Another Day, Another Story Of Police Lying… Only To Be Found Out Due To Video Of The Incident

from the but-after-the-conviction dept

We just had a post about how a video of police showed that they lied in arresting a guy. Josef Anvil points us to a similar, but slightly different, story that took place in Chicago. In this case, Debra Green was in a car in a funeral procession, yelled at the driver of a car who was weaving in and out of the line of mourners’ cars. Turns out the driver was an off-duty cop, Sylshina London, (rushing to get to work) who decided to arrest Green for misdemeanor battery charges. On what basis? Well apparently London claimed that Green threw a bottle at her and hit her in the face. Green was actually convicted.

The problem? It took a year and a half, but investigators finally realized that some of the incident was caught on police video… and it showed that London’s window was shut at the time she claimed Green threw a bottle and that bottle hit her head. Even worse, London repeated that story under oath in court as part of what got Green convicted. Cook County prosecutors have now dropped the conviction and have apparently filed charges against London instead.

It’s stories like these that, once again, remind people why it should be encouraged to film police — and why honest police shouldn’t have a problem with it.

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Comments on “Another Day, Another Story Of Police Lying… Only To Be Found Out Due To Video Of The Incident”

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90 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Ah, the CPD....

The sad thing is that there will be NO justice in this case. Even if the officer is successfully prosecuted, there is no way that anyone can undo what was done to an innocent victim. Nobody can give her back all the time, all the money, all the lost sleep, all the reputation, everything she lost thanks to a corrupt cop.

I think we need statutes that stipulate MUCH higher penalties for law enforcement officers than for ordinary citizens. Because these aren’t isolated incidents; everybody has a story like this, it’s just that they don’t all make news because only a tiny number have been recorded. We need to make the penalties for abusing the authority (granted to these public SERVANTS by we the people) as severe as we need to until this nonsense stops.

Bergman (profile) says:

Re: Re: Ah, the CPD....

I’ve always been boggled by the idea that police officers have more authority than a private citizen and have sworn a sacred oath to uphold the law…yet police are held to a lower standard for requirements of knowing the law (ignorance is not an excuse, after all) and when actually caught breaking the law, are routinely given lesser punishments.

WHY would you expect someone who has sworn to uphold the law to know less about it than someone who has not sworn to do so?

WHY would you give an oathbreaker a lighter punishment than someone who broke the same law and didn’t break an oath to do it?

WHY is ignorance of the law not an excuse when you are NOT sworn to uphold the law, but is an excuse for oathbreakers?

Dark Helmet (profile) says:

Re: Re:

So, out of curiosity, exactly how many nat’l stories of this bullshit do we have to hear before we’re magically allowed to suggest there might be a systemic problem? No one is suggesting that every officer of the law is a shithead.

What IS being suggested is that the backlash against videotaping police activity is bullshit because there are enough of these stories to warrant review from every possible source possible. In Chicago in particular, there are many officers who are downright gleeful about the way they can screw with people. I know a couple of them. They used to be friends of mine.

Now they aren’t….

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

DH, it’s pretty simple really. There are, what, plus or minus 100,000 police officers in the US. If even 1000 of them do something like this (doubtful) you are looking at less than 1% of all police officers as “bad”.

So how many videos? How about 10,000 a year (10%)?

Let’s be fair to the many hard working men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

How bout not 10 percent. How bout .01 percent because honestly that’s all it takes for a pattern in my humble opinion. Lets make our police officers MORE responsible.
One case is one case too many. I think your litnious test is retarded.Ten percent is literally laughable.

Anything over ten videos a year is just stupid they need to be held to a higher standard not a lower one.

whatThe? (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

What the hell are you implying here? Because there are only a few bad cops that we not be allowed to record them at all? Are you fucking certifiably insane? So those people that, you know, loose out on truth and justice are merely casualties of the Rule of Law?

You want to be fair? Well that’s bloody nice of you. I’m glad fair and nice provide such dependable and just outcomes in your little world.

