Some days, every profession is "some perverse version of The Office with X".
I don't mean to excuse LEOs, but rather to point out that the expectation that they're somehow different from the rest of us, is one of society's problems.
They are different from the rest of us, in the same way that those who are border patrol officers, paramedics and military officers are. Not only does your job greatly influence your persona but you should be expected to take your job more seriously depending on the subject matter you're dealing with.
We do not send airplanes into the skies comfortably secure in the knowledge that airline pilots take their responsibilities very seriously. (Which they do, I am sure.) We do not do that because the airline industry cannot survive a failure rate of 'everyone tries hard'. Instead, there are checklists, redundant safety mechanisms, and the like, all of which greatly improve the airline success rate.
Can you elaborate a bit? In what way are they "no different"? At the very least they are LEO, unlike all the "rest of society" AKA non-LEO.
Are these stats wrong? http://womenandpolicing.com/violencefs.asp
And what is the civilian equivalent of the blue shield? How come people snitch on each other all the time for petty things, or even make UP bad things about each other? How come LEO are rather more tribe like when it comes to that stuff, seem to cover up even murder with no problem, and sometimes even threaten the precious few cops who do speak out? How many cases are there of cops blowing the whistle about concrete cops who killed concrete persons? Is that just not being reported on as often?
I don't mean when something or someone ELSE, the non-LEO society if you will, proved without a doubt that a cop did a heinous thing, and the cop is impossible to defend, that some will condemn that cop as well and distance themselves. That one's a given, and if you see a whole lot of cops getting caught horrible things and not very many cops speaking out before anyone got caught, you should be worried IMHO. If you aren't, that just makes me worry about the US public as well. But again, "if" is the operative word here, I'm asking more than claiming this.
But this I will claim: The pre-"super-high-tech" era is the last window of opportunity to solve the problems of power and morality.
We simply have no political consciousness, at all, anywhere in the world; not in the sense of Hannah Arendt, who said politics is not about life, it's about the world, which should be one way or another, which should outlast us one way or another. I would add, so life can prosper in it. Here's an idea, to not think about what offends people who are living right now, but to think about what would offend people who might live in 1000 years, that is, what results of our (in)actions would they like, what would they curse our names for, maybe even in between screams of torture. Yes, this takes courage, which I lack as well, but even realizing one should be able to do something but doesn't dare, is better than rationalizing it. There's at least some measure of hope and dignity there.
Judges, police, politicians all are very different from those of us not giving the power over others lives. You should expect them to behave accordingly or expect that they be locked away in prison or executed. Just like they do to other people often times wrongfully.
"Control over other people's lives" is the problem. Occasionally those who obtain that control use it only in benign fashion, but such conduct is exceptional.
And the story is that because the shitty quality video long after the main event happens has a few frames messed-up - which more than likely originates from technical issues - that this proves that there is something being covered up.
Sandra Bland -- as a citizen -- has no obligation to be polite and deferential. To suggest that her attitude somehow justifies abuse against her is despicable. The police offer escalated the situation at every opportunity, even though it's his job to deescalate, to serve and protect, and to keep the peace.
When dealing with a suspicious suicide of course the public is going to demand whatever raw footage is available. Not a cropped and edited version. It doesn't matter that the edits are probably innocuous. Denying the public the raw footage by itself speaks of arrogance.
Or maybe as he was in the traffic lane, and now that she was clearly irate and argumentative, he did not want to stand there waiting to be hit by a car... while trying to explain to her that he was just issuing her a warning with no fine.
> Sandra Bland -- as a citizen -- has no obligation to be polite and deferential.
Except she did have an obligation to comply with the order to get out of the car.
> The police offer escalated the situation at every opportunity
That's a projection of what you want to see.
Once someone disobeys an order, they can arrest you... And when you refuse again, their job is to arrest you.
Being nasty and combative might be your right, but it in no way helps you.
If he had said "this is just a warning, there's no fine or penalty" (as he did with the first woman) the stop would hae been very much shorter.
His own actions prolonged the length of time that he was standing in the road. His own needless power-tripping prolonged the stop.
Around 11:50 she says "scared of a female - I was trying to sign the fucking ticket", suggesting that she considers that some action she performed was something he was scared of. I guess this was the reason he asked her to get out of the car.
