# Officers Become Accidental YouTube Stars - N.Y. Times



## Yrys (17 Dec 2008)

Officers Become Accidental YouTube Stars

The uniformed traffic officer was standing at a deli counter when 
a man approached her and asked, “Are you on drugs?”

Taken aback, she replied, “What is your problem?” The man then 
proceeded to berate her for having parked in front of a fire hydrant 
outside the deli, even while fire engines responding to an emergency 
had stopped down the block. His voice rising to a shriek, the man 
followed the officer back to her car, where she politely told him, 
“Have a nice day.”

The officer drove away, and that was that. Until the man posted 
a video of the encounter on YouTube, where it had been viewed 
363,478 times as of Tuesday.

That is a fraction of the 1,784,775 views of the video showing 
Officer Patrick Pogan knocking a man off his bicycle during a 
Critical Mass ride in Times Square in July. Officer Pogan was charged 
with assault, harassment, falsifying business records and other 
charges. He pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Manhattan 
on Tuesday and was released without bail.

While that video has brought widespread attention, it is by no means 
unique. In fact, video and cellphone cameras have become so prevalent 
that they are just another part of the workday for many police officers. 
And they can cut both ways, sometimes assisting officers in solving crimes, 
and sometimes implicating them.

“People tape all the time,” said an eight-year veteran of the department, 
a female officer in Downtown Brooklyn who, like other officers questioned 
for this article, spoke only on the condition of anonymity because she is not 
authorized to speak to reporters. “It makes you uncomfortable, but that’s 
their right. You can’t stop them from taping.”

A search on YouTube unearthed dozens of encounters with New York police 
officers that often show the daily realities of policing at its most mundane.
Take, for example, a video that shows a uniformed officer trying to roust 
a man, who is apparently drunk, lying on the floor of a subway car. The 
officer touches the man and repeatedly instructs him to get up, without 
a response.

In another video, a man asks an officer if he may film him, and the officer 
replies, “You going to post them on the Internet? Then I’m going to have 
to break your camera over your face.” But he and other officers laugh, as 
does the cameraman, who eventually walks away. The video had 19,370 
views as of Tuesday evening.

Several videos were made by a man calling himself Jimmy Justice, and 
they follow a similar formula: he confronts a police officer in the midst of 
some sort of apparent parking or driving violation. The traffic officer in the 
deli drove away from Mr. Justice with a smile, but others appeared to be 
more irked.

The unwitting star of a video titled “Traffic Cop Makes Illegal U-Turn” tells 
Mr. Justice, “Arrest me,” and encourages him to call 911. She finally concludes, 
“Step out of my face.”

In another video, “N.Y.P.D. Traffic Enforcement Sergeant Parks Illegally” (the titles 
of the videos are often benign compared to Mr. Justice’s hostility and obscenities 
that follow), Mr. Justice confronts a sergeant who parked beneath a no-parking 
sign to get money from an A.T.M. “What was I supposed to do?” the sergeant says. 
“Stay hungry all day because of you?”

None of these videos rose to the level of prominence of the Critical Mass encounter 
or, on Sept. 24, the death of a naked and disturbed man in Brooklyn after an officer 
shot him with a Taser stun gun and he fell from the ledge he was standing on. The 
encounter was captured by an onlooker’s camera. But officers interviewed on 
Tuesday said videotaping is not a problem for them because they do not break 
departmental rules.

“If you’re getting in the way, or obstructing what I’m doing, that’s a different story,” 
said the officer in Downtown Brooklyn. “But if you’re not obstructing what I’m doing, 
you can put 10 videotapes on me.”

An officer in the Union Square subway station on Tuesday said that once when he 
intervened in a fight, he found he was being filmed by several people. “I asked people 
to help, but no one did,” said the officer. “I didn’t expect anyone to help, but at the time 
I really needed it. It was two against one.”

An officer directing traffic in Brooklyn asserted that it is illegal to tape police officers. 
“If I know that he’s taking video, I’m going to walk up to him and stop him,” the officer said.

That is not necessarily true, said Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman. Filming itself is 
not illegal, but interference with a police officer’s work can lead to arrest, he said. 
“Interference beyond just merely being obnoxious,” he said. “On balance, the proliferation 
of cameras has helped the police in solving crimes.” In fact, citizens who capture images 
of crimes in progress are now being encouraged to send the videos to the police.

An officer in his patrol car in Harlem shrugged off the cameras. “It’s a brave new world 
now,” he said. “They’ve got all kinds of things. You could be recording me right now.”

_Reporting was contributed by Abha Bhattarai, John Eligon, Jennifer Mascia, Colin Moynihan, Rebecca White and Karen Zraick._


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## The_Falcon (2 Jan 2009)

The youtube video phenomenon is definately a double edged sword.  I have seen quite a few (mainly involving TPS, but have looked at others that have caused controversy), and my issue with the people posting, is that alot of them do it with the intent of shedding the police in a bad light, either by a provactive title, or fancy editing that will show an officer getting physical with someone, but alot of the the precipitating incident, is conviently lacking.  I have also seen video posted, where the posters intent was to show the officer in the wrong, but they are clearly not, and the mulititude of comments forces the poster to either remove the video or disable commenting.  

One of my favourites was 2 videos of a protest at York U 3-4 years ago, and while 1 showed the protest then all of a sudden police wrestling with people (with the typical, shame, stop beating them etc.), the second video clearly showed a protester attempting to grab an officers sidearm, while the officer was attempting to disperse the crowd.  Needless to say after this was pointed out, the video was subsequently taken down by the poster (cause its hard to make the police look bad, when your own people are escalating matters).  

I say the videos are a good thing, cause despite, what the loony left hug-a-thugs think, 99.999% of police conduct themselves in a professional manner, and fully in compliance with the law.  And the more they try to post videos to the contrary, the more it just backfires in the their faces.


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