By Lamar Hankins | The Rag Blog | March 20, 2023
In 40 years as an attorney, I have encountered the police in many contexts. I have received three warnings and two tickets for speeding or car malfunctions; I have worked with police as a city attorney, including in municipal court; I have prosecuted disciplinary actions against individual officers on behalf of their Police Chief; I have advised officers who were under threat from a federal prosecutor; I have defended officers who were being fired; I have cross-examined officers who arrested my civilian clients; I have looked at a large number of driving under the influence videos recorded by police cameras; I have challenged individual officers who perjured themselves in testimony before courts; I have read reports from all over the country about police abuse.
But while I have been aware since I was young that police often deny us our constitutional rights, I never observed them as they did so (except for those cases that made national news) until I discovered recently a category of videos on YouTube, where police officers (and I am using this term to mean all members of law enforcement) can be seen doing their jobs in real time.