Body Cameras Are Becoming Just Another Tool In The Police's Arsenal Against Black People
What you are looking at is a picture of a black man who is not holding a gun who is about to die.
Another unarmed black man was shot to death by the police yesterday. This time, it was just outside of San Diego. This time, police responded to reports of a man behaving “erratically.” The reports were by the man’s sister. She called the cops to help her brother, who might have been having a seizure according to witnesses. The cops did not help him. They shot him. He’s dead. His name was Alfred Olango.
Footage of the incident exists, but it has not been released by the cops. Instead the cops are just trying to tell us what happened. They say the man was behaving erratically and not following instructions. Again, THEY WERE TOLD HE WAS BEING WEIRD. What the hell did they expect? They say he pulled an object from his front pocket and adopted a “shooting stance.” One officer Tased him. Simultaneously, apparently, another officer shot him to death. The “object” was not a gun.
WHOOPS. Sorry about you dead brother.
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The cops aren’t releasing their video, but a bystander captured the event and shared their cellphone video with the cops. The cops aren’t releasing that either. EXCEPT, in their benevolence, they released a still picture. Get a load of this load of jury tampering crap:
What you are looking at is a picture of a black man who is not holding a gun who is about to die. What you are looking at is a picture, released by police, to show their side of the story, while they sit on video that shows the larger context. Why are you looking at that? Well, because the first instinct of police when they gun down an unarmed black person is to say that they were somehow justified in committing another murder.
The police say that they can’t release the video:
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Citing a countywide protocol pertaining to officer-involved shootings, Police Chief Jeff Davis said Tuesday he was merely following guidelines in not making the video public. His department released the photo to counter “disinformation,” he said.
Body camera footage was supposed to increase transparency and help communities hold the police accountable for their actions. That’s not what’s happening though, is it? No, instead of transparency, video evidence is just being selectively used by the police to slander their victims, while allowing their officers and lawyers to fully “investigate” the evidence against them before they make damning and contradictory public statements.
The police in Charlotte didn’t immediately release their footage of killing Keith Lamont Scott. That didn’t stop them from characterizing the video in the way least favorable to Scott. And it might have gone on like that indefinitely if Scott’s family hadn’t released their own video which showed that the police weren’t telling the full story.
And even now that they’ve released the video… WHOOPS, the officer didn’t TURN IT ON until after Scott was dead.
Who do these goddamn cops think their fooling? Charlie Brown? I KNOW WHAT OFFICER LUCY IS GOING TO DO WITH THE FOOTBALL.
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Every time the cops kill a person, they’re going to use whatever tools are at their disposal to justify it. The body camera footage is being put to use for that purpose. If it looks bad for them, they’ll hide it if they can. For every Tulsa where they release the evidence, there are going to be two cases like Charlotte or San Diego, where the cops sit on the evidence, but spin you a yarn about how they were doing everything right.
The rule should be: If the cops aren’t going to release the tape, they can’t talk about the tape. Period. Anything less is jury tampering.
Of course, since we can’t even get cops to agree about NOT SHOOTING UNARMED PEOPLE, I’m doubtful my new rule will be accepted. I am black, after all. I should probably just be happy that the cops aren’t shooting me for ERRATICALLY pounding on my keyboard.
California community outraged after officer kills unarmed black man [CNN]
Earlier: When Your Police Kill Me, I Hope There Is No Video
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. Add “mental illness” to things you are not allowed to do while black.
