
Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies - lisper
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sandra-bland-footage-20150721-htmlstory.html
======
fixxer
Nothing about this adds up. The video is flawed during both the arrest and
around the time of death. Given her activities, saying this warrants further
investigation is a gross understatement.

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.

~~~
powertower
What doesn't add up about the video? She was argumentative from the very
beginning, refused to follow an order to get out the vehicle (right or wrong,
you have to if stopped in a traffic violation in Texas), and then escalates
the situation to the end with physical and verbal combative behavior.

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.

~~~
valar_m
Wrong. The video was clearly edited:

[http://bennorton.com/dashcam-video-of-violent-arrest-of-
sand...](http://bennorton.com/dashcam-video-of-violent-arrest-of-sandra-bland-
was-edited/)

~~~
Pinckney
I watched the video too.

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?

~~~
valar_m
I suspect it's something akin to risking a tampering with evidence charge by
hiding a body.

~~~
Pinckney
I'm not asking why they might want to tamper with evidence. The motive for
doing so is obvious. I'm asking why, if they did decide to tamper with
evidence, did they do such a bad job of it? If they were already editing the
video, why didn't they make their edits at times where they wouldn't be
obvious?

~~~
unclebucknasty
That's obvious right? Perhaps the frames that needed to be edited out weren't
conveniently conducive to a seamless end product. And, editing out too much
wasn't an option for obvious reasons.

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?

~~~
DanBC
> Interestingly, if they then release the full video which shows nothing, then
> suspicion's around the overall case will presumably be calmed.

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.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Absolutely. OTOH, the far weightier suspicion is around the eventual death of
Ms. Bland. An effective PR strategy might be to do something relatively
ancillary that heightens the overall degree of suspicion. You then
unequivocally address the ancillary issue (i.e. by rleasing the full video),
which has the effect of reducing suspicion overall, including on the far
weightier issue. That is, people think "Hey, maybe these guys aren't so bad.
Maybe we are just jumping the gun".

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.

------
ck2
While it is never a bright idea, it is certainly not illegal to be rude to a
police officer. Assaulting them certainly is but no-one is claiming that in
this case.

What this is, is an ultra-common case of yet another cop "escalating
everything always" because there is no downside for them to do so. They do it
because they can, because they are taught power and control over people is
everything and the slightest challenge should be met with extreme force.

She should have never have been ordered to get out of the car, so this was a
false arrest.

~~~
chippy
As an aside, in the UK being rude as in using offensive language directed
towards them twice is illegal and I think classed as assault.

~~~
Joeboy
There's section 5 of the public order act which is about saying / doing things
"likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" to the public, which has been
interpreted as including police officers. I don't know anything about having
to say things twice or it being classed as assault.

~~~
thatBilly
There was a 2011 ruling in England where the judge said that officers were so
regularly on the receiving end of the "rather commonplace" expletive that it
was unlikely to cause them "harassment, alarm or distress".

The Met continues to arrest people for swearing at police as they rejected the
ruling. I know that Police Scotland continue to arrest people for swearing at
police but I'm not sure how/if it has affected forces in England and Wales. At
the time it was reported that the precedent could likely quash any future
charges in similar circumstances.

------
rogeryu
The third video shows cars disappearing. It looks like they want to hide
something. I see several episodes where nothing happens, no cars and no people
in view. Why not copy those moments? Or is this done on purpose by an editor
who cannot disobey an order (to make parts of the video disappear), but can
sabotage the result by playing stupid?

~~~
nicboobees
Never put down to malice something that can be attributed to stupidity or
bugs.

Far more likely the recording software is crappy and sometimes skips back a
second or two.

The problem is whatever they released, people would start picking apart and
launching conspiracy theories about.

~~~
akilism
If this is the case right then there should be tons of other video where this
happens. It happens what 5 or 6 times in one video?

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Exactly, also, if this were the case, it implies that every other dash camera
of the same make is unsuitable for use as evidence & not fit for purpose.

------
ansible
There are some evidence recording systems that are supposed to be tamper-
proof. So the video while being recorded is digitally signed, and then the
officer's recording system uploads it securely to the police servers when back
at the station. This is to maintain a complete chain-of-custody, so that when
used as evidence in court, it can't easily be dismissed or disregarded.

