Just as Radley Balko has done an exemplary job of chronicling puppycide, the needless knee-jerk killing of dogs by police officers, George Washington Lawprof Jonathon Turley has done the same for police informing people, and often backing up their advice with a big stick, that it’s illegal to video and record them.

Turley had two posts on one day this week, one from Maryland and another from California, bearing witness to the cops’ desire to have no witness to their actions,   That Massachusetts didn’t make the list this week is mere kismet.  The recurring theme is that police are of the view that taping them is a crime.  Sometimes, they tell the videotaper to stop.  Other times, they let their cuffs do the talking.

As Carlos Miller’s aptly named blog says, photography is not a crime.  Nor is videotaping a public officer in public performing his duty.  Indeed, as shown by the But For Video series here, good people would never believe that the age-old complaints of police abuse and misconduct do, in fact, happen, exactly as alleged and despite the facile arguments challenging the accusers, but for video.  In the absence of visual proof, most of us will immediately shrug off accusations of misconduct as being far-fetched and merely an attempt to get back at police for doing their job.  We now know better.

This is why the recording of police in the performance of their job has become a critical component of cleaning up the mess left behind by generations of blind faith in our support of law enforcement and denial that bad things ever happen. It’s less about nailing the individual cop than about changing the police culture that they can do, and get away with, anything they want.  Knowing that we’re watching, the blue wall can no longer shield them from our probing eyes.

This makes the cop lie, that it’s a crime to videotape them, all the more nefarious.  Not only is it false in itself, but serves to conceal the collateral misconduct that must be revealed if change to cop culture is ever to happen. 

That the police are able to perpetuate their self-serving myth speaks to a lack of information to the public.  A few well-placed headlines in newspapers proclaiming that it is not a crime to videotape police in public in the performance of their job would go a long way in putting an end to the cop lie.  Maybe a nice investigative piece on a television news magazine.  There is certainly more than enough video around already to cut and paste a show together.  Heck, they could just cruise through a few months of Turley posts and have a show done in an hour.

No matter how widely read Turley’s blog may be, the countervailing voice to the cop lie needs to be spoken more loudly and disseminated more widely.  People need to know that it’s a lie.  Cops need to know that they are spreading a lie.  Cops need to know that people know they are lying to cover their own behinds.  The lie needs to die.

Then there’s the ironic problem behind the lie, that anyone recording police conduct risks arrest, if not a good tune-up in the process.

As Carlos Miller notes,

The problem with many cops is that they are stupid.

How else can you explain a cop deliberately tripping a bicyclist knowing he is being videotaped?

Didn’t the conviction of former NYPD cop Patrick Pogan have any impact at all?

The answer is self-evident, as the existence of videotape demonstrates.  Some people remain sufficiently brave and bold to let the camera roll despite the risk.  And the police have yet to reach the point of self-actualization, or maybe just self-preservation, to control their impulse to beat the crap out of people and lie about it, even though their conduct is caught on video.  No question about it, it’s stupid. 

It would be great if watching these videos caused a shift in police culture where officers realized that what they do to people is outrageous and unjustifiable.  Imagine the day when one cop would stop another whose baton was raised over his head about the crash down on the skull of some kid who posed no threat of harm to anyone.  That day is nowhere in sight.

In the meantime, the best we can do is continue to spread the word, and the videos, of police misconduct and hope that cops, even if they refuse to control their vicious impulses because it’s wrong, will act in their own self-interest because of fear that someone is videotaping their abuse. 

The first thing that needs to stop is the lie.  Where are the headlines?