ACLU gives St Louis citizens video cameras to monitor police

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2007-06-22 11:08pm

ST. LOUIS (AP) — After a year of delays, the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in St. Louis is launching a program that will put video cameras in the hands of St. Louis residents so they can monitor police activity in their neighborhoods.

The ACLU of Eastern Missouri announced the program last year after television crews videotaped police punching and kicking a suspect after a car chase. Three of the officers were from the suburban Maplewood police department and one was from the St. Louis city department.

The ACLU said Wednesday it has given cameras and training to about 10 residents in north St. Louis, a higher-crime part of the city. The group declined to release the names of those participating in the video monitoring, dubbed Project Vigilant.

“The idea here is to level the playing field, so it’s not just your word against the police’s word,” said Brenda Jones, executive director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. The program is not just a reaction to one incident, but years worth of complaints about police misconduct in St. Louis, she said.

Jones said Project Vigilant is a pilot program the ACLU hopes to expand, enrolling between 50 and 100 members in total. The initial launch has been restrained to a lower-income area that ACLU members said is plagued by police misconduct.

St. Louis police spokesman Richard Wilkes declined to comment in detail on the ACLU program when asked how it might affect police relations with the community.

“We don’t have any opinions or feelings about it one way or another,” Wilkes said. “Hopefully it records positive interactions between the police and the community.”

Former St. Louis Police Department Sgt. K.L. Williams is overseeing the training process for residents who will receive a camera.

Williams said the training sessions last a few hours. The primary focus of the training is to teach participants how to video tape police activity from a safe distance without interrupting arrests or searches.

“The citizens are not there to interfere with any police contacts,” Williams said.

ACLU spokesman Redditt Hudson said the program will also include free workshops to teach residents about their constitutional rights when approached by police.

Passions were enflamed last year after the violent videotaped arrest of 33-year-old Edmon Burns, which was broadcast on local and national television. The chase began in Maplewood after officers said they noticed a man in a van acting suspiciously. It ended in St. Louis.

The FBI investigated the incident and handed the case over to the U.S. Department of Justice, which said in May there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers under federal criminal civil rights laws.

Prosecutors said at the time that their decision was not an exoneration of the officers, but only a determination that there was not enough “available admissible evidence” for a federal criminal civil rights prosecution.

Jones said organizers of Project Vigilant have used the last year to work closely with St. Louis police officials to make sure they are aware of all the project’s details.

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2007-06-22 11:09pm

This is one time when I wholeheartedly agree with the "if they aren't doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to hide" meme.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2007-06-23 03:00pm

TithonusSyndrome Wrote:

This is one time when I wholeheartedly agree with the "if they aren't doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to hide" meme.

Absolutely. I have no doubt there are many good cops that follow the rules and do not abuse their position of power, but those that do are able to cause a great deal of damage to people's lives and it has to be addressed. In court the word of a policeman is already assumed to be truthful over an accused. They may claim otherwise, but they'd be lying. This is an excellent way to introduce incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing and abuse that will help level the playing field if there are enough incidences that call all policeman's words into question instead of favoring their story immediately.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2007-06-23 03:45pm

Agreed. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is valid when it comes to those with significant power, except in some circumstances (I,E, no filming cops when they're off duty, unlike politicians, etc.).

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2007-06-23 04:42pm

Hm, yet I keep on getting americans screeching at me about how evil CCTV cameras are...I wonder...

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-06-23 05:29pm

Let us take this one step further and set up cameras EVERYWHERE! I mean "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear."

I'd agree to this having citizens using cameras if they see the cops do something illegal because I feel that there is definitely going to be abuses made using these cameras.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2007-06-23 05:45pm

Keevan_Colton wrote:Hm, yet I keep on getting americans screeching at me about how evil CCTV cameras are...I wonder...

Unless someone has invented a CCTV camera that is owned and operated by citizens and can detect only police officers, that's a pretty irrelevant comment.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2007-06-23 05:51pm

Enigma wrote:Let us take this one step further and set up cameras EVERYWHERE! I mean "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear."

Not the same thing; cameras in the hands of citizens helps make up for a necessary but easily abused power imbalance. The average person doesn't have the power a cop does, so it's not as important to keep tabs on them, and keeping them under surveillance makes the existing power imbalance worse.

And keeping tabs on people who are on duty isn't the same as doing so when they are not. That's like saying there's no difference between your boss making sure you do your job at work, and he/she following you around criticizing the way you walk your dog or for watching TV.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2007-06-23 06:05pm

This is certainly a necessary and correct measure. In theory dash-cams are supposed to protect police officers and the public alike by providing a neutral record. Having heard how often such records "go missing" and the tendancy of law enforcement to refuse to cross the thin blue line, I think this is simply a case of equalizing the odds.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2007-06-23 07:29pm

Keevan_Colton wrote:Hm, yet I keep on getting americans screeching at me about how evil CCTV cameras are...I wonder...

Does the general public have access to the CCTV footage? If the police are accused of wrongdoing, can the CCTV cameras be used to show what happened even if the police don't want to cooperate?

Enigma wrote:Let us take this one step further and set up cameras EVERYWHERE! I mean "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear."

This program is for monitoring the police. They're our public servants, and their power is theoretically derived from us. They had damn well better not have any on-duty actions to hide.