This one... is apparently not? What's going on here?

~~~
dylanjermiah
Don't worry. The camera was just malfunctioning!

~~~
roghummal
Did you read the parent comment? What does tamper-proof mean to you?

It's digitally signed and then the officer's recording system uploads it
securely to the police servers when back at the station. This is all to
maintain a complete chain-of-custody, so when used as evidence in court it
can't be easily dismissed or disregarded by the criminal's attorney.

It can't be edited because there wouldn't be a digital signature!!!?

Cameras will malfunction but not like you're saying they will.

~~~
hias
Relax, he made an joke!

~~~
Flimm
This joke has spawned a large monitor's worth of discussion, none of which is
really contributing to the conversation.

------
genericuser
So lets look at what we have in terms of video / audio.

1)Repeated unimportant segments of video.

2)A fairly good sounding audio track.

3)An audio track which is not the same length of the video track.

4)The video issues do not start happening till over 20 minutes into the
uploaded video, and then happen at multiple times over the next 15 minutes.

What can we conclude about the video? Well I can't conclude anything, but I
sure get a lot of questions.

Could this be an issue with the recording of the video stream? I don't know
seems like we might have some experts here on video recording equipment here
that might be able to say if this is a type of problem that is even possible,
maybe even some with knowledge of the type of equipment used in police dash
cams.

Has anyone seen anything like this 'just happen' in digital video before? I
haven't but my experience is limited. Anyone else?

Why is the audio OK but the video is bad? Well audio and video could be
recorded separately, and if they weren't they are not hard to separate, and
audio is much easier to edit.

Could the video of been edited? Well sure it was probably at least cut for
upload. If it was edited the editor really sucked.

If the video was edited, why would the video be edited? Maybe it was cut to
remove something that happened in one of the frames somewhere during one of
the repeats. Maybe the audio was edited too and it was edited to more closely
match the audio length (matching just as well as the video was edited). Maybe
someone started editing the video to hide something in a missing segment and
didn't finish or get to the audio before it was uploaded.

What other things besides editing and recording failure could explain the
video issue? I don't know.

Do we have any experts here who given the available youtube video on the Texas
Department of Public Safetys youtube page could do analysis on a more in depth
level than watching it? I don't know but I think this question is why I see
this belonging on Hacker News.

~~~
ck2
They are now claiming there were technical issues uploading it and are going
to re-post it corrected.

This is plausible.

But is this quote really from the video or someone's imagination?

If it is true, holy hell:

    
    
         "Why are you arresting me?" 
    
         "Because you know your rights."
         "Because I can."
         "Because no one'll believe you."

~~~
verytrivial
No. No, no, no! We do not live in a universe where "issues uploading" a video
results in edits to that video. That explanation is _immeasurably_
implausible.

Is sharing doctored evidence with the media a crime itself, or is it only a
crime if that evidence is used in court? Sure, the are free to only share a
subset because of privacy etc., but purposefully misleading?

~~~
rhino369
When that uploading includes recoding and other processing, it's plausible.

This video is probably encoded 2-3 times. The first time it is digitized in
the camera. The cops might have recoded after taking it off the camera. And
then youtube.

This is some low budget police department whose IT department is probably a
secretary who happened to have a PC at her house in 1993 when the spot was
created.

Warez scene release come with errors with regularity and those guys release
stuff all the time and know what they are doing.

~~~
tripzilch
> Warez scene release come with errors with regularity and those guys release
> stuff all the time and know what they are doing.

That's because they are _supposed_ to make edits (cutting out the commercial
breaks, for instance), the errors happen because the edits are done hastily,
in order to release first.

The police isn't supposed to edit or tamper with the video _at all_ , and I
can't imagine any way edits like this (missing bits and looping) can just
_appear_ by accident or technical error. The only edit I can imagine to happen
by accident is an interrupted upload/transfer, which would cause the video to
be truncated at some point, all the way to the end. It can't just leave parts
out in the middle or loop certain bits.

