
Why filming police violence has done nothing to stop it, so far - jseliger
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/03/1002587/sousveillance-george-floyd-police-body-cams
======
landryraccoon
The filming is still crucial, because most of society (in particular, wealthy
whites) would not believe that the police could be so brutal unless it was
undeniably captured on video.

I think that a similar technological innovation was key during the civil
rights movement in the US in the 60s. Capturing the cruelty of racists against
blacks in America and showing it on television was crucial for turning public
opinion in favor of civil rights.

~~~
Shivetya
there is video of the Minneapolis police slashing tires including a whole
parking lot full of cars all under the guise of protecting the public and
themselves.

filming will do nothing till the the protections afforded the police by their
union and local politicians; don't let these mayors fool anyone as most had
budget increases planned for their cops; are made illegal. every violent act
committed by any police officer must have the possibility of assault charges
for the officer unless video clears them. any time the police must make a
payout for an act committed by an officer that officer must be released and
have their permanent record flagged so they just don't walk across state
lines.

the only real national database we need is of government employees, be they
cops, firemen, teachers, or clerk. get busted and you are done for nationwide
with regards to public service.

~~~
landryraccoon
You and I wouldn't even be having this conversation without the video though.
If reform is hard even with video, it's completely impossible without it.

~~~
Gibbon1
My thought is without someone who just happened to have a video recorder ready
the whole Rodney King thing would not have happened. Nor the riots or the
partial reform of the LAPD.

Societies attitudes are very persistent. Takes decades for things to
materially change. The root of that is the Max Plank quote: A new scientific
truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the
light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up
that is familiar with it.

That said I think juries are becoming much more aware of the implications of
letting bad cops off the hook. Muni's are becoming tired of paying out
settlements for cops that should have been long since fired. And this is in
the contexts of increasing militarization of the police while the crime rate
has been falling persistently for 30 years.

Things always look like they'll never change and then they do.

------
isbjorn16
I think because we all made the presumption that obvious police abuses would
be punished once we had video evidence.

We didn't take into consideration the justice system's complete lack of
appetite at holding officers responsible for egregious violations of life,
civil liberties, and property rights.

~~~
commandlinefan
Well, I always think about the Rodney King case: you and I saw a very damning
video, played over and over again, on the news that looked incriminating as
hell. But when the case went to trial, the jury voted not guilty. What did
they see that we didn't? Did they make the right choice, after having seen a
lot more evidence than we did? Or are jury trials just inherently
untrustworthy?

~~~
wahern
> "[The beating tape] didn't look good. It looked bad. But it was, as far as I
> was concerned, it wasn't against the law. And then I couldn't convict 'em
> because to me they were doing what they were supposed to do. And, well, the
> majority of us felt the same way at the trial."

Source: [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/fall-rodney-king-
juror-...](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/fall-rodney-king-juror-
words/story?id=46712060)

> "But I assumed that the videotape showed everything that had happened. I was
> amazed to discover how much more of it existed than had been shown on
> television. The whole tape was only eighty-one seconds, but even so, only a
> small portion of that eighty-one seconds had been shown on television. The
> whole tape, seen in context, presented a far different scenario than what
> the public had seen."

Source:
[https://laist.com/2017/04/25/rodney_king_jury.php](https://laist.com/2017/04/25/rodney_king_jury.php)

It's a shame they were acquitted, but our culture of violence runs deep, and
our [low] expectations reflect that. It's not surprising that the jurors
considered the brutality justified.

~~~
gowld
Full video: [https://youtu.be/sb1WywIpUtY](https://youtu.be/sb1WywIpUtY)

------
adelHBN
Part of it may be our grudging acceptance of bad apples in the police system,
like bad apples in organized religion and education. And unfortunately, police
brutality has been around for millennia. Our modern police system has been
modeled after London's 1829 police force, which they called the Peelers,
Because they were organized by Sir Robert Peel. He was so concerned with
introducing armed forces into the city and the backlash it may incite that he
(1) disarmed the police, and (2) outfitted them in "blue" neutral colors, to
make sure it looks nothing like the British red coats.

------
8bitsrule
What Camden, NJ did in 2012:

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-
new-...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-
trnd/index.html)

The City's department was replaced with a County department ... rehiring
-some- of the officers. Outcome?

"Now, seven years after the old department was booted (though around 100
officers were rehired), the city's crime has dropped by close to half.
Officers host outdoor parties for residents and knock on doors to introduce
themselves. It's a radically different Camden than it was even a decade ago."

------
michaelbuddy
Filming criminals hasn't stopped them either. Actually the ACLU is determined
to now suppress a lot of body cam footage that they originally demanded. Maybe
the public should see how terrible their peers are and take a lesson.

