On Monday somebody in a South Carolina classroom caught a school resource officer (that is the police) manhandling a girl who was sitting still in her desk. She had reportedly refused to leave the classroom. This unforgivable act of aggression on the part of the police officer occurred the week after FBI Director James Comey linked a rise in violent crime to the prevalence of cell phone cameras with video capability.
Comey, speaking at a University of Chicago Law School forum Friday, said "a chill wind ... has blown through law enforcement over the last year and that wind is certainly changing behavior.
"In today's YouTube world," he asked, "are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime?"
That chill wind didn't change the behavior of Michael Slager. He was the police officer in North Charleston, S.C., who was caught on camera shooting a fleeing Walter Scott in the back.
That chill wind didn't change the behavior of David Eric Casebolt, who was caught on camera manhandling a teenage girl in a bikini outside a pool party in McKinney, Texas.
Neither did this chill wind stop Ben Fields, a deputy with the Richland County (S.C.) Sheriff's Department, from attacking that girl at Spring Valley High School in Columbia. Fields was in a classroom of teenagers. He should have assumed that, at minimum, there was one cell phone there per child. But he still acted as if nobody would ever see what he was doing.
If cell phones keep catching police at their worst, are we really supposed to accept Comey's theory that those same cell phones have stopped cops from doing their best?
On Monday, Comey said what we all should have suspected: that he doesn't have any evidence to support his theory linking smart phones to increased crime.
But he still believes it.
Comey, as quoted by The Guardian, said at a police chiefs conference in Chicago, "The question is, are these kinds of things changing police behavior around the country? The honest answer is I don't know for sure whether that's the case ... but I do have a strong sense."
If Comey's assessment of the problem were true, it would mean that police are terrified of being observed. And if our police are terrified of being observed, then consider that reason enough to observe them.
By saying that the police are not getting involved in fighting crime the way they used to, Comey is indirectly saying that police across the country are deciding not to do their jobs.
But on Monday, when White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about Comey's remarks, he said that "the available evidence at this point does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities."
Some of them aren't even shying away from brutality.
We've seen it over and over again.
Across the country, the police are utilizing body cameras and dashboard cameras. The police chiefs who implement them say those cameras are essentially a two-edged sword. They can destroy the case of an officer who insists he wasn't brutal, or they can destroy the case of a civilian who lies and says the officer was.
How is it that at a time when police chiefs themselves are steadily embracing body cams that Comey is arguing that cell phones with cameras are an impediment to policing?
On his desk in Washington, Comey keeps a copy of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's letter approving J. Edgar Hoover's request to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. Comey keeps it in sight, he said, to serve as a constant reminder that law enforcement officials can and do go too far.
Cell phone videos have conveyed that same message.
Our police can be abusive. Let us not criticize the tool that captures evidence of that abuse.
Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.
Source: How do cell phones video stop good cops but not the bad ones?: Jarvis DeBerry
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