------
roghummal
Edits in the middle should've been in NFO. Runtime is short. Good effort w/
the source. For a cam A3/V3.

~~~
timboslice
NUKED - reason: stolen from P2P

------
marincounty
I bought two cheap dash cams from Amazon. They shipped from China. They were
14.99 each. You get a cam, suction cup, and cig. Lighter plug. I bought two
because I keep one in the in the car in case one breaks.(you need to buy a sd
card). It's been a year, and no pullovers? The cam is holding up just fine. It
loops. You will forget it's there. It goes on when you start the car. It will
stay on when the officer tells you to turn off the vehicle.(need to program it
though).

Cops have stopped pulling me over for no reason. Before the cam, I was getting
pulled over for driving an old car, or I was driving between 10 p.m. - 2:30
a.m.? I wish I had these cams when I was younger. Could have saved a lot of
pointless questions, and aggravation?

I'm a white guy who's been pulled over so many times for no reason--I lost
count; I can't imagine what minorites have to go through? We should be able to
drive without that constant fear of harassment. Harrasement is being pulled
over for made up reasons? Cams have helped in my world. They have worked so
well, I thinking about mounting a rear cam? "See them coming and going?"
Sorry, if I sound jaded, but I live in a low crime area. Cops have become
revenue collects here.

~~~
zamalek
> I live in a low crime area

> I'm a white guy who's been pulled over so many times for no reason

Is there a correlation here?

Where I'm from you don't get pulled over for anything. The roads are a free-
for-all wild west: taxis stop in the middle of the road in front of you for no
reason. So many people die on the road every year. If you do get pulled over
for a misdemeanor there is a good chance you can talk or bribe your way out of
it and carry on with your reckless driving.

I would happily take a ticket for failing to indicate.

That is different from racial profiling and hate crimes. Don't confuse hard
working cops doing their job with idiots with badges and guns.

~~~
titzer
Since you didn't indicate where you're actually from, I'm not sure what to
make of your anecdotes. I'm from a small town in Indiana that has/had very
little actual crime and yet a relatively large police force. When I was a
minor I was harassed multiple times by police for violating curfew. Took a few
rides in a cop car for nothing other than being out past 11pm. In 2004, some
of Indiana's curfew laws were struck down by the federal supreme court, but
that didn't stop the bastards, and new laws keep coming. Have a look at the
mess here:

[http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/tag/curfew](http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/tag/curfew)

Having been on the receiving end of (just a little) police harassment, it's
very easy to see how aggressive policing has led to tragedies like this one
and countless others. Cops deal with a lot of bad characters, but it seems
they're too often looking for trouble when they harass people like this.

~~~
zamalek
> I'm not sure what to make of your anecdotes

3rd world. It would be pointless to divulge more because: people would have a
hard time believing it, it would detract from what happened to Sandra and it's
quite off-topic. The core of the point is that there are good cops and bad
cops.

> I was harassed multiple times by police for violating curfew.

There's a line. Harassment/your experience is firmly on the wrong side of the
line. Being kindly escorted home during a lawful curfew is not the wrong side
of the line. I'd happily oblige to the later: the cop is just doing his job.

What I'm really trying to say is: the American police force seems so have a
bunch of bad apples, however, you _really_ don't want to tie the hands of the
good apples.

~~~
tsiz
I don't know why you can't just say that you are from South Africa.

------
leereeves
Has anyone here been pulled over for failing to signal a lane change?

~~~
ansible
Look up the term "driving while black", though it happens to other groups too.

~~~
Shivetya
This certainly wasn't the case here and it a great many cases the officer
won't be able to discern the race of driver until stopped. Now there may be
some truth to the matter of what happens after a stop.

As for the pull over, out of state tags and not signaling when a cop is coming
up on you just makes you a good choice to pull over.

~~~
Udo
Given the fact that the officer made a u-turn in order to speedily follow her
car way _before_ the "failure to signal" happened, it seems to me watching the
video without pretty much any context, that the lane change was merely an
excuse to pull her over.

Any police officers knows if they really need such an excuse, they just need
to follow a given car for a few minutes: it's guaranteed _something_ will
happen which justifies the traffic stop.

~~~
ohitsdom
> Any police officers knows if they really need such an excuse, they just need
> to follow a given car for a few minutes

And the worst thing is they tail you when they follow you, making you nervous
and more likely to make a mistake. That's also what the officer did here.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Tailgating is illegal (at least, here in the UK) precisely because it is so
dangerous, for many reasons including the one you point out. Of course, that
doesn't apply to officers of the law.