She says "I can't wait until we go to court" refuses to stand still, refuses to listen to his responses, refuses to stand in view of the camera where he tries to put her. At 8:58 when he notes explicitly she seems "very irritated" I'm assuming, and with the subsequent search, that he's considering she's hiding something that warrants further investigation (like drug-driving?).
>His own needless power-tripping prolonged the stop. //
It doesn't seem like this to me. Assuming the stop was valid - and in none of the footage did I hear her say it wasn't - then what should he do, just ignore the ticket because she won't comply?
From a sister article (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sandra-bland-arrest-expe...):
>"In hindsight, [Retired Los Angeles Police Capt.] Meyer said, it may have been better to wait for backup. “The lady seemed committed to her resistance to lawful detention and arrest, so the presence of a backup unit might not have made much difference,” he said.
“This is yet another case of someone who chooses to illegally resist the directions of a police officer, thus escalating the situation, “ he said." //
That's exactly how this reads to me.
That's a non sequitur. She said "I'm in my car. Why do I have to put out my cigarette". His immediate reply was "Ok, then I'm telling you to get out of the car", implying cause and effect.
In all of the recent cases that have made the news, this question seems to go unposed, when it should be a litmus test WRT the overall approach to policing.
Instead, we have a culture that shifts the conversation to one about what the officer and victim each did as the situation escalated.
If the apparent exaggerated agitation was due to say drug-driving then the officer will have made a potential increase in the "safety and peace for the public". There is no way for them to find the facts without questioning the person and their refusal to comply peaceably makes it impossible.
If you're going to stop people for road-traffic offences, which does appear to increase safety, then do you really want LEO to let people off if they're obnoxious and evasive?
Not really. Their job is to assess the situation and see if it make sense to arrest the person. In most cases, the answer is that it doesn't.
Except asking her to put out her cigarette kind of seems to imply he intended to stay in her face for a good while longer.
> Being nasty and combative might be your right, but it in no way helps you.
Same for being an apologist for this. People have the right to be that way; I don't have the right to let them.
Like I said, it warrants further investigation.
Personally, I think it was a hit, but that is besides the point of my earlier comment.
http://bennorton.com/dashcam-video-of-violent-arrest-of-sand...
If someone edited the video, why did they choose to make their cuts at times where cars or people are in scene? They would have gone unnoticed had they occurred a few seconds earlier. Who would be so stupid?
In Rising Sun there's a slightly different polemic. A security video from a murder is edited before being given to the police (albeit more sophisticated in editing), and the detective takes offense to the assumption that it wouldn't be noticed, because of a (stereotype) Japanese attention to detail and an American indifference.
But, as another commenter stated, we can't know the answer until we know what the original video holds.
Interestingly, if they then release the full video which shows nothing, then suspicions around the overall case will presumably be calmed. That would make me wonder if it was an intentional red herring to engender more trust and reduce suspicion around her eventual death. After all, why else release obviously edited video that would raise suspicion only to later quell it with unedited footage that was always available?
Sadly their actions have created suspicion. Further releases of video will be doubted by a wide range of people, from calm but cautious scrutineers to rabid conspiracy theorists.
Truth doesn't matter at that point.
Not saying this is happening. But, if the full video suddenly comes out and is "all-clear", then the police department will certainly receive that benefit, whether intentional or not.
Maybe the editing was accomplished via an interface that just had a time slider.
Maybe the minimum resolution was 1 second, or five seconds...
Hell, maybe the best tech they had was the "use two VCRs, push play on one and push record on the other, push pause at the beginning and end of the segment you want to remove" method. ;)
Sure, its looped a few times. And the update is that they are re-uploading it.
The willingness of police to label death a suicide never ceases to amaze me. I was on the beach down in Florida a few years ago and found a dead girl with her hands tied. Cops showed up and immediately assumed suicide. Turns out she had drug issues and had a history to support the assumption, but no reasonable person would approach a situation like that with such strong priors.
I'm not saying every crime scene is out of a Hollywood movie with a serial killer lurking in the shadows, but I would have really liked to see zero prior beliefs at that point. I'd sleep better knowing the people out there in charge of "serving and protecting" the general public viewed their occupation as a search for truth rather than some perverse version of The Office with guns.