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TexasTowelie

(111,947 posts)
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 11:01 PM Dec 2014

Pat Buchanan: Body Cameras ‘Libel And Slander’ America

Speaking to J.D. Hayworth on Newsmax TV, Pat Buchanan said forcing use of body cameras is like blaming white cops for being instigators, when it’s the people they confront who are.

He condemned Obama and Eric Holder for painting a picture of Ferguson as some kind of “racist hellhole,” and charges that young black males are the “most violent community per capita” in the country.

And so for him, body cameras are the government’s way of saying cops are to blame for “lethal violence.” Buchanan said, “That is a libel and a slander on America, and a libel and a slander on police.”


http://www.alan.com/2014/12/08/pat-buchanan-body-cameras-libel-and-slander-america/

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Erich Bloodaxe BSN

(14,733 posts)
1. I take it he doesn't realize body cameras point AWAY from cops?
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 11:03 PM
Dec 2014

They're not showing you what cops are doing, by and large. They're showing you the people with whom they're interacting. The ones they're 'confronting' in his parlance. So how is keeping a record of what the other people do a 'slander and libel' on police?

Kalidurga

(14,177 posts)
2. But, what if it's a minor offence or no offence at all?
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 11:08 PM
Dec 2014

Then the cops shoot a person they think is holding a gun and it turns out to be an inhaler? Then what? They might actually start indicting cops and the next thing you know there is accountability. Even worse it might cut into their ability to grift from the public they are supposed to serve.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
4. What an idiotic argument. That would be all the *more* reason for cops to have cameras
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 11:12 PM
Dec 2014

So that every time one of these "instigators" starts something, the cop will be vindicated. (Hey, I'll even grant that the number of cops body cameras would vindicate from false charges will be non-zero.)

Thinkingabout

(30,058 posts)
7. There has already been a case where a body camera exonerated one policeman
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 12:01 AM
Dec 2014

When the dash camera did not see the policeman being attacked the body camera did. This should make it easier, everyone will know they are being video. I don't think it will stop all the problems, they still have lots to get the dumbest crooks show.

Nuclear Unicorn

(19,497 posts)
9. The police carry guns because we the people allow them to. They are our servants not vice versa.
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 12:14 AM
Dec 2014

If we want to hang Christmas ornaments off of them it is our prerogative as the owners of our society and government. If they don't like it they are free to seek their careers elsewhere.

So much for Mr. Buchanan's paeans to small government. Hypocrite.

Douglas Carpenter

(20,226 posts)
11. I would think body cameras would mean higher conviction rates - because much of the ambiguity
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 05:02 AM
Dec 2014

about what actually happened would be answered.

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