Jessica

Vozel

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October 8, 2007

YouTube Generation Fights Crime, Police Brutality With Camera Phones

Last week, a security guard in a Los Angeles school brutally restrained a 16-year-old girl who dropped a piece of cake on the lunchroom floor, breaking her wrist and calling her a “nappy head” as he did so.

A student captured footage of this unnecessary violence with his camera phone. Before that, on September 17, a student at the University of Florida was tasered by campus security after getting too rowdy at a John Kerry speech. Within hours, cell phone video captures of the incident appeared on YouTube. Last year, a student with a cell phone recorded an Iranian-American UCLA student being tasered several times for not showing his ID to campus security and being unwilling, or unable, to stand at their request.

It would seem that police brutality is on the rise in America, especially against America’s young people. However, it is possible we are only now exposed to it because the YouTube culture and camera phones allow incidents that only a handful of people see firsthand to become instantly public. 

Likely, the greater public would have never heard of the tasering of Andrew Meyer at the University of Florida if not for the barrage of videos documenting the disturbing incident on YouTube. Part of that, admittedly, can be attributed to our voyeuristic nature and the shock value of watching someone get jolted by an electroshock weapon, but what matters is that people are exposed in greater numbers to what is happening in our country.

Stephen Colbert, of the late-night show “The Colbert Report”, poked fun of the YouTube generation by pointing out students watching Andrew get tasered with chin-in-hands, bored expressions. “They’re thinking, ‘I wish they would stop tasering this guy so I can go home and watch this guy get tasered on YouTube!’” he joked.

Some criticize YouTube for being too voyeuristic because it disseminates private moments for public viewing, sometimes without the knowledge or permission of the video’s subject. Say what you will about the culture of amateur video. But one can’t deny that the ability of the YouTube/camera phone combination to spread the word about injustices to the American public is a significant, unexplored benefit.

In a unique flip-flop of power relations, those whose purpose it is to protect – and to a certain extent, control – the American public are required to answer to camera-phone wielding citizens who can end careers and lives with the evidence they obtain of officers and other public officials abusing their power. 

The two officers involved in the Andrew Meyer incident were given paid leave and are being investigated by the University of Florida. At another incident this year, anti-war protestors were arrested in the midst of a pro-war event, and a man with a camera recorded the arrests and zoomed in to capture the names of the arresting officers, who did not read the women their rights as they handcuffed them and put them into a police vehicle. 

In a time when issues of the police state and public security are more relevant than ever before, and the trade-offs of civil liberty for security are being explored, it is interesting and fitting that citizens are fighting back with their own method of protection that defend them not from terrorists, but from police brutality and repression disguised as protection. 

At the same time, convenient camera phones may increasingly aid in prosecuting true criminals.  When a large chunk of the population carries video camera capabilities in their pocket, crimes don’t happen in a vacuum and witnesses can supply more than subjective oral testimony. 

Additionally, perpetrators can be identified and their faces posted to the Internet to warn others.  One example of this is the website “Holla Back New York City” (www.hollabacknyc.com), which allows victims of sexual harassment to post cell-phone snapshots of their attackers to warn others. Other cities across the world have opened similar sites.  

A best-case scenario would be for crime and excessive police force to diminish out of the perpetrator’s fear of being caught through the lens of a camera phone. Regardless, we should keep our cell phones close by, for they might end up being our most powerful weapons.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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