Additional Pattern Seven: Veteran Hubris and Rookie Mistakes

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that long-service police, particularly those who have not acclimated themselves to social, legal, or technological changes, are more likely to evince misconduct in a police-civilian interaction that is documented by user-generated online video. On the other end of the service scale, rookie police, those in mentor/mentee relationships with long-service police, and undertrained ‘special police’ also appear to be more likely to commit misconduct in a police-civilian interaction. Police with a few years of experience, but less than the seven years before hubris and complacency are likely to arise, represent a very small minority in the examined cases. The same pattern of police time-in-service appears in the variables of police treatment of the videographer.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

Considering the number of cases in which this unanticipated pattern appeared, there would seem to be fertile ground for quantitative survey and qualitative interview research on police attitudes toward civilian cameras and user-generated online video, particularly addressing the possible influence of level of education and years of service. The products of such research may prove particularly valuable to police administrators as guides to the identification of officers in need of retraining before their patterns of misconduct become embarrassingly public.

Additional Pattern Six: Strategies of Attrition

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that police and prosecutorial organizations that comply with public policies of transparency produce the most rapid internal investigations of police-civilian interactions, the most complete public statements of findings, and the most balanced penalties for misconduct, if any. Conversely, police organizations that do not comply with public policies of transparency are likely to engage strategies of delay in investigation, in publication of findings, and in production of evidence during the discovery phase of both civil and criminal court cases. These organizations are also likely to deny the possession or existence of evidence. Finally, police organizations that do not comply with public policies of transparency are likely to exhibit bad faith in negotiations or mediation. The outcomes for such organizations also tend to the extremes: zero penalties, or the most severe penalties, with little to no middle ground. Thus, it appears likely to be counter to the best interests of the injured parties to allow such organizations to control any investigation of or compensation for official misconduct, particularly when the injured parties have user-generated online video of the police-civilian interaction. However, even in the examined cases with incontrovertible video evidence of misconduct, the strategies of delay typically held off compensation of the injured parties for three to four years.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

The observed pattern of official uses of the strategies of delay, denial, and bad faith are not new in American legal history, but there may be opportunities for original research investigating the effects of user-generated online video on final outcomes, on the proportion of pretrial settlements, and on the length of litigation in cases of alleged police misconduct. Prior to the present study, the small number of relevant cases has tended to favor qualitative methodologies. The rapid growth in police-civilian interactions documented by user-generated online video has now made quantitative methodologies feasible for future research. There may be particularly rewarding opportunities for comparison studies of before and after the 2005-2010 transformative period, and of cases with and without user-generated online video.

Additional Pattern Five: Occupational Paranoia

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that some police-civilian interactions documented by user-generated online video include or have elicited police responses that can be characterized as “occupationally paranoid” in the sense Fogelson (1977, pp. 110-116) applied that phrase. This is most evident when police react to a camera as they reasonably would to a weapon, or react to user-generated online video as they reasonably would to an assault. It is also apparent that not all police react to video in these occupationally paranoid patterns, and that there are both individual police and police organizations that welcome and encourage the videorecording of police-civilian interactions. It is apparent that occupationally paranoid police responses evident in user-generated online video are likely to exacerbate negative public response to the content of the video, to have a negative effect on public statements of trust in the police, and to result in more severe penalties for misconduct. Conversely, police-civilian interactions where police respond reasonably to the camera or to the user-generated online video are likely to reduce negative public response to the content of the video, to have a positive effect on public statements of trust in the police, and to result in less severe penalties for misconduct, if any.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

Considering the prevalence of this observed pattern throughout the cases studied, there would appear to be fertile ground for quantitative survey and qualitative interview research on police attitudes toward civilian cameras and user-generated online video, particularly addressing the possible influence of police occupational paranoia.

Additional Pattern Four: The Blue Wall

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that when individual police in a police-civilian interaction choose to deny or conceal misconduct associated with that interaction, it is likely that other individual police or police organizations will act to support that denial or concealment. These acts are likely to take the form of silence or perjury, a phenomenon known as the code of silence or the Blue Wall, as documented in the literature on police culture. It is also apparent that, in cases where the Blue Wall is evident, accountability requires the intercession of individuals or organizations which choose not to be constrained by the Blue Wall. It is apparent that user-generated online video of the police-civilian interaction can function as a tool and as a goad for these individuals or organizations to penetrate the Blue Wall. It is also apparent that if accountability is entirely controlled by individuals or organizations complicit in the Blue Wall, the outcomes for accountability are likely to be lower media profiles, significantly reduced transparency, and the reduction of penalties for misconduct nearly to zero.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

There are doubtless many research questions regarding the Blue Wall whose answers would be of significant value. The existing body of research on the subject, from a range of fields and perspectives and carried out through a variety of methodologies, provides an adequate scaffolding of concepts and existing theory to justify researchers’ future concentration on explanatory research or on the further development of theory. In particular, comparative examinations of the Blue Wall prior to and following the societal permeation of user-generated online video may prove valuable. Duplication today of research originally conducted prior to 2005 may reveal significant differences in the attitudes, processes, effects, or perceptions of the Blue Wall. The essential difficulty for both police and civilian scholars lies in securing access to sufficient data to draw meaningful conclusions. It is possible that user-generated online video may provide assistance to researchers, both by identifying cases worthy of study, and by providing additional leverage to pry apart some small gap in the Blue Wall.

