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Videos Of Police Breaking The Law

Posted on 3rd October 2015

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I tried very hard to be shocked when reading this BBC report; it didn't work; this is, after all Brazil where such violations are common, if not exactly normal.

Thank goodness that a member of the public had the presence of mind to video the police planting a gun in the dead teenager’s hand. Without such hard evidence, the authorities would have been able to use the "your word against mine" defence.

It did remind me that, here in Germany, it is against the law to knowingly video police in the execution of their duties. Given the way German law is enforced, any citizen presenting such a video as evidence of police malpractice would probably be charged (as well as the offending officers). The existence of this law in Germany embodies a huge assumption: that the main priority can be on protecting the rights, privacy and security of the police, because "we know that they would never break the law", so the rights, privacy and security of the public do not need the added protection of videoing of the police. Whilst this is probably close to true now, can we assume that it will always be true? As a member of the public, I think I would feel safer knowing that videos of police are legal, and can be used for my protection.