Posted on 05/17/2013 6:30:08 AM PDT by Altariel
It is undisputed that the cops confiscated the phones without a warrant.
Why would they do that if the cops had nothing to hide?
Isn’t it obvious?
Cops routinely confiscate recording equipment from people taping them because they don't like seeing themselves on youtube swearing and making rude gestures, acting like the Keystone cops or asserting the authority to do things that a look through the statute books would show that they lack. That's very different from trying to hide a criminal homicide.
There was a homicide in this case.
And it appears to have been criminal.
Shocking. Dishonorable people don’t like videographic evidence of dishonorable behavior.
Thugs destroy evidence.
Peace officers (such as LawDog) call out thugs on such behavior.
http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2012/01/mediations-on-cameras.html
Liberal boy, show cause for confiscating the phones of bystanders.
I am not interested in the police state you personally espouse.
I don't support it at all. But confiscating someone's cell phone is grounds for, at best, a stern talking to. If a prosecutor manages to make a case against them, it will have to be on the basis of evidence not revealed in this news story. Let's revisit this story in a year, and we'll see whether the eyewitness's testimony is credible enough to get these guys indicted on manslaughter charges or worse.
I might be going a bit out on a limb here, but I think criminal homicide might be the kind of thing a look through the statute books would show they lacked authority to do. IOW, it's not different at all. I think everybody who's likely to video cops in action should have a cloud-streaming app running at all times. Assume that, given an opportunity, cops will take your phone and destroy the evidence first chance they get.
Cloud streaming will be your only defense because you can count on the LEO lying about the circumstances of how he came into possession of damaged evidence.
Note also that Rodney King's arrest kicked off the LA riots and looked bad on video. In reality, it was highly-edited and the guy wasn't seriously injured. The dead guy might have had a medical condition. Besides, why would anyone trust the liberal, pro-criminal, anti-cop media on stories like this? Didn't they make Rodney King look like an older version of Trayvon Martin? Do you trust them on amnesty? Aren't they the ones downplaying Benghazi, the IRS and AP scandals? Don't they think that we imprison too many minorities and that capital punishment is medieval? Frankly, they could swap places with Soviet-era Pravda and Tass reporters and most of their stories would be the same.
Overheard on the interwebs:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/42355/david-sal-silva-video-confiscated-by-police-officers-shows-them-beating-man-to-death
2nd: The most unreliable witness is an “eyewitness” because they are colored by their perspectives.
From the article in the NYTimes cited, “having hogtied him...” Police do not “hogtie” anyone. That is an emotional term and not the least accurate, by definition, hog tieing involves binding the hands and feet together.
I note in the article, “the two phones were confiscated in accordance with search warrants and had been handed over to the Bakersfield Police Department as part of the investigation.”
The witness stated Silva was non-compliant and continuing to resist the officers before they struck him.
Sounds like positional asphyxiation to me, a danger when large people are handcuffed face down.
I guess all those episodes of "Cops" where they put especially feisty individuals tied hands-to-feet into the back of the Police cars were not "real." They sure as heck *do* "hogtie" perps.
If the phones in this story were obtained with warrants, that's proper. I think what's being alleged is the information in a phone was destroyed or altered.
People are making the cops out to be OJ Simpson. In reality, these are cops operating in a high crime area who are trying to subdue a large, unruly suspect who is creating a disturbance at the local hospital. In contrast, OJ murdered his wife and her fiance in a fit of jealous rage. It’s not remotely comparable. And yes, some perps do create a racket even the cops are barely touching them.
The press is making the dead guy out to be a Hispanic, grown-up version of Trayvon Martin. Meanwhile, an ambulance chaser is circling and setting the table for a multi-million dollar wrongful death lawsuit by trying to make sure the cops are indicted and tried in court. That way, even if the verdict is not guilty, the dash for cash can continue. I think he will find that the police union offers a much harder target than George Zimmerman.
http://www.mylocalcrime.com/#1700%20Mount%20Vernon%20Avenue%2C%20Bakersfield%2C%20CA%2093306
I admit I don’t know anything about the specific incident in question. I don’t deny there are perps that need calming down from time to time, and sometimes they are physically powerful and hopped up on something. But it has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, meaning no assumptions until the evidence is in.
It looks bad when participants on one side of the altercation destroy the evidence, which is what’s being alleged in the story, wouldn’t you agree? My point is “Why not use technology that’s available to keep that from happening?”
I completely agree with you there. Where I have a problem is with the theory that the cops in question are obviously guilty. The presumption of innocence applies to cops, too. The media is trying to Zimmerman the cops, which is more or less the average reporter's default posture. It just annoys me that so many people fall for the media's standard sleight-of-hand.
Yeah, I agree with that, too. I don't know the particulars of this situation and have no particular interest in learning them. But it looks bad when Cops destroy evidence, and that's not proven in this case either. There's a witness claiming the contents of a cell phone were altered by the Police. Can that be proven or not? Until then, I assume innocence because that seems reasonable. I expect the same in return.
But apart from the beating, that's what this story is about. Cops don't have the right to confiscate people's phones. You have the right to film police doing their jobs in public spaces.
My point isn't that this is a good thing. It's that this confiscation doesn't come close to proving that they committed a criminal homicide, because they routinely confiscate phones for other wrong-headed reasons, too, which they then return, after a cooling-off period, to convince the amateur videographer that it's not worth the inconvenience to film them going about their business.
My point is this story isn't just about the beating. That's bad enough if true, but that has to be worked out. The other part of this story is completely independent of whether that guy deserved to be beaten to death, and that is the issue of the police confiscating the phones.
This has been a nationwide issue for a while. It's not just a matter of phones being taken and returned later either. People have been arrested and prosecuted for simply taping the police.
The police do not have the right to confiscate your video phone because you recorded them, whether it was a beating or a traffic stop or just hanging out at the donut shop. They do this because they don't want to be accountable. Don't let them get away with it.
“It is undisputed that the cops confiscated the phones without a warrant.”
They will claim she voluntarily give it up.
If the police ever ask for your phone and you give it to them, it was voluntarily given. That’s going to be their defense.
The other issue is that the deceased's ambulance chaser is making this guy out to be Parent of the Year, complete with carefully selected pictures of him with his family. A prosecutor looking to charge these cops with criminal homicide will need to look at the guy's toxicology report. Was this guy a Hispanic Rodney King, hopped up on stimulants and fighting the cops every step of the way? You'll have no argument from me that he did not deserve to die. But it's a big stretch from saying the cops accidentally asphyxiated him to saying they deliberately beat him to death.
They ought not have the authority to do it, but in some jurisdictions, they may. It all depends on local laws.
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