face, beat her with a metal baton, and arrested her, handcuffing her hands behind her back while forcing her to the ground.
"The MBTA has signs everywhere telling people 'if you see something, say something.' This is exactly what Ms. Holmes did. She saw something wrong, and she spoke out. We need more people to follow Ms. Holmes' lead and do the same," said Jessie Rossman, staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. "Unfortunately, the officers' reactions are part of a broader, troubling trend, in which police officers mistreat individuals exercising their constitutional rights. It has to stop."
There's video at both the ACLU link and this Boston.com link. Adam Vaccaro writes:
The incident was captured on video at the MBTA station (included at the end of this article). The footage shows Holmes being pepper sprayed as she speaks on the phone, hit with a baton, and thrown to the ground.Holmes was held overnight because she could not make bail, according to the suit. The next day, the suit says, Holmes was charged with assault and battery on a public employee, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped months later when prosecutors saw video of the incident, according to the complaint.
Looking at the video, it looks like what the cop got pissed off at was Holmes getting on her phone to 911 to complain about them.
Completely outrageous. I hope she gets a tidy payout (although of course it won't be these shitheel cops who have to pay the settlement, it will be the taxpayers of Boston).
She's lucky in a sense that this happened on camera - without that, she'd probably still be facing trumped up charges. All the more reason for cops to be made to wear body cameras.
Katrina at August 27, 2015 6:26 AM
Another reason body cameras are good for officers to wear: it causes the public they interact with to be more peaceable as well.
And an incident were the offenders should be stripped of their qualified immunity. So that they can be held personally liable.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 27, 2015 7:31 AM
"Another reason body cameras are good for officers to wear: it causes the public they interact with to be more peaceable as well."
The absolute BEST reason for police body cameras is this one: office workers with the DA's office can review that footage at their leisure and determine whether anything chargeable has occurred. Then, you will be fined. What? It's right there on camera...
The solution to police misconduct isn't cameras, because the cameras are on you.
If I put a camera on you today while you drove, you'd be broke and jailed by midnight because of all the traffic laws you break without realizing it.
You will.
Radwaste at August 27, 2015 4:30 PM
"The charges were dropped months later..."
This delay, in and of itself, is a form of abuse and state terror.
Lastango at August 27, 2015 4:56 PM
The paranoid slogan "If you see something, say something" dates to prewar Stalinist Russia.
jefe at August 27, 2015 5:19 PM
Radwaste makes an excellent point - police body cameras are not the answer, because they are controlled by the people who they are supposed to monitor.
Dashcams are very widespread, and yet it's amazing how often dashcams malfunction. What's even more amazing is the number of cases where police agencies and prosecutors dream up some BS reason not to release dashcam video which might possibly cast them in a bad light - although they fall all over themselves to get flattering or exculpatory dashcam video on the 6 o'clock news.
All of the egregious cases of police misbehavior caught on tape that we have seen of late were initially caught on private tape. Sometimes police dashcam or body-cam video supports it, but very seldom is it the other way about. There's a message right there - you want to hold police to account, the way to do it is by us recording them, not them recording us.
If we let it devolve to a police-owned-and-operated body-cam system as the default for gathering evidence of police wrongdoing, there will soon be so many exceptions to hide behind - privacy. medical confidentiality, yada, yada, yada - that we'll be right where we are now - half the time, the police chief or the prosecutor will just smirk and say 'well, the camera was turned off just at the exact moment that the person attacked the police officer and he was forced to defend himself, 16 times. Judgement call, split-second decision, the officer has the right to go home safe to his family, too bad.'
The only way I could support a police-owned-and-operated video surveillance system as the default for gathering video evidence of police wrongdoing, is if it were also made the standard for gathering video evidence of citizen wrongdoing. You claim the citizen was interfering with you, and assaulted you, and that's why you were compelled to Capstun her, throw her to the ground, beat her, cuff her and haul her away for a night in jail? Show me the video, or there's no case. But even that would not cure the problem - as Lastango observes, the process IS the punishment, and as long as officers can treat people this way and suffer no personal or professional consequences - they will continue to do so. Milgram experiment - almost everybody would, why would we expect officers to be any different?
llater,
llamas
llamas at August 28, 2015 6:37 AM
In traffic court a while back, I asked to see the officer's dash-cam video, just like what we see on crime-fighting tv at night.
Without even asking if such a video existed, or was it available, the court commissioner said "I don't need to see the video!"
Police videos are worthless when the judge/commissioner refuses to admit them in court, but that's a civil rights abuse in itself.
jefe at August 29, 2015 1:27 PM
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