Thursday, August 20, 2009

Shafter Police Officer Video Tapes Attack

I just saw this on the Bakersfield Californian website via Facebook.

Caught on tape: Shafter officer inadvertently videotapes himself beating suspect

This cop in Shafter turned off the safety on his taser which turned the video camera on and he inadvertently video taped himself beating a suspect who was not resisting arrest.  He had his taser in 1 hand and his baton in the other hand which is what he beat him with.

Q: Do you think the city and county ought to buy cameras for all their police tasers, like Shafter has done?

A: They have the dashboard cameras for chases, they should be video taped the entire time, not just when they pull people over but also when they have to run after a suspect and they are far from the vehicle. It protects them but it also protects us from them.

Britain has head-mounted video cameras for their police officers and I think that America needs that too.  Although, this article says that it cost $6 million dollars for 2,000 cameras and that's probably more than our countries budget can afford, especially since the deficit is much higher now.  But perhaps this will be put in place some time in the future.  Maybe certain cities can buy 1 for each of their officers that go out on the streets only.  Maybe this will force them to be peace officers instead of dickhead officers.

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