~~~
ohitsdom
Illegal here in the US as well. Doesn't stop cops though. Seriously, this must
be standard operating procedure for cops, happens to me all the time (and I'm
white, fwiw). It usually doesn't result in me getting pulled over, but it's
nerve-racking. Which I imagine is intended...

------
xyby
At what point are video and sound getting out of sync?

At 12:50 the policeman slams shut the door of her car and it is in sync with
the audio.

At 25:55 the same door gots slammed, but no sound is to be heard. Maybe
because the policeman is carrying the microphone? Is he that far away?

At about 48:00 the door of another car gets slammed. Its clearly on the audio,
but about 1 second too early.

------
IanDrake
If an officer says "Get out of the car please." You can ask if it's a question
or an order.

If it's an order, get out of the car. White, black, asian, or hispanic, once
that order is given, you're getting out of the car one way or another.

If you really think the order was given unlawfully, take it to court where
these things can be debated.

~~~
justaman
You are 100x more likely to end the encounter in your favor if you do as the
officer says.

Do not, under any circumstance, make the officer feel uncomfortable. If you
play nice, so will they. Always respect/practice the 4th.

~~~
thomnottom
So you really think that all of the people recently murdered by police
officers would be fine if they had just "behaved"?

~~~
freehunter
All? No. He never said all, and that's an unfair way you're phrasing the
argument. You're deliberately setting it up so that anyone who disagrees with
you is immediately painted as blaming the victim. That's not what this
discussion is about and you know it, so shame on you. He said you're more
likely to. But in some cases, the situation could have been improved to the
point where the outcome could have been completely different if the person had
complied with the officer. I'm not saying the cop was right in any of the
cases, but if I see a semi truck barreling down the freeway into oncoming
traffic... I have the right-of-way because I'm in the correct lane, but you'd
better believe I'm going to get out of that truck's way. Because absolute best
case result there is that I will die a quick and painless death.

I was in Madison WI when Tony Robinson was killed and saw some of the protests
against the police. It was interesting to me that the spirit of the protests
weren't harmed by the fact that Tony had assaulted people on the street then
tried to kill the police officer responding to the incident.

Sitting in jail innocent and alive is always better in my book than being
gunned down in the street by a scared and trigger-happy cop.

~~~
thomnottom
Shame on me? Bull. Plain and simple. The commenter completely painted the
victim in the wrong here. If cops are comparable to semis baring down on the
freeway then we need to abolish them completely because they are out of
control. And playing nice isn't going to change that.

Sitting in jail innocent and alive should not be the lesser of two evils.

~~~
freehunter
Again, you're framing it as a black and white, this or that argument. It's
not. Cops abusing their power is wrong. People refusing to follow the orders
of police officers is wrong. Arresting someone for contempt of cop is wrong.
Resisting arrest is wrong. Driving a semi the wrong way down the road is
wrong. Not swerving to avoid the semi is wrong. If an officer wants to arrest
you and you start becoming physically violent, you are in the wrong. At that
point it doesn't matter that the cop was wrong first, because you're already
dead.

Now, if your goal is to become a martyr for your cause, then you've just hit
the jackpot. If your goal is to take another breath, to see your loved ones
one more time... becoming physically violent with a cop is a really bad idea.
Is this the way it should be? No, we shouldn't be afraid of police officers.
But for better or worse, this is how it _is_. Your platitudes about "cops are
bad, the victim is right" isn't entirely realistic unless the goal is to
create more martyrs.

------
cjdulberger
Self-driving cars cannot get here soon enough. Police interactions as a result
of driver error will be obsolete.

~~~
krapp
True. The police will simply stop your car remotely, or redirect it to
wherever they want to interact with you, based on whatever information about
you and your driving patterns the car is required to provide to law
enforcement.

But yes, legitimate issues with driver error will be a thing of the past.

------
dudul
Instead of teaching kids how to code at school we should teach them law and
what police officers are allowed and not allowed to do when pulling you over
or showing up on your property, etc.

I have no clue if the cop was right when he said that he has "every right" to
ask her to put down her cigarette and step out of her car. Cops pull this shit
all the time betting on the fact that citizens have no f-ing idea what they
actually can and can't order them to do.

