Brinworld: ACLU gives St. Louis residents video cameras

[R.A. Hettinga]

Now, no Rolla jokes, please.

Saying things like, "9 in 10 women in Missouri are beautiful; the tenth
goes to Rolla", is *completely* in bad taste...


Cheers,
RAH, BA Phil., University of Missouri, Columbia, '81 (Okay, okay, '84.
Seven's a lucky number, anyway...)
-------


<http://www.therolladailynews.com/articles/2007/06/21/state_news/state01.prt>


The Rolla Daily News


ACLU gives St. Louis residents video cameras to monitor police



ST. LOUIS (AP) - After a year of delays, the American Civil Liberties Union
chapter in St. Louis is launching a program that will put video cameras in
the hands of St. Louis residents so they can monitor police activity in
their neighborhoods.

The ACLU of Eastern Missouri announced the program last year after
television crews videotaped police punching and kicking a suspect after a
car chase. Three of the officers were from the suburban Maplewood police
department and one was from the St. Louis city department.

The ACLU said Wednesday it has given cameras and training to about 10
residents in north St. Louis, a higher-crime part of the city. The group
declined to release the names of those participating in the video
monitoring, dubbed Project Vigilant.

"The idea here is to level the playing field, so it's not just your word
against the police's word," said Brenda Jones, executive director of the
ACLU of Eastern Missouri. The program is not just a reaction to one
incident, but years worth of complaints about police misconduct in St.
Louis, she said.

Jones said Project Vigilant is a pilot program the ACLU hopes to expand,
enrolling between 50 and 100 members in total. The initial launch has been
restrained to a lower-income area that ACLU members said is plagued by
police misconduct.

St. Louis police spokesman Richard Wilkes declined to comment in detail on
the ACLU program when asked how it might affect police relations with the
community.

"We don't have any opinions or feelings about it one way or another,"
Wilkes said. "Hopefully it records positive interactions between the police
and the community."

Former St. Louis Police Department Sgt. K.L. Williams is overseeing the
training process for residents who will receive a camera.


Williams said the training sessions last a few hours. The primary focus of
the training is to teach participants how to video tape police activity
from a safe distance without interrupting arrests or searches.

"The citizens are not there to interfere with any police contacts,"
Williams said.

ACLU spokesman Redditt Hudson said the program will also include free
workshops to teach residents about their constitutional rights when
approached by police.

Passions were enflamed last year after the violent videotaped arrest of
33-year-old Edmon Burns, which was broadcast on local and national
television. The chase began in Maplewood after officers said they noticed a
man in a van acting suspiciously. It ended in St. Louis.

The FBI investigated the incident and handed the case over to the U.S.
Department of Justice, which said in May there was insufficient evidence to
charge the officers under federal criminal civil rights laws.

Prosecutors said at the time that their decision was not an exoneration of
the officers, but only a determination that there was not enough "available
admissible evidence" for a federal criminal civil rights prosecution.

Jones said organizers of Project Vigilant have used the last year to work
closely with St. Louis police officials to make sure they are aware of all
the project's details.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'