cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/24208432
Call a right “enshrined” all you want, but if a judge decides it’s better to protect law enforcement officers from their own actions than to allow the public to view killings performed in the name of “public safety,” the public gets nothing. Neither do the people serving the public and providing them with information, like the Ocala Gazette, which was recently hit with an order forbidding them from publishing a jailhouse video it had legally obtained.
Case file: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25193608/no-1st-here-either.pdf
The correct ruling would be one that allows disclosure to the public. If the MSCO wants to continue to claim this killing is justified, it should be legally forced to support its argument by publicly releasing the footage. As for the paper, it still has the option of publishing the recording and dealing with any contempt rulings that might arise from that action. But, as it stands now, the jail has secured an unearned win simply by claiming footage of an attack on an inmate that occurred in a single cell somehow would compromise the overall security of the facility.
Can’t have the public finding out how we brutalize people in custody, or they might stop supporting the huge budgets we give to law enforcement agencies.