It's not just the “testalying” that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz described in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial. (Dershowitz ripped off a theme from the novels of Joseph Wambaugh, as Wambaugh told me in an interview last year. This Salon article confirms the ripoff.) It's also the routine abuses of power that officers engage in when no one is looking.

As evidence, I cite the skyrocketing number of cases of gross police violence that have been caught on videotape thanks to the profusion of smartphones and video surveillance. As the Rodney King case suggests, these incidents are nothing new. Technology has just made them way easier to convincingly document. We now see an example in L.A.:

“Video from a police cruiser camera that shows an LAPD officer kicking a restrained woman — who later died — needs to made public, the family attorney said Thursday. … 

“O'Callaghan was one of several officers sent to Thomas' home in the 9100 block of South Broadway Avenue to investigate allegations Thomas had abandoned her children after they were left at a local police station.

“O’Callaghan arrived to assist the arresting officers in placing Thomas in a patrol car. While Thomas was in handcuffs and leg restraints, prosecutors said, a police cruiser’s video camera captured the veteran officer kicking Thomas in the stomach and groin area and pushing her in the throat. 

“Thomas, once inside the patrol car, lost consciousness and paramedics were called. Shortly afterward, she was pronounced dead at a hospital.”

Why do police hate smartphones so much? Duh

Which brings us to the nationwide efforts that law-enforcement officials and unions have pursued to make it illegal for members of the public to videotape or audiotape an officer on duty, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it was legal. But that doesn't stop police from continuing to arrest people who videotape them in action, including this recent case from the L.A. suburb of Hawthorne.

In a law-enforcement setting in which we must assume that the more evidence the better, why would cops not want to be videotaped? It's fair to surmise that it's not just because they don't want their violent actions rebroadcast on YouTube. It's that close scrutiny during evidence-gathering might show efforts to simplify the narrative of the crime to point decisively toward one possible conclusion. Such scrutiny makes officers' jobs more difficult in several ways.

Which brings us to the experiment undertaken by the police department in Rialto, a distant L.A. exurb in the Inland Empire with some nice new subdivisions mixed with older neighborhoods and rough areas. The New York Times had the details in August:

“RIALTO, Calif. — 'Get on the ground,' Sgt. Chris Hice instructed. The teenage suspects sat on the curb while Sergeant Hice handcuffed them.

“'Cross your legs; don’t get up; put your legs back,' he said, before pointing to the tiny camera affixed to his Oakley sunglasses. 'You’re being videotaped.'

“It is a warning that is transforming many encounters between residents and police in this sunbaked Southern California city: 'You’re being videotaped.'

“Rialto has become the poster city for this high-tech measure intended to police the police since a federal judge last week applauded its officer camera program in the ruling that declared New York’s stop-and-frisk program unconstitutional. Rialto is one of the few places where the impact of the cameras has been studied systematically.

“In the first year after the cameras were introduced here in February 2012, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent compared with the previous 12 months. Use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent over the same period.”

Makes suspects behave better — or both suspects and cops?

The article reviews the Rialto experiment very favorably. It concludes with an observation from Sgt. Hice about videotaping improving the behavior of suspects and reducing the possibility they can come up with alibis or excuses — an observation about the effects of videotaping that also applies to the behavior of officers being improved and their opportunities for misconducted being constrained.

“Sergeant Hice said he has come to view the camera as a kind of protection. The video would show the two teenagers running through the field matching the description he was given, he said, and that he did not use excessive force while detaining them.

“'It captures what’s really occurring in real time,' he said. If the suspects later 'think of a good story, with bits of detail thrown in to enhance a false story,' he added, 'we can dispel it.'”

Now of course criminals (and suspects) lie. So of course the point that Hice makes is valid. But that doesn't invalidate my theory. If having cops wear cameras was so helpful, they would clamor to wear them — not fight allowing the public to videotape them. Instead, officers know there are things that it's best the public don't see.

Or at least it's best for police if they go unseen.

By John Seiler

Cops are getting out of control, especially in California. Not yet two years since the Fullerton police beat to death homeless man Kelly Thomas on July 5, 2011, comes this:

“Blood stains are still visible on the sidewalk at the corner of Flower Street and Palm Drive, where a Bakersfield man struggled with as many as nine officers and later died this week.

“David Sal Silva, 33 and the father of four young children, died early Wednesday morning after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who’d responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center.

“The Kern County Sheriff’s Office says Silva resisted, a canine was deployed, more law enforcement arrived, batons were used and the man later had trouble breathing. He was taken to KMC, where he died. An autopsy was slated for Thursday, but no results have been released.

“Some witnesses apparently took cellphone video of the incident but deputies moved quickly to seize the phones. The Sheriff’s Office, after releasing a statement Wednesday and naming its officers Thursday, declined all further comment.

“People who say they witnessed the incident as well as Silva’s family members described a scene in which deputies essentially were beating a helpless man to death. They were indignant that cellphone video had been taken away by deputies.

“‘My brother spent the last eight minutes of his life pleading, begging for his life,’ said Christopher Silva, 31, brother of the dead man. He said he’s talked to witnesses but did not see the incident himself.

“At about midnight, Ruben Ceballos, 19, was awakened by screams and loud banging noises outside his home. He said he ran to the left side of his house to find out who was causing the ruckus.

“‘When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head,’ Ceballos said.

“Silva was on the ground screaming for help, but officers continued to beat him, Ceballos said.

“After several minutes, Ceballos said, Silva stopped screaming and was no longer responsive.’

‘Police Tape’ app

Let’s hope one of the cell-phone videos somehow survived seizure by the Kern Sheriffs-Stasi. Also, the Kern Medical Center might have surveillance cameras that could be subpoenaed by Silva’s family. And someone in the hospital itself might have taken pictures without the Stasi seeing them.

If you’re ever in a similar situation, this shows the importance of immediately posting your photos to Facebook or somewhere else. We’re 22 years now from the video-taped beating of Rodney King (shown above), and most people have phones with cameras.

Also, the ACLU of New Jersey has released a free “Police Tape” app for Android and iPhones. According to the description:

“Citizens can hold police accountable in the palms of their hands with “Police Tape,” a smartphone application from the ACLU of New Jersey that allows people to securely and discreetly record and store interactions with police, as well as provide legal information about citizens’ rights when interacting with the police.

“The Android “Police Tape” app records video and audio discreetly, disappearing from the screen once the recording begins to prevent any attempt by police to squelch the recording. In addition to keeping a copy on the phone itself, the user can choose to send it to the ACLU-NJ for backup storage and analysis of possible civil liberties violations….

“The popularity of cellphones with video capabilities has raised legal questions about the rights of citizens to record in public. Fortunately, the courts have sided with citizens. In May 2012, a federal appeals court struck down an Illinois law that had made it illegal for citizens to record police officers on-duty. Also in May 2012, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice released a letter affirming the constitutional rights to record the police in public. These two developments came on the heels of a landmark ruling in August 2011, which recognized the right of citizens to record police officers after a Massachusetts man in Boston Common was wrongfully arrested for filming an interaction with a police officer.”

Unconstitutional

So the Kern Stasi’s seizure of the phones was completely unconstitutional. That could generate further lawsuits against the county for violations of citizens’ rights. The seizures violated not only the Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The seizures also violated the First Amendment right of “freedom of… the press,” because in this age of Facebook and blogs, everyone is a journalist.

Finally, as I mentioned in my previous blog on a new private Detroit program, police need to be re-trained from their current mode of beating and shooting first, to the old one of first protecting the lives of citizens — even at the risk of their own lives.