Here’s what might happen if you try to take a video of a police officer, at least in Sweden.
Beware taking videos of on-duty police officers
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:July 30, 2010
- Post category:Films and Videos / Whimsy
- Post comments:10 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
When I clicked through to this from my RSS feed, I was expecting a video of police brutality. I suppose the "in Sweden" should have tipped me off that it was going to be something epic.
Why can't our police be like this?!
Purple. I'm often posted on thuggish police who grab people's cameras and yell at them. I thought this was a much needed change of pace.
Why can't our police be like this? I would suggest that ending the "War on Drugs" would be a huge step in the right direction.
I was expecting to see someone get their camera confiscated. However, imagine if our police did this every time someone turned a camera on them.
Crime would have a field day, as all the police would be dancing.
I think "crime" IS having a field day in many parts of our country. Especially on Wall Street.
Eric said: "I would suggest that ending the “War on Drugs” would be a huge step in the right direction."
If you were suggesting that said policeman was affected by a dose or two of marijuana, I would agree. Do you think it's possible that he was just pretending to be high?
In America, I think the latter would be even more unlikely because of our "War on Drugs."
@Eric:
Do you think it's more likely that the policeman was actually high, or that he was just acting that way for kicks? I'd suggest that the lack of a "War on Drugs" in Sweden makes the latter more likely.
I think that the "war on drugs" is the cause of much of the tension on the streets between the police and many people. I was suggesting that if we all admitted that there are legal pharmaceuticals that emulate most every street drug, then was can see that it isn't a matter of people getting "high" that requires the drug war. It is a war of choice. It is a war that cranks up the cost of street drugs and begets violence and property crimes that users cause to pay the artificially high prices.
I was not suggesting that the Swedish cop was high, merely that his job is much easier than that of American cops, thus encouraging a bit of playfulness on the job.
"War on drugs" is a deliberate misleading euphemism. It is actually a war to secure corporate profits.
What other honest explanation is there?
I took an expensive prescription diabetes medication for over a year without the knowledge that, due to incredibly poor quality control in the pill factory in Puerto Rico, the amount of the drug in the pills was either nonexistent, or too low to have any therapeutic effect.
The shameful thing is that the FDA had knowledge of the problem and allowed to to continue for a year, before closing the plant and confiscating the warehoused product.
However, I may have dodged he bullet on this because, since then the drug has been implicated in an significant increase of heart failure.
@Erich:
Although it might be dangerous to suggest that the Swedish officer ("SO" for short) was actually high (because some might find the intoxication of officers on duty an illustration of the need for a war on drugs), I find it hard to believe that the SO was not either: a) high; or b) familiar, from use, with the effects of being high.
Nevertheless, I agree that having playful officers actually helps the cause of public safety rather than hindering it.
@Niklaus:
I give you the late, the great, the ingrate: Geeeeeeoooorge CARLIN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&fe…
A police officer is working to criminally prosecute a woman who videotaped police beating a suspect in Massachusetts. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/11/police-officer-seeks-criminal-charges-against-woman-who-videotaped-police-beating/