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How do you feel about this? On one hand I see the "freedom of the press" issue but I still think the cops action was a good one.


By the way the Akron police have had their share of problems. They are the type that give good cops a bad name.

http://www.ohio.com/news/44845102.html

One video that won't be seen on the evening news, however, involved a boy trapped last weekend in a revolving door at the downtown Akron-Summit County Public Library.

Maurice Howard of Akron recorded several minutes of the action as rescuers worked to free 5-year-old Kolbe Ballard of Norton while the child writhed in pain, trapped between the door and its glass enclosure.

Howard's images were deleted by an Akron police reserve officer, who demanded the man's cell phone and erased all four minutes of video and one still photo.

Akron police are investigating the incident based on Howard's complaint that his constitutional rights were violated by Richard Culp, a 12-year reserve officer working security at the library.

My great great uncle was the chief of Police in Akron many years ago. Actually still have a lot of relatives there. I think the guy should have been able to keep the video, but what's done is done.

I have a pretty good idea what would have happened to him if he tried that with me. There is no way in the world he would have gotten the phone from me to delete the video as I would have put the phone in my pocket and went on my way.

Let's confine our comments to the incident, not each others' responses, shall we?

Half of me says good job, the other half says WTF? If the person taking the video wanted to sell that to a media source, they'd be up the creek without a release. Some people just like to see others suffer.

US757-200 wrote:I have a pretty good idea what would have happened to him if he tried that with me.

Busta 9?

You never know...that video might have come in handy when the family of the 12-year old decided to sue the door manufacturer, the County, and probably the librarian him/herself

Tom in NO wrote:You never know...that video might have come in handy when the family of the 12-year old decided to sue the door manufacturer, the County, and probably the librarian him/herself

So the cop essentially destroyed evidence. Hmmmm. Never thought of that.

US757-200 wrote:I have a pretty good idea what would have happened to him if he tried that with me.

You on the ground with a smashed phone and me with a slightly dented shovel / crow bar / pickaxe handle in my hand?
Some 20 years ago there was an underground explosion and a subsequent fire in a coal mine in Germany, where several miners got killed.
Above ground, it was like in the pictures of a 19th century mining accident, with the wives waiting at the headframe for news about their loved ones. Then the dead bodies were brought out by the mine rescue teams.
Somebody made the mistake to let the TV journos on the mine property. Some disgusting slimebags of cameramen tried to go for the "human touch" pictures, virtually thrusting their lenses into the faces of the women who were just discovering that their husbands were dead.
If I would have been deployed there (the local unit of the German civil defense set up a filling station for the air cylinders of the mine rescue teams and provided lighting for the area, as well as organising lumber for provisional props), some journos would have gotten hurt.

Also, during my apprenticeship the Birgenair 757accident happened in Puerto Plata, with all lives lost. Since the plane was destined to fly to SXF, the airport company had all relatives of the passengers intercepted by airport security and brought into a safe building airside, where they could control access and where they didn't allow any press.
A lowlife reporter of the German tabloid Bild tried to bribe one of the apprentices, who was just finishing his shift to go back inside with a camera and take pictures of the anguished relatives.
The apprentice told the reporter to do something impossible to himself, even though the bribe, 100 Deutschmarks, was quitea bit of money for an apprentice.
The public doesn't need to know everything.

Jan

Reserve officer- 'nuff said.

Police reserves are part-time police. They may only work one day a month. They run the full spectrum in quality from excellent to even below the quality of the worst full time officer on the department.

Sounds like this guy was at the lower end of the spectrum.

Some places keep around the trash to fill holes in staffing so the better officers can actually get time off.

No reason for the officer to have requested the phone or to have deleted the video... now, if he just happened to be looking the other way when the childs father or mother decided to have some words with the guy...