Instead the video is suppressesd A LOT. You've seen a handful of body cam
footage, a handful of proofs of the thousands of calls in every city every
day.

Think about that.

------
dredmorbius
Science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke published several books of essays. In
one, published in the 1970s well before the capability was widespread, he
asserted that the capacity to capture audiovideo and live stream or transmit
it from any spot on earth would make authoritarianism and terror impossible,
because the eyes of the world would be watching at all times. This coloured
much of my own thinking of the early Internet and Web, and the democratisation
of information and transmission technologies.

That's proved to be a pathetically overoptimistic vision.

The reasons are several, and other HN readers touch on most of these:

1\. It is _impunity_ and _immunity_ rather than credible accusations which
enable most oppressive behaviour. Those who know that they can act without
consequence ... will. Whether this is cover of numbers (e.g., mob mentality),
specific legal protection, or simply acting extrajurisdictionally, the upshot
is the same: you don't need to be an evil supergenius if you cannot or will
not be caught or held to account. Or, even, if you simply believe you won't or
just don't care.

2\. As Yonatan Zunger, chief architect of Google+ has observed, information is
not power, _information is a power multiplier._ This was a specific response
by him to David Brin's _Transparent Society_ argument that persistent
sousveillance would hold power to account. Without the power to _act_ on
information, very little is done.

(This isn't to say that, to use Neal Stephenson's terms, either the _mobility_
and _nobility_ are entirely immune. Each has both strengths and
vulnerabilities. The _nobility_ (establishment) has the power of institution,
centralisation, and capacity to motivate resources, but relies strongly on its
own acknowledged power. The _nobility_ (populace), has strength in numbers and
some resistance to decapitation, but is also tremendously disorganised and
often weakly effective, at least until it isn't.)

3\. Attention is limited. At any social scope --- locally, regionally,
nationally, internationally --- there is only so much attention to go 'round,
and the effective focus tends to be on a _vanishingly_ small number of items,
I'd argue for roughly 1 to 100, with 10 items being a very frequent limit.
That is, no matter how much is going on, and how rapidly issues on the list
itself rotate, focus is effectively on about 10 _or fewer_ top stories in a
day. Evidence for this is somewhat anecdotal, but pretty persistant: a top-of-
the-hour five-minute news bulletin typically lists 4-6 items, giving less than
a minute to each (introductions, sponsorship spots, etc., chew into time). A
full-hour news programme similarly covers about the same number of items,
though giving 3-4

For some examples:

The two-hour afternoon NPR flagship today lists 14 stories, 7 per hour,
running largely 3-4 minutes, with an in-depth item "New Police Force From
Scratch: N.J. City Proves It's Possible To Reform The Police" today, running 8
minutes:

[https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-
considered/](https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/)

The President's Daily Briefing, an intelligence summary of gobal developments
of significance, runs 10 pages, typically lists ten items, and runs about an
hour. There are archives of selected versions of this dating to the 1960s.

The Vanderbilt Television Archive comprises US national news broadcasts dating
to August 5, 1968. Though the actual video isn't freely available, rundowns of
news stories _are_ listed at the site. Before switching to a 25 minute format,
an hour-long news programme typically ran 6-10 items, plus another 4-6 in the
top-of-the-hour summary. Shorter formats include fewer and shorter stories.

[https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu](https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu)

Major newspapers typically run about 100--500 stories daily (more on
weekends), with ~250 being a rough median. Only a fraction of this is actual
hard news (news, politics, some of business coverage), with a substantial
amount of copy being largely advertorial: sport, much of business,
entertainment, style, real estate, automobiles, travel, etc.

The high-popularity lists ("most popular", "most read", "most emailed") of
online sites typically list 5-10 items.

The news wires -- UPI, AP, Reuters, AFP -- typically see 1,000 - 5,000 items
filed per day (various annual reports and other sources).

Hacker News tends toward a higher bound at 30 items on the front page. As
those of us who submit regularly are aware, that is a precious resource and
hard to land on. The Hivemind is fickle and operates curiously. (Mods do,
_lightly_ , put a finger on the scales, and yes, I've benefited from that on
occasion.)

________________________________________________________________________

That's not to say that recording has no merits. I've justified a fair amount
of my own reading, writing, and sharing as simply bearing witness.
Acknowledging (and attempting to understand) what it is that's going on,
hoping to preserve some record for a future in which the limitations listed
above have shifted their favour.

But don't for a second believe that information and record are panaceas of
themselves, and work yourself to shift the balances noted above.

