Imagine you’re going to a hearing to see if the man who murdered your family member is going to be held accountable, and the police outside are jamming to Taylor Swift.
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Screenshot of video (below) via the Anti Police-Terror Project
This officer said the quiet part out loud. We’ve known for some time that some less reputable police officers would play music to prevent videos of their misdeeds from spreading online. Copyright holders use scripts to automatically remove videos from YouTube and live streaming sites that contain copyright-protected work. Secretly, police have decided to play music as loudly as possible, so activists recording them struggle to share the footage online.
Largely, it’s worked. But activists have been determined and have managed to keep videos where police officers try this in an effort to hide their wrongdoing online. That’s how we came to discover this gem, where a police officer at a hearing for a murdered man did just that with Taylor Swift’s Blank Space.He even admitted he was doing it to silence the protesters.
I Don’t Practice Santaria… Just Some Police Misconduct
Growing up, I was afraid around police. They had guns and could arrest you. My mom would always comfort me by telling me, if I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear. I grew up to realize that, not only is that not true, police do a lot of things wrong. And the one thing they hate is getting caught doing it. Turns out, they have a lot to fear.
While police unions have managed to keep body cameras on infrequently and off many officer’s bodies, the populace they’re supposed to protect and serve have their own secret weapon: smartphones. With the rise of smartphones, so many stories that end up “a police officer’s word against theirs” now have video proving that police officers are just as dishonest as anyone else. It should be comforting to know that we are all fallible humans, but it’s less comforting when some of those fallible humans walk around with a gun and a complex.
Now police are fighting recordings in the only way they have left: copyright laws. They know they can’t directly trample first amendment rights to record and distribute videos. Police hate when people record them, it makes lying all but impossible, but its our first amendment right. Calls for police accountability have never been higher, and it’s because we can finally record and distribute what they’re doing. That is, if we can beat the copyright censors.
Admitting to the ‘Crime’
Closed captions and video screenshot via Anti Police-Terror Project (video embedded below, click to view on YouTube).
Officers caught doing this have played dumb. If they admit they’re doing it specifically to keep the video offline, someone could argue that they’re actively suppressing first amendment rights. That’s illegal. Furthermore, it admits wrongdoing. If you don’t have anything to hide…. Well, we know they do have a lot to hide, that’s why they’re so against always-on body cameras, civilian accountability boards, permanent record keeping, payments out of pension funds, or bans from working in law enforcement after wrongdoing, rather than just moving to a new department. No cop would be foolish enough to admit they’re just trying to block free speech, right?
Oh, and, yes, I did use a YouTube link. His little attempt didn’t work well enough.
The person recording was attending a hearing for a cop who killed Steven Taylor. A judge has upheld manslaughter charges on former Officer Jason Fletcher, who killed Steven Taylor in a Walmart in San Leandro, California. The officer in this video was not that killer, but instead a sheriff deputy for the Alameda sheriff’s department. He didn’t like a banner that some protesters had, which read, “Justice for Steven Taylor,” but couldn’t give reason for them to get rid of it. When he noticed the recording, we got the little dance party you see above.
“There are family members there, listening to testimony from the Walmart asset protection agent who’s talking about witnessing the murder of their son or their sibling. We just want these cops to leave because it’s a very traumatic situation and these people are very sensitive. And seeing a cop at that time, it’s very triggering.”
– James Burch, Anti Police-Terror Project policy director
This is police interfering with constitutional rights because they don’t want anyone to see them breaking the law or violating anyone’s civil liberties. If anything, it should be greater evidence that we need more police accountability, as we can’t trust them to behave themselves without constant oversight.
What Should You Do?
Continue to ask your politicians for more police accountability. Request reform and shifting funding from the police to other crime prevention methods like community investment and unarmed social worker response units. But no matter what, keep recording. It may be more difficult to share these videos, but keep pressing. Eventually, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, whatever social network you’re uploading it to will recognize the problem. A human will be able to preserve the video. Don’t be discouraged. That’s exactly what they want. These unscrupulous officers want you to give up, walk away, and let them get away with anything. They only can do that if we continue to let them do so.
Sources, References, and Further Reading:
- Nate Gartrell, The Mercury News
- Whitney Kimball, Gizmodo
- Zoe Schiffer and Adi Robertson, The Verge
- Dexter Thomas, Vice News