New Orleans Cops Caught on Tape

by Tim Lynch
PoliceMisconduct.net
Feb. 16, 2013

The police commander says he saw no wrongdoing in the video. Hmm.

A few questions:

1. What would have happened if the young man’s mother had not arrived so quickly? 2. What would have happened if she had not been a police officer herself? 3. What would happen if these undercover officers tried to swarm on a person who was carrying a firearm? The police often remind us that they must make split-second decisions. True. But note that this tactic gives the citizen only a split second to decide if he’s being attacked by thugs or whether it’s a police stop. 4. The other day a columnist at the Wall Street Journal heaped praise on the stop and frisk tactics of the New York City Police Department. He said the police have an “uncanny” ability to discern who is carrying a gun. He is looking at paper statistics and gets a warped view of what’s actually happening out there. Consider two scenarios. (A) The police swarm on someone. If they find a handgun, they take him downtown–paperwork shows arrest and gun confiscated. (B) How many times do the police swarm on a person, no gun is found, and the police just walk away as above? No paperwork on that (usually). From the paper records, it is as if frightening incidents like this never even happened.

What if they happen a lot? What then?