If you’re on social media, you may have seen videos of slightly excessive police force.
I, for one, can’t seem to escape these torrid tales, sandwiched betwixt the endearing dancing dogs and graphic motivational quotes that help exacerbate my online-life induced schizophrenia.
But could a cameras-on-cops requirement be the answer?
There’s been interest in this – especially after the Ferguson case happened and arguments split between “he shouldn’t have been shot – he had no weapon” to “you don’t know what happened because you weren’t there.” (*cough cough* Hannity)
You’re quite right. I’m not there for any of these stories that get broadcasted later on the news. That’s the idea behind watching something you weren’t there for. You try to trust that those delivering it aren’t first feeding the information through a fabrication filter. So, maybe I should just stop watching any news. At all. Especially when the suggested irrelevant doesn’t-fix-the-problem “solution” they’re offering for a kid being murdered is to instead focus on “black on black crime” (*cough cough* Gutfeld & Friends). First of all, regardless of what the color disparity between law and citizen is here, he had no weapon. And was still killed. By a cop. That’s important and worth not looking away from, right? Secondly, as John Stewart says of this proposed distraction, “Yes! Why all the interest in holding police officers to a higher standard than gangs?!”
IKR? Way too much pressure to carry out your job description!
It’d have been nice if someone had been able to document what happened here.
But in the future, can we trust the boys in blue to record such sadly inevitable altercations?
Meh. They can do what they like, but I tend to think people are smarter than putting their faith in fuzz to film with their frames. When the whole problem’s a battle against police brutality and power abuse, it’s akin to putting your butterfly knife down in the middle of a fight to the death and asking your opponent if you can just share his. And if it gains momentum as a mandatory thing, it’ll also be the tech version of “he said/she said” – unless the citizen’s also capturing the interaction with a phone they own. Crooked cops are always covering eachother’s asses.
Yes, there are good cops out there. There are great ones I know and have met who do exactly what they signed on to do – protect and serve the public. Their service, however does unfortunately not cancel out the brutality done by others elsewhere – or bring back senselessly taken lives.
So, is this idea a good thing?
I dunno. On the pro-side, it might be beneficial in making both parties mind their P’s and Q’s during everyday legal run-ins. But on the con-side, even if this technology is centralized so it can’t be manipulated, that in and of itself is a little unsettling in its implications. The thought of uniformed androids rocking Big Brother Goggles and visually documenting my every move in the name of our “mutual safety” induces a nauseatingly exact opposite feeling in me. Just seems a tad too Orwellian, I suppose.
Welp, that’s all for today. Gotta go finish updating my Facebook status with the requested deets on everything from where I live to the quality of my most recent bowel movement so that the venerable ZuckerReich has a more accurate census with which to work.