Step right up and spin the Wheel of Faith where you too can trust that justice will be true, nice and fair – watch out for those ‘gotcha’ landings though! But you can always spin again! Step right up! You there sir, have a spin, first one’s free for your lovely friend too.

BeeAitch (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

This. If ANYONE should be pissed off at the officers that are acting badly, it should be OTHER POLICE OFFICERS.

These “bad apples” should be shunned, ostracized, and outcast.

Instead they’re (at least outwardly) covered for and helped out, and that is why the public is upset with police as a whole, because of this shielding behavior.

Vincent Clement (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

All unions, associations and brotherhoods operate to protect or shield the bad workers. I’m a non-union municipal government employee. I see how the union protects the bad workers. Meanwhile, the good workers who pick up the slack speak under their breath about their fellow co-workers. But the herd mentality of the union overrules logic.

DCL says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

There are 300 million plus people in this country and most are hard working and honest.

As an extension of your logic we can get rid of all police since (like videos of the police) having officers watching the %99 of people isn’t fair.

According a quick google search (not completed vetted).there are 307 million for the US population and approx 2.3 million are in jail, That is a small percentage by my math.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

Sorry, you took that in the wrong direction.

It’s more like this:

one black guy commits a crime. Do we now condemn all black men to jail as a result, call them all criminals, and treat them as direct every time they walk by because one black man committed a crime?

That would be racist.

What Mike suggests with these stories is a bit of “job profiling”, where he gets to “attack the man” by pointing out police making mistakes of judgement or errors. But it takes a pretty ballsy move to then suggest that because of it, we should consider all cops corrupt.

As a side note, Mike recently dissed one of those “fake meds kill people” videos because the person involved was in Canada. Yet he used a story of police in Canada with a taser to discredit all police in the US. Smooth move there Mr Masnick!

AW says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

The issue with what you stated, is that the actual statistics are about 1.2 percent of police officers are involved in police brutality, which suggests a systemic problem in a sample so large, especially there are over 300 police killings a year(Police themselves have a high rate of being killed to be fair, which is another systemic problem). So the real issue I don’t think is that we have a rash of police officers that are breaking the law, but that the punishments they receive are near non existent, with only 33% of cases resulting in a conviction and the average time, including cases where police killed someone is only 14 months, where a minor drug charge will get you years. The figures I found didn’t give numbers of repeat offenders of brutality, but it seems that the system with two recent incidents, one the murder of a transient and the other the protest in New York involving officers who had multiple complaints against. What steps would you suggest to prevent these most egregious events from happening? This is an issue that costs taxpayers a lot in settlements and litigation and a solution would be most appreciated.

Any Mouse (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

No. Absolutely no. The police are charged with our protection and the enforcement of our laws. 1% is too many. one TENTH of that is too many. Police should be held to a higher standard, and should be prosecuted and punished at that higher standard. To do otherwise propagates the bad name these few give to the rest, and reinforces our distrust of those we are supposed to be able to trust fully.

Vincent Clement (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Look at me, I’m pulling out numbers from thin air. 100,000 police officers in the US? California has at least 75,000 state, county and local law enforcement personnel. There are at least 700,000 law enforcement personnel in the US at all levels of government.

No, let’s not be fair. A good friend of mine is a police officer. Early on during his career, he questioned if it was a good idea that police officers hold a party at a local bar that was under investigation by police and the liquor control board. He didn’t get far. They laughed it off.

Bergman (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

It is pretty simple. Going by arrest reports, police officers in the US have almost EXACTLY the same rate of criminality per 100,000 people as any other citizen in every category (assault & battery, burglary, etc), except a police officer is three times more likely to commit sexual assault than a normal citizen.

Given how seldom police act against their own, and how hard it is to get a cop arrested, the fact that they have almost the same rate of arrests as everybody else is telling. If police almost never arrest their own, yet they get arrested at the same rate as non-police for every criminal category, and three times as often for sexual assault, how many criminals in uniform are there anyway?!?