"I will light you up!", just for that this guy deserves to be fired.

~~~
rhino369
The problem with teaching this is that is depends highly on the situation.
There are not brightline rules that a person can easily understand.

Are you being detained or arrested is not a bright line rule. You can go from
one to teh other without anyone saying anything. And the rules for police
differ.

I'm a lawyer and I couldn't even begin to tell you the rules for my own state,
let a lone some random place in Texas.

Though one bright line rule is that cops can make you get out of your car.
That is pretty much their discretion.

~~~
dudul
The fact that you are a lawyer and can't describe the rules is scary. I'm not
calling you an idiot, this is a comment on the stupidity of lawmakers if what
you say is true.

I find it very scary that we accept a principle such as Ignorantia juris non
excusat but don't bother teaching law and make it understandable to common
people.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about details to be used during a trial, but
just day-to-day interaction with police officer / social services / etc.

Can they really order you out of your car? Do they have to give a reason? Can
they enter your home without a warrant? Can they really take your kids if you
don't willingly let them in? Are they authorized to ask you about your
profession?

They will always use people's ignorance to scare them and force them to
comply, but that's the direct road towards a police state.

~~~
rhino369
It isn't law makers, it's the common law system. The law isn't just statutes,
but also law created by judges over all of US and even English history. Most
of the law surrounding traffic stops is created entirely by court rulings.

The big stuff is more clear but there are always exceptions. So no, a cop
can't just enter your house without a weapon. EXCEPT: if they are in hot
pursuit of a criminal; as part of a legal arrest; to save someones life; etc.
But each of those rules has wrinkles that local courts have rules on.

------
jvandonsel
What, no timecode? Has it been removed?

------
DanielBMarkham
The implication here seems to be that the dashcam video was re-edited before
being released to the public.

If true, oddly enough, I'm not sure a crime was committed, although it sure
feels like somebody should go to jail. But I am not sure. Is there a law that
says that everything the police releases to the media concerning possible
court cases must be the same evidence that will be presented at trial? Or are
they free to spin and edit things however they like? I believe they are.

Assuming this line of reasoning, the LAT may have jumped the gun by releasing
the story when it did. It would have been much more interesting to have let
the video stand as a Press Release, then see if they tried to use it in court,
then run the story. As it is now, we'll never know how that scenario would
have turned out.

------
ytdht
looks like they edited out another 3 minutes... original,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBh3wzXd3vg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBh3wzXd3vg),
new one,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaW09Ymr2BA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaW09Ymr2BA)

~~~
frogpelt
Is the audio the same?

Is it possible the original audio stretched to fill the old "glitched" video?

------
techbio
Who is accountable? Names. I imagine no one here is for abuse of power. How
about use thereof?

------
gmriggs
[https://youtu.be/qEGFaOeUm2A?t=31](https://youtu.be/qEGFaOeUm2A?t=31)

------
anti-shill
disrepecting a cop....more americans are executed for this crime each year
than for any other crime....executed on the spot, in fact...

~~~
scotty79
Not sure why you're getting down voted. It might be true given the number of
people killed by the police in the US for whatever reason:
[http://killedbypolice.net/](http://killedbypolice.net/) and number of people
legally executed in the US for various crimes:
[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execution-
list-2015](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execution-list-2015)

Some police killings most likely could have been avoided if not for the
disrespect given to the police.

~~~
tzs
He's probably getting down voted because his statement does not appear to be
even remotely true, at least judging by the data in your first link.

I picked a few at random from the July group, and the closest any came to
someone being killed for "disrespecting" the police was a couple of them who
were shot for pointing guns at police, which is certainly disrespectful.

I have no idea why _you_ are getting down voted.

~~~
scotty79
I don't think that anyone would written in any formal document or non-fringe
paper that killing was caused by disrespectful behavior. But I can't imagine
that it was no factor in any of the killings.

If you have a group of people that have right to kill someone for legitimate
reason you can be sure, I think, that some of them will be less reluctant to
exercise this right if they are distressed by disrespect shown towards them by
this person.

Take this guy for example (I just read about one at random):

[http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-man-wounded-
lapd...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-man-wounded-lapd-
dies-20150710-story.html)

Unarmed guy who riding skateboard down the street was killed because he didn't
obey commands from police and they were unable to subdue him. Technically he
was killed for using potentially lethal weapon on police officer. For me if
disrespect and police vulnerability towards disrespect wasn't a factor there,
the policemen would back off after initial trouble and keep an eye on the guy
while waiting for back-up.

