Reason Writers on the Intertubes: Radley Balko Discusses Police Brutality on Freedom Watch

Earlier this week, Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko discussed his latest crime column on a police beating and the right to record on-duty police officers in the state of Maryland. Watch below.

Comments

[capitol l]

Radley and The Judge: Full of Win

Knowing that we are not completely engulfed in slime, and that someone is fighting the good fight, puts me at ease...somewhat.

[Andrew S.]

Great setup by Judge Napolitano to lead Radley into talking about the videotaping case.

Why is this show only online, anyways? It's the best thing FOX News does, period.

(rhetorical question. I know the answer.)

[Lou Rackman]

Sounds to me like the entire state of Arizona has lost its mind. Guess that hillbilly redneck Sheriff Arpaio has more juice than we thought.

Lou
http://www.anon-vpn.se.tc

[Enyap]

LOL totally duDe

[Andrew S.]

Swing and a miss, Anon-bot.

[Ken Shultz]

If you saw stuff like this in a TV show, people'd think it was over the top...

Bring charges? Absolutely!

Police brutality I can understand. ...like I can understand domestic violence or any other violent crime where some bully's gotten out of control.

But tampering with evidence is even worse in its own way. A free and just society accepts that violent crime will happen, but it's assumed that the perpetrators will be brought in to face justice...

Tampering with evidence is a crime against justice itself. Absolutely, charges should be brought, and if evidence was tampered with and a crime was committed, then everyone connected should have to face justice.

Absolutely. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Also, they should seriously look at maybe not allowing people who are married have access to evidence like this. It's my understanding that married people can't be compelled to testify against each other, and if that's the case, then it seems like incompetence to me to put married people in charge of evidence that can be used against the person they're married to.

That's like a form of nepotism--maybe the worst kind. I don't think any major company in America would let the company be audited by the CFO's wife, and I don't see why law enforcement shouldn't have standards at least that high.

Reacting to a riot, knowing your wife's the one manning the cameras?! Talk about moral hazard! How's that different from a CFO being audited by his wife?

[Wylie]

I don't think any major company in America would let the company be audited by the CFO's wife

Duh, cause womens is bad at maths. *ducks, just in case jennifer is around*

[Ken Shultz]

It's actually worse than the way I put it...

There's how unreliable the results of the audit would be if the CFO's wife were doing the auditing--and then there's how badly the CFO would behave knowing full well ahead of time that if he ever gets audited, it's his wife that'll be doing the auditing.

That's a ticking time bomb. That's a situation that's just waiting for something like this to happen. That's bureaucratic incompetence...

In most private companies, if you marry someone whose job it is to oversee you? One of you has to resign or one of you is reassigned to some other job.

It's hard enough for private companies to ensure there aren't any conflicts of interest--and that's with a board elected by the shareholders, people who have their money at stake! Why weren't these people following standard practices like everybody else in world?

This is clear evidence of incompetence. If this had happened at Goldman Sachs, the government would be all over this just because of the possibility that the way it was set up might have made a conflict of interest possible--and Goldman Sachs never mercilessly beat anyone for celebrating a basketball victory.

Moral hazard. Gross incompetence. Anybody who knows anything about management should have seen this coming from a mile away.

[capitol l]

How's that different from a CFO being audited by his wife?

These guys are out there in the streets every day risking their lives for you, that's how it's different

[Pablo]

I'm assuming you are being sarcastic. We all know the guys who are really out there every day risking their lives for us are the fishermen, the taxi drivers, loggers, and garbage men.

[capitol l]

You can be sure as shit I'm being sarcastic. It was painful to type. A trickle of blood even emerged from my ear.

[A. Freeman]

The need for checks and balances on authorities in a Republic is absoloute. Authority is granted to entities to maintain the laws generated by consent of the governed, but must not be abused in the name of the State.

The use of video evidence is a good thing, the same as the Internet has allowed for the dissemination of truth to those living under a totalitarian government. (We are coming close to this latter occurrence.)

We must expect a high standard of ethics and morals from those we, the governed, grant authority to. Accountability, including criminal prosecution for transgressions that rise to a criminal act is a natural right of Citizens in a Free Republic. If an employee of the state cannot meet the standards, they need to be held accountable and penalized as appropriate.

The disclaimer that "they are out there risking their lives in the streets every day for us", as an excuse for depriving law abiding citizens of their rights is an excuse for committing criminal acts.

[Nick]

When I'm president, Judge Napolitano will be my Attorney General until I get to nominate someone for SCOTUS.

[Wylie]

They got the caption wrong there. It should read:

Radly Balko
SR. Badass Reason Magazine

I'm going to petition Webster to use that screen cap as the illustration for badass in their dictionaries. Badass is in the dictionary, right?

[Austin Petersen]

In case you hadn't heard guys this show IS coming to TV.

[Rhywun]

Too bad it will be FOX (Business). NTTAWWT, but it means more than half of America will dismiss it out of hand. I dunno this judge dude, but if he's as good as I've heard, he should get Bullshit-style Showtime exposure. That's where minds are changed.