MRK says:

Re: Re:

No broadbrush here. Since you don’t know which officers are the crooked ones, the citizen’s only recourse is to record all officers while on duty.

While I normally dislike the logic of “An honest person has nothing to hide”, police are given powers far above those of normal citizens, and thus need extra scrutiny/oversight.

I would think most officers would want a button camera recording everything they do while on duty. It’s more likely to exonerate an honest officer and provide hard evidence when things go to trial.

Prisoner 201 says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

With great power comes great responsibility.

The people have a right to know that the subgroup they have ordained with a legal monopoly on violence are always acting in the people’s best interests.

They are human, and so they can not be trusted to watch themselves. Indeed, we are lax in our civic duties if we turn a blind eye to the abuse of power.

DOlz (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

When I was a public school bus driver one year I got a bus without a camera on it. I mentioned this to my supervisor every time I saw her until there was a camera installed.

Our job as I told the trainees I worked with was not to drive a school bus, but to get the children safely to and from school. They just let us use a bus because it would take to long to get them there one by one by piggyback.

My job was a public safety job (not as dangerous as a police officers) and since I was doing my job correctly and following the rules, I viewed that camera as protection for me if there was every any question about my performance.

Chris-Mouse (profile) says:

Re: broad brush

The issue is that it isn’t “police” as a whole, but the acts of individual officers, who choose to think they are above the law.

Don’t forget the much larger number of police officers who will close ranks to protect the guilty from ‘outsiders’. That ‘thin blue line’ mentality is a large part of the reason why people are starting to feel that the police are less trustworthy, and more a possible enemy.

DCX2 says:

Re: Re:

Any time an officer knowingly observes a fellow officer committing a crime and says nothing or defends them from punishment, the officer is a complicit accomplice in the original crime. The Thin Blue Line, as they say, means that all police will be held accountable for the bad acts of any individual officer.

When officers begin to be punished, having their badges, guns, and pensions removed for performing criminal acts, and they actually get convicted and sent to prison instead of some sweetheart plea-bargain that would not be available to a regular citizen who performed the same crime, then it will be right to stop holding the entire profession accountable.

A police officer who breaks the law should get a treble punishment; if a regular citizen would get 2 years in prison for a crime, the officer should get 6. Failure to abide the very laws they enforce should be seen as one of the most egregious things an officer of the law could do.

anonymous says:

and why ‘not so honest police officers and police forces’ want to deem videoing their actions and tape recording the conversations as illegal. if/when that happens, the public will be screwed over yet again. no court is going to take the word of a member of public against that of police officers, when they are all supposed to be the most upstanding and honest of people. after all, doesn’t that form part of the criteria for getting the job in the first place? turns the ‘Protect and Serve’ type of slogan into a real piss-take!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

And that is and institutional fail.

Nobody challenges the word of officials apparently and that leads to innocent people being convicted of bogus accusations.

Which reminds me that copyright laws are giving power to an entire industry that is well known to be associated with crimes the power to do the same.

See copyright trolls like Righthaven as an example of the sad state of affairs in America.

Anonymous Coward says:

“It’s stories like these that, once again, remind people why it should be encouraged to film police — and why honest police shouldn’t have a problem with it.”

It’s stories like this that should let judges and prosecutors know that when it’s an officers word against a citizen’s, judges and prosecutors shouldn’t automatically jump to the conclusion that the officer is telling the truth.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

(and I think this is the underlying message that keeps getting missed. Video surveillance isn’t going to save everyone everywhere because it’s not everywhere all at once. Some places may not have surveillance for various legal and other reasons, like private property with owners that don’t want it or bathrooms or other places. When it comes down to it, the assumption that cops are right until proven wrong needs to be closely examined by judges and prosecutors involved in these matters).

