Ethics

Police Misconduct in Phoenix

By Ed Brayton

Another good find by Balko. A journalist sees a bunch of police officers doing something at an open air market in Phoenix. He takes out his video camera, walks up and begins asking the officers what's going on. They blow him off. He steps back to the other side of the road and continues filming, hoping to find out what's going on. After a couple minutes, one of the officers comes over and tells him that he can't record anything at the scene.

The cop does what cops always seem to do in such situations, invokes his own unquestionable authority - "I'm up here, you're down there" - and tells the guy to shut up and do what he's told or he'll be arrested. He then takes the video camera because the recording is "evidence." The video below the fold.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on September 13, 2009 (boomark / email).