Additional Pattern Three: Agenda-Setting

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that a police-civilian interaction that is placed and kept before the public in the form of a user-generated online video has the ability to influence the agenda of issues in public discourse, in accordance with McCombs’ agenda-setting theory of media effects. When such a video is available to the public, it can be expected that public discourse will increase on topics represented by that video. Conversely, when a video of a police-civilian interaction does exist, but is kept from public view, it can be expected that the video will have little effect in setting the agenda of public discourse.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

This observed pattern appears to present productive opportunities for future research. There may be opportunities for fruitful research in the outcomes of police-civilian interactions where a video recording of the interaction exists, but has never been made public. In this respect, Rachner’s Seattle Police Video Project, cited in Case VI, and any similar projects regarding other departments, are likely to provide a wealth of research data in the form of official video. Research based on unpublicized user-generated video will be more challenging, as the video data will likely be limited to civil cases that were filed but which did not go to trial, and to internal investigations that also did not result in public trials. In either of these cases, access to the video data is likely to be challenging to secure. A third category, user-generated video not connected with any legal case or police investigation, and which has not been posted online, would probably require canvassing, advertising, or other means of identifying and contacting the videographers.

Additional Pattern Two: Apology

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that a prompt, sincere apology by the individual(s) or organization responsible for misconduct appears to have a significant effect in reducing both the public profile of, and the penalties ensuing from, a police-civilian interaction that has been recorded and disseminated via user-generated online video. A lack of apology, an insincere apology, an apology from an individual or person who was not responsible for the misconduct, or an active refusal to apologize, appears to have effects including a significantly raised and maintained public profile for the police-civilian interaction, and significantly more severe penalties for the misconduct. Furthermore, evinced resistance to the offering of an apology by police, either as individuals or as organizations, may be useful to researchers as a symptom or indicator of more serious problems.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

The observed pattern of the effects of apology appears to present productive opportunities for future research. It will be particularly important to clearly define the variables of apology for quantitative studies; it may be advisable to conduct one or more qualitative studies to further develop an appropriate and robust research methodology.

Additional Pattern One: The Tyranny of the Visual

A pattern evident from the cross-case analysis is that a clear, moving visual representation of misconduct appears to have a significant effect in raising the public profile of, and in increasing the severity of the penalties ensuing from, a police-civilian interaction that has been recorded and disseminated via user-generated online video.

The constraints of the present research do not allow the development of this observed pattern into a robust theory.

Research opportunities for this pattern may include quantitative analysis of police-civilian interaction outcomes where sufficiently large populations of both videorecorded and unrecorded interactions are available. Qualitative research on the theory of the tyranny of the visual may also be rewarding, although such research faces additional challenges, such as definition of concepts, that may require more exploratory or descriptive study before explanatory work may begin. It may also prove useful to scholars of police administration to perform research in the content analysis and classification of user-generated online video as a guide to police decision-making following the public release of videos.

Theory Three

In police-civilian interactions where a camera may have videorecorded police actions, exclusive police custody of that camera or its recording correlates with the video being lost, destroyed, reported as nonexistent, or concealed from the public. In such interactions where at least one copy of the video exists outside of police custody, the video more often remains intact and publicly available.

Theory Two

In police-civilian interactions where a civil suit for police misconduct is settled successfully, the existence of online video of the interaction correlates with significantly higher settlements. In such interactions without online video, settlements are significantly reduced.

Theory One

In police-civilian interactions where police destroy, falsify, fail to file, or omit data from required documentation, the existence of online video correlates with improved accountability as evidenced by police disciplinary actions. In such interactions without online video, police disciplinary actions are reduced or absent.

Video Montage

This is a montage of a few of the videos that I analyzed in my doctoral dissertation. I did not record any of these videos. These brief excerpts are included in this compilation under fair use for education and commentary. For detailed credits on each of the videos, please refer to my dissertation.

Abstract

Video captured by increasingly ubiquitous civilian cameras and communicated to a mass audience over the Internet is capable of bypassing police jurisdictional influence over traditional mass media and may be affecting police-civilian interactions in American public space as the initial cusp of a paradigm shift.

Historically, the ability to visually record activities in public space was reserved to those with the resources and the motivation to devote to the task. Police and traditional mass media wielded power through cameras, power often not available to the public. Today, police often find their cameras outnumbered by those under autonomous citizen control. An inexpensive cell phone can instantly publish user-generated video to Internet servers available to a world audience and beyond local police jurisdiction. Police leverage on local media outlets appears insufficient to suppress imagery.

Police-civilian public space interactions are often among the lowest level, highest stakes interactions in the United States. Police powers are restricted by systems which often depend on police cooperation. One organizational behavior pattern is that police will sometimes lie to protect themselves and other police, including perjury, making false reports, and destroying or denying the existence of video evidence of police misconduct.

Technological developments underlying these problems are likely to continue along current paths. The stated issues have significant implications for the continued exercise of First Amendment rights in photographing public space, for Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure and arrest without probable cause, and for police accountability.

The research question is, What is the outcome of user-generated online video on police-civilian interactions in American public space? This descriptive multiple-case study based on document analysis of publicly available documents examined 14 police-civilian interactions in American public space between 2005-2010 for the influence (if any) of user-generated online video on their outcomes.

Based on cross-case analysis of 38 variables of interest, generalizing to theory indicates that user-generated online video can improve accountability in police-civilian interactions. Several robust theories are proposed, and numerous opportunities for future research are delineated.

Keywords: camera, video, YouTube, civil rights, liability, accountability, police, misconduct

http://www.umaine.edu/graduate/research/cops-cameras-and