Chosen Reject (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

I’ll second this. There might not be audio/video surveillance everywhere, but there is absolutely no reason why the police can’t have audio/video surveillance on them at all times. If they can’t provide the audio/video at a trial, then their word should have equal weight as the accused’s word. If no other evidence can be shown, the accused should automatically be determined not guilty.

Anonymous Coward says:

One thing that is interesting here is that the video was from a police camera. It was one of Chicago’s “blue-light” cameras. A separate department of the Chicago police force called the Independent Police Review Authority found the video which resulted in the dismissal of the charge for the women and a felony perjury against the cop. The cop faces 2-5 years and up to 25,000.

The initial incident was sickening (some members of the procession missed the burial). But in the end, justice will be served as long as the cop is convicted.

DH's Love Child (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Really? Justice served? Tell that to Debra Green. she was wrongfully convicted, had to spend time and money defending a baseless accusation.

*IF* Officer London is convicted, AND subsequently relieved of her duties AND jailed, AND Ms. Green is compensated for adequately, then justice has ALMOST been served.

Expect this littel incident to cost the citizens of Chicago a ton of $$$

Anonymous Coward says:

The fact that lady was CONVICTED, not just arrested for this shows a couple of bad things.

1) The lady must have had a horribly incompetent lawyer for the video of the incident (recorded on police cameras) to not have been presented as evidence at the trial to prove her innocence.

2) Since the police had a video of the incidence the whole time, but it took them a year and a half to even view it means either a) some of the cop’s buddies, and even prosecutors most likely, were covering things up for them, and/or b) the cops (and prosecutors) were also very incompetent for not reviewing all of the evidence before going to trial. Either one of these conclusions is equally disturbing.

Either way, they ought to press charges against more then just the 1 bad cop. They ought to be investigating the potential corruption/incompetence of other cops & prosecutors who helped cover this mess up for a year and a half until someone got brave enough to release the evidence.

Some say that police abuse of the law and other corruption has just gotten worse in recent years. But in reality it’s just gotten much easier to catch bad and incompetent ones.

pixelpusher220 (profile) says:

Re: Re:

The video in question wasn’t video from the Officer London’s car. It came from police cruisers that just happened to be stationed along the route. That they would have captured the very instant that a particular event happened during a long procession of cars and her lawyer should have asked for it is a bit of hindsight quarterbacking.

I’m more impressed the video from those cruisers was even maintained for a year and a half.

Pwdrskir (profile) says:

Police "Lost" Dashcam Videos

Explain this one Mr. Broadbrush??

Records show Seattle Police Lost Thousands of Dashcam Rcordings

Eric Rachner’s run in with the police shows why these videos are so important.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/130209878.html

There is a Dashcam video of Eric Rachner’s arrest telling the Truth.

45,000 Dashcam Videos are missing be exact
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/09/seattle_police_department_sued.php

Jay (profile) says:

Is it just me...?

Am I the only one that feels there’s a HUGE disconnect in society today? We have police officers who use laws to punish the innocent.

We have lawyers who use the laws to entitle themselves to other’s earnings.

We have politicians that do their work mainly to support business over the common people. In my view, this does not make sense.

Police officers should be allowed to make clear conscience decisions on the laws that need to be enforced. They shouldn’t be people that turn off their brain, remember a ton of laws and suddenly, they are just messengers of a bad system.

A politician should be a person who listens to what their constituents want, not the monied interests (mainly lawyers) who pay them. I personally believe we need more statesmen than politicians and sadly only a few people in Congress exemplify that quality (Wyden is one)

Lawyers should be looking to help society at large. Making the law something so complex and arbitrary that no one can gain access to it. It’s ridiculous.

There’s been at least one person that’s been able to write up some good information about how to change our laws. Honestly, we need a better way to redress our government and allow more people to have a voice rather than allowing a bad system to hurt them.

AndyD273 (profile) says:

A higher standard

I dunno. When dealing with cases like this, I think they should use the same logic as they do with shooting someone.

A buddy who has had to take a lot of gun classes for his security job told me that if someone breaks into my home and I shoot him, I would face a lot less severe judgement than if someone broke into his house and he shot them.

