“Craigslist Proved My Innocence Against A Felony Charge”

A West Point graduate and former Army officer sees a woman being abused by cops.   He hollers to tell them stop. He video-records the cops.  The cops rough him up, arrest him and charge him with a felony.

He advertises on Craigslist for anyone who witnessed the event and, amazingly, someone replies who also video’d the same event.  That second video causes the grand jury to refuse to indict him for a felony.  He becomes involved in the “Peaceful Streets” project that, in part, encourages people to carry cameras for the principle purpose of video-recording cops while they stop, arrest and sometimes abuse, private people.  Peaceful Streets has now spread to several other cities.

This remarkable video doesn’t merely show how a man avoided being charged with a felony.  It shows how all of us can help curb the police state by simply using cellphone cameras to routinely record police activities.  We live in a surveillance society.  There’s no reason why cops should be exempt from that surveillance. When the cops know that they may be being video-recorded at virtually every moment they’re on duty, their inclination to abuse people will be inhibited and their conduct should improve dramatically.

Applause, applause!

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Warrants?! We Don’ Nee’ No Stinkin’ Warrants! (Unless We’re on Video)

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s an interesting little video of a police officer stopping someone for speeding, asking for permission to search his vehicle for drugs, and being refused that permission unless he produces a warrant to search.  The cop goes ballistic.  I mean bal-lis-TIC!  

The cop’s rage is kinda comical.

Nevertheless, the cop does let the guy go without a speeding ticket or a search of his vehicle.

Why?

Two possible answers:

1) The cop may not like the law in the least, but he still respects it.  I.e., no matter how much the cop wanted to search the car, he knew the driver was right and a search could not lawfully proceed without the driver’s permission or, failing that, a warrant signed by a judge.  The driver refused permission.  No judge was available.  The cop could not lawfully search.

2)  The cop knew that the entire stop was being recorded on his dash-cam.  Therefore, as much as the cop might like to beat the crap out of the driver who dared to ask for a warrant, he couldn’t proceed violently and/or illegally so long as “big brother” (the gov-co) was watching “little brother” (the cop) on video.

I’ll bet the answer is #2.  As pissed as that cop was, the driver of the vehicle escaped an ass-whoopin’ thanks to the dash-cam on the cop’s cruiser.