~~~
tptacek
The Guardian has a pretty good online feature that aggregates the data on
police-involved killings. If you look past the sometimes-disingenuous framing
and dive right into the data, there are plenty of interesting things to learn.

One of the first things you notice after for instance binning all the deaths
for a couple randomly-selected months: the modal circumstance for police-
involved fatality in the US is "engage in a confrontation with police with a
lethal weapon". This remains the case even after you discard from that bin
every story in which the involvement of the weapon is contested. For every
case in which the victim's family, friends, or bystanders argue no weapon was
involved, there are several --- often 4-5 --- in which the victim was clearly
armed; roughly 1:3 knives:firearms.

Really, the modal circumstance for police-involved fatality in the US is
"engage in a confrontation with police while illegally armed with a firearm".

It's easy to see why the data would show this but the news narrative wouldn't.
People who wave guns at police officers are almost always in some way
marginalized: they're mentally ill, and/or already deeply involved in
criminality. Those stories are unfortunately not newsworthy. There's a bigtime
availability bias involved in analyzing police policy from the news media.

I'm not even saying that's a bad thing. I think the attention being focused on
police departments today is an unalloyed good.

The next thing you learn is that we really need to do something about tasers,
because if there's a top 3 set of circumstances for death involving police
officers, "death after tasing" is at least #3.

~~~
kevinmchugh
> The next thing you learn is that we really need to do something about
> tasers, because if there's a top 3 set of circumstances for death involving
> police officers, "death after tasing" is at least #3.

Since you've looked at the data, could this be survivorship bias? Is there
data on how often tasers are used where firearms would've been, in the absence
of tasers? It certainly could be that tasers reduce the number of people
killed by police, but it sounds hard to measure that.

~~~
tptacek
For the past few months of the data, the overwhelming majority of people
killed by police tasings appear to have been unarmed.

------
justwannasing
Why is this on HN? How does it relate?

~~~
jwdunne
I see this question a lot. I think we as a community can decide that by way of
votes. The moderation team can also offer second judgement, which it seems to
have passed. Liberty and actions of the police seems like a topic many hackers
are interested in. The consistent votes on such issues lend credence to this.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Quite aside from the fact that hackers are people too and care about all sorts
of issues, this article is specifically about the video tape being doctored,
so has a technical aspect that could lead off into discussions in several
directions.

------
logicrime
I really, REALLY want the cops to be at fault here, but I just don't know
about this one. The sound seems to be mostly intact, unless there is some kind
of offset because it does crackle and spit at one point. A lot goes on between
the suspect and officer ON camera and I wonder what could've possible happened
off camera bad enough to warrant being hidden when what's on the camera is
already there. I mean, this guy pulled her out of her car and threw her on the
sidewalk because she got a bit snarky over a ticket.

Another concern is the absence of a timestamp. This I'm not as worried about
because they probably cropped it out. It's definitely understandable,
especially for public-facing video to crop out some of more sensitive metadata
like time, officer info, car info, etc. It's not nearly as concerning as the
video itself.

Then there is the case of the actual jumps themselves. What makes me doubt is
that they aren't just jump cuts, there's some stutter and back and forth
motion for each cut, and there's also some video artifacts for each one.

I despise the police, I really do. The very idea of police is repulsive and
disturbing, in my opinion. That being said, I think LA Times is definitely
suspect here for such a bait-y headline over what looks to be an actual video
issue. I mean: "arrest video has continuit problems, anomalies"? No shit, the
video is messed up. It also has the entire dialogue between the two leading up
to the arrest, it even has a whole other stop from another time!

I just don't see the possibility that they are hiding something, when there is
so much on tape already.

~~~
paublyrne
_I despise the police, I really do. The very idea of police is repulsive and
disturbing, in my opinion._

You mean this in an idealistic sense? I was just remembering this morning an
old friend who regularly used the word 'pigs' to describe police, and how I
found it ridiculous.

And I still do.

