If a police officer who was issued a body-worn camera willfully turns it off when engaging with the public, anything he does illicitly, should be considered a premeditated crime.
As I said on a social media thread recently, operators of motor vehicles should secretly video and audio record all interactions with public officials, including the police. It is critically important that trust is developed and cultivated between the citizenry and the police for the betterment and progress of the nation. Officers who would solicit bribes or commit illegal acts because they are so predisposed or out of ignorance of their jobs will be easily identified and fired or retrained.
This is a quick way to remediate the problem of the so-called licky, licky police officer, a reprehensible practice in my opinion. Recording a police interaction however, cannot come at the cost of compliance. When you are stopped by the police and they request your driver’s license and documents pertaining to the vehicle you are driving compliance is not optional.
Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege not a right, that is the reason you must obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle. In some places like Jamaica, if you do not have your license or paperwork for the vehicle you may be allowed to produce them within a certain time.
In order for that to be facilitated you are obligated to give your name and address as requested by the officer.
If you are operating a vehicle and you do not have a license or paperwork for that vehicle, the police is obligated to seize and tow your vehicle and arrest you until you can produce the requested documentation. Citizens have a right to film the police in the performance of their duties as long as it does not interfere with the officer’s work. So if you are in the vehicle and it’s involved in a traffic stop, film away but if the officer asks you to step out of the vehicle you must comply. The officer cannot force you to stop filming but you must obey all lawful commands , that includes putting your hands behind your back if he intends to arrest you.
If you are being arrested you cannot film with your hands behind your back, but you can request that the officer allow your recording device remain recording. He his obligated to allow you to do that.
Filming police for social media while you disobey lawful commands is a bad idea that will get you nowhere but a jail cell depending on the officer.
A knowledgeable officer knows it is your right to record everything but it is his job to ensure you follow his commands. You do not get to decide that you will not comply with lawful orders given by the police because you disagree with them or you are butt-hurt.
If you feel that you were mistreated or that your rights were violated, there are remedies with the Police department, INDECOM, through your lawyer, and the courts. Fighting a police officer in uniform is a recipe for suicide.
I have seen people punching, slapping, pushing police officers in Jamaica. When I served I believed people looked at me and decided I won’t try it with that one. I had every right to do my job without being assaulted and so does every police officer today.
Police officers wear masks and not shown identifying numerals for several reasons. Those reasons may varying from department to department and from country to country. There is no logical reason that I know of that would necessitate the need for facemarks outside of environmental or health reasons when officers are engaged in regular day to day duties. In those cases the officer’s identifying number should be visible.
The most obvious reason cops wear facial covering and no identifying numbers are the security of themselves and that of their families. Police all across the world uses masks and often have no identifying numerals outside the word police or federal agent on their vests. The smaller and more violent the country the greater the need for tactical officers to operate with certain degrees of anonymity, as it becomes more critical that their identities remain concealed because of the danger to them and their families.
It is disingenuous and dangerous for any person to blatantly lie like Bert Samuels did, when he claimed that police officers in our tiny Jamaica cover their faces because they want to commit crimes while on duty.
Every year well over a thousand people are murdered, in some cases closer to two thousand living breathing Jamaicans have their lives snuffed out by mindless ghetto thugs. Those numbers includes members of the police force and our military and innocent men, women, and children. Jamaica’s blood-thirsty thugs have zero respect for life and neither does the women who depend on their macabre un-aliving of people to eat and floss.
It is therefore expected that a partisan criminal lawyers like Bert Samuels who depend on criminals to eat, and who wants to see the People’s National Party in power so that crime can take over our country act that way.
After all that’s how he makes his money.
His retarded lying comments when viewed in that prism makes a lot more sense.
Standing with Jamaicans For Injustice is another matter.
The European Union, George Soros foreign sponsored cancer in Jamaica must be seen as a threat to our country’s national security. JFJ MUST GO.
It is not a human rights lobby, it is singularly focused on what the police does and not what the criminals do and that disqualifies it. It is irrelevant and must be treated as such.
The black faces at JFJ will continue to sing for their supper, not doing what they are doing means there is no more foreign money.