Video is the New Photograph

The New York Times is running this article about the New York protestors and how amateur videotape is showing the police to be largely heavy-handed in their control tactics.

When Kid Bastard and I went to the huge protest on August 29th last year, we witnessed no violence or riotous behavior, aside from someone setting a paper mache thingy on fire which caused us to stop walking for a half hour while they put it out. People were orderly, friendly, happy to be there doing what they felt was right. Police presence was heavy, but any interactions I had with the cops were polite - I figured they were there to make sure no one got hurt, and I'm sure it gets cops on edge to see a crowd of 500,000 people and not know if we're going to turn on them.

This article focuses on the 1,806 that were arrested during the Republican Nat. Convention last summer. I saw the news, where protestors were hauled off and there was mention of people being swept up in pens even if they were just trying to go buy a gallon of milk at the corner store. There's some very interesting info in this article...

Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.

"We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."

Except that...

During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

I also found THIS interesting...

...Among them was Alexander Dunlop, who said he was arrested while going to pick up sushi.

Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop's lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.

Technician cut material by mistake... Uh huh. The article furth states that "Of the 1,670 cases that have run their full course, 91 percent ended with the charges dismissed or with a verdict of not guilty after trial." Furthermore...

Video is a useful source of evidence, but not an easy one to manage, because of the difficulties in finding a fleeting image in hundreds of hours of tape. Moreover, many of the tapes lack index and time markings, so cuts in the tape are not immediately apparent.

That was a problem in the case of Mr. Dunlop, who learned that his tape had been altered only after Ms. Clancy found another version of the same tape. Mr. Dunlop had been accused of pushing his bicycle into a line of police officers on the Lower East Side and of resisting arrest, but the deleted parts of the tape show him calmly approaching the police line, and later submitting to arrest without apparent incident.

If I was the prosecutor, I'd be FUCKING PISSED that 91% of the arrests made were thrown out. How many man hours were taken up with filing paperwork, investigation and prosecution of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? And on top of that, officers were clearly perjuring themselves! I trust that police officers are there for my protection and for the protection of the hundreds of thousands of other people there to exercise the right to free speech and assembly. Arresting over 1,800 people and having a track record of NINE PERCENT guilty pleas or guilty verdicts tells me that the cops got a LITTLE too arrest-happy. Did they do it because they were TOLD to sweep people up and prove they had the power? Or did they do it because they just wanted to be dicks?