DIY Cop Porn

In case you've been living in a yurt for the last year or so, in the US we've been having what could be described as a 'spirited' national discussion about the Police.

This is nothing new, and is a problem almost all societies have had to deal with. 

- Pretentious reference alert coming - 

The quote Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? dates back to the poet Juvenal in the 1st century and roughly translates to 'Who Watches the Watchmen'*

*He was actually more concerned with making sure that his wife wasn't banging the guy who's job it was to make sure his wife wasn't banging anyone, but the point still stands.  Plus he indirectly gave us Alan Moore's The Watchmen, so he's more than earned the shout out.

-Pretentious moment over.  Please resume normal service -

In any case, one of the solutions proposed in the US to address the problem is the usage of bodycams; which police officers can wear and film everything they do so that later on the public can be shown the footage so that they can see that yes, the good citizen in question was in fact actually attacking the officer at the time and has only themselves to blame for getting shot.*

*I might be revealing my personal bias on a couple of national cases there...

This is all well and good in theory, and most of the cops I know are down with the idea.  There are however a couple of bugs to be worked out of the system.

Namely, one particular case this past summer highlighted a giant, throbbing* hitch in the system. Namely, the officer in question accidentally turned his camera on before going to use the bathroom and then happened to catch a suspect immediately afterward.**

*If the officer in question is to be believed. 

**I think it was Ohio, Urination, and Assault.  In that order.  Not 100% certain on the first and last items.

Yes.  The bodycam footage consisted of a minute or so of the camera watching the 'little officer' while he relieved himself, before moving on to show the arrest.

The Good Citizen's lawyer made the argument that in order to present the evidence they would have to show the entire footage in a public court in front of a jury, as the law prohibited any editing of the bodycam footage.

Two things are obvious here.

First - The defense lawyer was clearly just trying to use the threat of broadcasting 'Wang-cam' to anyone who cared to see it in the hope that the officer would be too embarrassed and the case would get dropped.

Second - The correct response from the officer should clearly have been, 'Go for it.  Here's the address where the jury can send me thank-you notes.'

Sadly I am unable to tell you what the ultimate outcome of the whole affair was, as I've been unable to find any information about it online. 

On the plus side, we can add 'Cop accidentally films himself Urinating' to the list of things in my search history that are going to raise an eyebrow somewhere at some point.

But the larger point here - isn't all of that footage available to the public under the freedom of information act? 

And if so, wouldn't the cagey move be for the Police Department to just accept that and make it work for them?  They could start cross-referencing all the footage under things like 'Misdemeanor Theft - 8"- Veiny and Uncut.

With the money from ads on the downloads they'd never have to worry about funding again.

I'm just saying.