Hacker News Reader

> If you think the cops are so bad, what about the criminals?

The criminals don't have the power of the state behind them. We're supposed to hold police to a higher standard than criminals.

> but if it were knowable then the citizen would have brought it to court rather than to the media,

Why would you think that? Do you think that courts and lawyers are free? Most people in the US have to work to survive and live paycheck to paycheck. Missed work means they can lose their homes. Even if someone had the time and the money to fight against the police in court the courts are heavily biased in favor of the police and they would have to live in fear of retaliation for the rest of their lives.

Even when police are caught on camera clearly committing crimes there is no guarantee that anything will be done about it. Evidence doesn't always mean much when the police can investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong.

If police are supposed to have body cam footage and don't, they shouldn't be believed.

> Evidence doesn't always mean much when the police can investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're mixing up two mechanisms of law here:

In criminal law, the police investigates and the public prosecutor brings the case to court. The police often has a discretion to not bring a case if they don't want to, or to indeed frame a case in their favor if they aren't granted that liberty by the lawmaker

In civil law, you can sue for damages (such as lost time off work) or for other things that are made illegal (such as an organisation not following warranty legislation). The police is not involved here and bringing such a case is at your discretion

The latter system is what I had in mind when I said you could bring the evidence to court. Though it might also apply in the former case, in a situation where evidence is inadmissible if obtained illegally (this is not always the case)

The problem with civil cases is that you still need to have the money upfront (and accept that it will be very hard for you to win so you may never get compensated for those expenses) and then also overcome governmental immunity and qualified immunity

> Even as the proliferation of police body cameras and bystander cellphone video has turned a national spotlight on extreme police tactics, qualified immunity, under the careful stewardship of the Supreme Court, is making it easier for officers to kill or injure civilians with impunity. The Supreme Court’s role is evident in how the federal appeals courts, which take their cue from the high court, treat qualified immunity. In an unprecedented analysis of appellate court records, Reuters found that since 2005, the courts have shown an increasing tendency to grant immunity in excessive force cases – rulings that the district courts below them must follow. The trend has accelerated in recent years. (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-poli...)

A preponderance of these missing videos happen when officers are violating rights. The sentences were written as intended.

The difference between cops and criminals is criminals aren't public servants, granted powers beyond the norm, so they can do their jobs. That being a literal fact, yes.. they are held to a higher standard or should be. You're arguing a false equivalence.

As far as knowing "what happened there", that's literally the point of bodycams.

There is a fraction of the cases where someone's rights weren't violated. A fraction, a lesser amount, a smaller subset, a number lower in value, etc. etc.

And you apparently didn't even try to look at the web, so...ok!

>>How are you ever going to know what happened there?

if only there was a recording device to record what actually happened....

>>You can assume the cop was corrupt and the citizen innocent in all those cases,

yes that is exactly how it should work, that is how the system is setup to work. We have some how flipped that in recent years. At all times you should assume the government is abusing you, unless they can prove they are not.

No video, I side with the people not the government

>>There has to be a fraction of cases where their rights were not being violated as claimed and footage is still unavailable. Whether that is 1/10 or 9/10

It would be an error rate far far far far far less than that, and when you factor in most calls have more than one officers, plus patrol cars that have their own recording devices, plus citizen witnesses, plus business surveillance I think we get to such an unlikely circumstance to be statically impossible