How would a world without police be better than the one we have? It wouldn't.
It would be a horrendous place where the strong, the violent, the aggressive,
triumph over the vulnerable. I honestly can't understand your attitude.

~~~
pjc50
_strong, the violent, the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable_

At their worst, the police can do this.

Police following the Peel principles are a great improvement to society. Many
of the US's fragmented matrix of police forces have forgotten them and
succumbed to lazy racism and target-driven enforcement.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles)

~~~
bilbo0s
The sad thing is that the deterioration of professionalism among police forces
has led to the world that paublyrne described. I mean... in practice... for a
large number of Americans... it already IS a world where "strong, the violent,
the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable". It's just that the "strong,
violent and aggressive" are police, or gangs, or your occasional supremacist.
I feel bad for certain demographics in the US... but don't really have any
sort of realistic solution for their issues. I just wish it wasn't this way.

~~~
pjc50
It is fixable, once people want to fix it. But that generally only happens
once the status quo is seen as really unacceptable. Whenever police violence
is brought up, at the moment there are plenty of people willing to say "well
she deserved it" or "it didn't happen that way". Enough of them need to be
brought round or embarrased into silence.

The UK equivalent would be the rebuilding of the Police Service of Northern
Ireland to stop it being explicitly sectarian.

------
chmike
Could the dashcam video have been (amateurishly) edited to hide car's plate so
that people present on the spot can't be harassed by journalists, etc. ?

------
mdavidn
The video and audio tracks were recorded separately, and the dash cam skipped
backwards during playback.

The officer's behavior was deplorable, but I'm not convinced the video was
doctored.

~~~
pjc50
_dash cam skipped backwards during playback_

How often does this "just happen"? It's not like someone jogging a CD player.

------
nicboobees
Would it be so hard for her to just do what he asked instead of blowing things
up...

I really don't understand the absolute lack of respect some people have for
the law and other humans. Is it that hard to be civil?

~~~
genericuser
He could also respond to her question about why she should put out her
cigarette with out going full Judge Dredd on her.

Also she responded in a way that seemed to be in keeping with her civil
rights.

~~~
nicboobees
He asked her nicely if she could put out her cigarette for his benefit. She in
return started ranting about how it was her car etc.

I don't care if she has the right to remain smoking in her car or not. Someone
asked kindly for her to put it out, and she went full rant in return.

I'm sure statistically speaking, if someone is a complete asshole and
"resists" any attempt to be nice to the police, they're likely to be breaking
other laws - carrying drugs, no car insurance, etc etc.

If you get pulled over by the police, starting an argument and forcing them to
escalate things isn't the best idea.

~~~
pfooti
If you get (illegally) pulled over by the (racist) police, what should you do?
Submit to their power trip instead?

Given that there's a lot of questions about the audio in general, I'm not sure
how nicely he _really_ asked - the entire veracity of the audio stream is
under question here: the video skips around but the audio doesn't. That
certainly lends credence to the "he was being nice" argument, except for the
part where the "nice" could well have been added in post-processing.

Ultimately, a racist institution staffed by racists most likely murdered a
woman whose only crimes were (a) not signaling to pull over _after the officer
signaled her to pull over, for some other reason_ , and (b) not being polite
to the officer in question.

Until and unless you show me that police deserve politeness, the only reason
to be polite to them is "because otherwise they may kill you". That is not
only f'd up, it's literally terrorism. As in: these acts make us terrified and
we are less likely to resist their authority. So, yeah.

~~~
dudul
" the only reason to be polite to them is "because otherwise they may kill
you". "

Spot on. Everyone saying "she should have been nicer" are effectively saying
that you should submit to the police or they'll kill you. Nobody is saying "he
deserved politeness and she was rude" because it's very obvious that he was
not polite to her. "How are you doing? You seem upset?" Well she just got
pulled over and is getting a ticket bozo, what do you think?

------
DangerousPie
Having watched the two short videos I really don't see any obvious things they
could have hidden there. The audio (which I presume is the important part)
appears to keep on going, while a short segment of the video repeats. They
also mention in the article that "The audio ends more than a minute before the
video images do. "

So to me this just sounds like some small parts of the video got repeated by
accident, leading to a slightly "extended" video that becomes out of sync with
the audio.

But maybe I'm being too naive here, I don't actually know the backstory of
this.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Or, as I've read elsewhere, you pad unimportant sections of the video by
looping, then cut out a few short important bits, and the overall length is
unchanged.

~~~
DangerousPie
But the length is actually increased by about a minute from the sound of it.
Unless they also cut some parts of the audio but then forgot to match the
length up again, which seems like a really weird mistake to make...

