To Serve and Protect—Themselves

By Cindy Gomez
Editor

In this age of quick technology, people have taken issues of police misconduct into their own hands, videotaping and uploading encounters of profiling, abuse, and misconduct by law enforcement officials to social networking sites.

Making information about misconduct readily available might seem like an effective and transparent way to assert your rights. After all, police nowadays all have video cameras and other forms of surveillance available to record us. Why not turn the lens on them, or anyone who is breaking the law? Not to mention the fact that as employees of the city or state, paid by our tax dollars, officers and law enforcement should have no expectation of privacy when they are working with the public, in public view.

Twenty-four year old Maryland resident Anthony John Graber III thought so too. Graber, who frequently taped motorcycle rides with a helmet mounted camera was taping when a plainclothed police officer in an unmarked vehicle stopped him and jumped out of his vehicle—gun drawn and aimed—screaming at Graber. The officer never bothered to identify himself as an officer until later. Graber’s mother advised him to make the video public to protect himself from retaliation. This is one time that taking mom’s advice was not advisable. Graber is now facing felony charges for violation of state wiretapping laws, for capturing a police stop and posting it to YouTube.

What is most troubling about these charges is that Maryland police did not feel the need to search, confiscate property or arrest Graber until after they discovered the embarrassing video. Further, Graber’s defense attorney asserts that the state has never before used wiretapping laws to punish citizens holding law enforcement accountable, asserting that this is more a case of “contempt of cop” than violation of wiretapping laws.

And consider this: Rodney King, in 1991, was not the first person to be nearly beaten to death by the police. With technological advance, law officers are more accountable than ever, and don’t want to be. Meanwhile, in 2004 only 8% of all cases of excessive force complaints in larger metropolitan police departments were sustained according to a U.S. Government June 2006 report from the Bureau of Justice statistics. Civilians suing local police departments are likely to get bogged down in bureaucratic red tape and face retaliation from law enforcement; internal affairs investigations rarely ever result in police accountability.

“In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse,” says author and feminist Wendy McElroy, “a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.”

The trend referred to in McElroy’s comment is a disturbing one, especially for watchdog groups, civil rights groups, and human rights groups that monitor and document abuse by law enforcement entities. In many states the number of arrests for videotaping and photographing police has risen dramatically. People are being searched, property is being seized. Many are even charged with assault. If a police officer feels you are “assaulting” him/her for videotaping, can they also shoot you?

“Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested.” McElroy added.

In December 2007 a United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published a report on Law Enforcement Violence titled: “In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse of People of Color in the United States.” In it, the committee noted and documented a pattern of unrestrained abuse, unchecked power, and lack of transparency and accountability in U.S. law enforcement.

It is notable that since the Committee’s 2001 review of the U.S., when it expressed concern regarding “...[I]ncidents of police brutality and deaths in custody at the hands of US law enforcement officers, there have been dramatic increases in law enforcement powers in the name of waging the ‘war on terror’, [resulting in] the use of excessive force against people of color…[It’s not only continued post-9/11], but has worsened in both practice and severity”.

The report also explains why civil lawsuits against law enforcement agencies and the internal affairs complaint process (which most law enforcement agencies, including the ones in Fargo-Moorhead, have as their only means of accountability to the public) are largely ineffective at deterring police brutality and abuse. More importantly, the report goes on to identify watchdog groups, activists and civil/human rights groups who document and analyze complaints of abuse as the single most effective deterrent to police abuse and brutality that currently exists in the U.S..

Perhaps the injustice of our current complaint and oversight systems drives people to document police abuse they witness, but—as the 2007 report points out—it has also placed activists and human rights groups under attack. Our right to self-preservation and protection from police misconduct is under attack. We’ve got to fight against laws requiring all parties to assent for a recording to be legal. As journalist Radley Balko wrote, “State legislatures should consider passing laws explicitly making it legal to record on-duty law enforcement officials.”

And that is exactly what we in North Dakota and Minnesota should do. Preserving our rights to freedom from government intrusion is a fundamentally American value. In fact, there are lots of poor to middling countries where corruption has been weakened by cellphones and tiny cameras. The whole world has watched as human rights abuses were made public and addressed. Airing truth in public does make a difference. We in the U.S.A should take notice of those impacts on democracy and accountability and follow suit. We should do so before this trend limiting our rights turns from a slippery slope to a mud slide.

If we allow these all-party consent laws to be passed in other states, or our own, that will set a dreadful precedent for us in the U.S., and beyond. Proactively working to pass laws that ensure we have the right to record ourselves or others in public—where no expectation of privacy exists—is crucial to keeping our freedoms intact. If we allow police the power to confiscate evidence of their own wrongdoing and punish anyone who would hold them accountable, we’ve given away our right to freedom. So the next time you happen to be recording or photographing out in public just remember that you may be in danger of losing that privilege unless you assert your right to do so now.

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