That’s because he has a lot of training, and so is held to a higher accountability level than I would be, since I haven’t taken any classes.

Cops should know the law, and so should be held to a much higher standard than your average citizen when it comes to cases like this.

FBI Internet Investigations (profile) says:

Recognizing that freedom of speech is no longer a right under the U.S. Constitution, we have made note off all people commenting on this story. You are in our system as potential terror suspects. You are now on the NO FLY list. Your passports are cancelled. You will be audited by the IRS. Any and all police agencies with whom you contact for help in the future will be notified of your possible terrorist status.

You are assimilated.

Protecting you're life says:

This is irissponsable reporting.
People dont realize how dangeros it is to be a police officer and how filming police will make they’re job even harder!
Their is scientific statistics that show for every 10 person 1 wants to kill cops! Go ahead and film police, this will just help these crimanals identify and find cops to shoot them!
Maybe when all police officers quit there jobs you will realize how much you need them and you will stop acting like spoiled children. You have to realize safety is not possible with too much freedom. Would you really prefer to be dead? With all the crimanals out their I can promise without cops you would be murdared in less then a week!!
Cops our not the crimanals, crimanals are! You’re right to film cops is not important compaired to you’re safety unless you our crazy!

People like you make me want to quit my job.

Benjo (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Link it or it doesn’t count.

You can identify cops as the guys driving squad cars and wearing police uniforms. No need for film!

On to what’s relevant, I can’t imagine a law being passed requiring officers to wear recording equipment, nor do I think that is practical. However, I do feel like an officer that abuses his/her status as a law enforcer in this case deserves a more severe punishment, and to be scrutinized to the point where they would most likely lose their job.

I have yet to hear a good argument why a civilian should not be allowed to film a police officer. Especially in a public setting.

PrometheeFeu (profile) says:

Re: Re:

I am torn. On the one hand, I want to make fun of your spelling, (I know auto-correct has a bad rep, but it would help you out) and debunk the absurdities you are saying. (If a full 10% of the population wants to kill cops, maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with cops.)

On the other hand I cannot believe you are actually a cop. I mean, this is just too beautiful. You are giving the impression of being an illiterate non-sense-spouting idiot. You have got to be a satire of sorts.

OK, I can’t resist it: If there were no cops, there would be a wide variety of mechanisms which would emerge to replace cops. For instance, people might start carrying more guns. Private security companies would be more common. Your life-insurance might have a provision whereby the insurance company would pay for an investigator to find and punish the one responsible for your death. Most likely business associations would pay to provide security since a secure environment tends to be good for business.

But let’s say none of that happens. Most human beings don’t really care much for killing each other. Beyond the punishment and the fear of retribution, there is just the simple fact that its a messy and dangerous affair. Sure, there will always be some bad apples. But for the most part, people would rather live their lives without having to go through dangerous life-threatening conflict. So I think we would last for much longer than a week.

Bergman (profile) says:

Re: Re:

As Benjamin Franklin once stated, “Those who would trade a little liberty for a little security deserve neither, and will lose both.”

If a cop doesn’t break the law in the course of doing their duty, they have nothing to fear from being recorded. In fact, good cops welcome being recorded, since that recording will prove their innocence if they are accused of wrongdoing for actions performed while the camera is on. Any cop that quits his or her job because the public has the ability to record them should be investigated on the spot for corruption and criminal behavior.

If a cop cannot do his or her job without breaking the oath they swore when they accepted that job, then that’s a really BIG hint that they’re doing the job wrong.

blueice says:

Bad Coppers

Excellent posts, DCX2 and EsignerFX!

Chicago police has a reputation has being combative and arrogant, just ask a ticket seller at Wrigley Field..

Hear in the St Paul and Minneapolis area, there is a vast difference in conduct and attitude between the two departments..

I am glad most of my dealing is with the St Paul Police Department and not the latter..

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