The police forces of our nation are supposed to help protect us and enforce the law, but sadly this is not always the case. Surveillance cameras can help to monitor these law enforcement officers and make certain that they do their job properly, without breaking the law themselves. The video recorded by these cameras doesn't lie and never blinks or is distracted.
In July of 2008, a twenty two year old rookie police officer arrested a twenty nine year old cyclist in New York city during a ride including hundreds of riders who were trying to promote nonpolluting forms of transportation. After making the arrest, the young officer charged him with the attempted assault of a police officer, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. In the police report that he filed, he wrote that that the cyclist was obstructing vehicular traffic. He also said in his police report that he instructed the rider to stop, instead of stopping he rammed the officer causing him to fall to the ground with lacerations on his forearms and the policemen also wrote that the young man continued resist arrest.
Surveillance cameras in the area recorded footage that told a very different story. The high quality video clearly showed that the police officer, who only been on the job for only three weeks at the time, and another police officer were standing in the middle of the street while several bicyclists went by them. Then as one rider approached the two officers, the rookie cop took three steps to intercept the bike even as the bike swerved to avoid the officer. When the policemen was close enough, he lowered his shoulder and delivered a NFL style hit to the man, slamming him to the ground without saying a word. The recorded footage also showed no signs of a struggle as the two officers took the downed man in to custody.
After viewing the video, the New York district attorney's office indicted the rookie police officer and charged him with filing false records and assault. The cyclist's defense attorney said, "What this really shows is that once you've committed some type of bad act, going ahead and lying on a charging document to cover it up is not something that's going to be tolerated by the district
attorney's office." The young police officer resigned once the charges were made pubic and the charges against the cyclist have been dropped.
The charges against the twenty nine year old rider were very serious and could have resulted in a significant amount of jail time. This really illustrates that importance of police officers being honest and the value of having surveillance cameras, which provide a impartial and completely honest witness.
