A former TV reporter from New Mexico is suing the city of Albuquerque and a police officer who illegally seized a videotape the reporter made of the officer allegedly throwing someone to the ground, took the tape home and apparently erased the damning portion of the video.
Cristina Rodda, a former anchor and reporter for the Albuquerque NBC affiliate station KOB, is suing Officer Stephanie Lopez of the Albuquerque Police Department. In her federal court filing this week she cited violation of the first, fourth and fourteenth amendments, intentionally spoiling evidence, violation of the New Mexico Tort Claims Act against Lopez. She also cited negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention against the city…
On April 29, 2011 the reporter was sent by KOB to Tumbleweeds night club in Albuquerque, following a tip about a “rave” party where underage people were allegedly allowed, according to the lawsuit.
Rodda was filming the entrance of the club from the parking lot, when Officer Lopez allegedly pushed a young patron to the ground while working crowd control for the police department. Lopez has reportedly been disciplined for similar conduct in the past.
Rodda was soon asked to leave by a club employee and two officers, including Lopez, who demanded the camera tape, which Rodda refused and tried to leave.
Lopez frisked and searched Rodda’s purse without consent, later admitting Rodda was compliant throughout the whole process, according to the suit. The officer took the camera.
When the tape was returned to the station the clip of the patron being thrown to the ground was gone. Lopez later admitted she took the camera home, viewed the tape and did not tag the camera into evidence with the police department.
“She didn’t have any business taking that tape,” said Crow. He said the tape was sent to an expert, who was able to retrieve the clip and determine the clip was deleted while Lopez had the camera.
“We have proof that she deleted the clip,” said Crow. “It’s a pretty egregious case; I think the officer almost committed a crime by tampering with evidence. Because she’s an officer she could get away with it, I think if she was a regular citizen a criminal complaint could’ve been filed.”
Almost committed a crime? I don’t see how that could not be a crime. At the very least, Lopez should be fired and never allowed to work as a police officer again.
13 comments
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eric
April 19, 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Egregious. I expect, however, that corrupt cops are only going to get away with crap like this for another decade at most. Ubiquitous live streaming and remote storage are going to make it more and more difficult for them to illegally confiscate recordings. Even right now, I’d say there’s a good chance of any phone camera video of their misconduct not being erasable by confiscating the on-site hardware, because of the ability to live stream it or remotely store data. Its a question of when, not if, other A/V equipment will start having this as a standard capability.
Reginald Selkirk
April 19, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Outrage rises over police mistakes
To summarise: an Indianapolis police officer crashed his squad car into a motorcycle, killing the cyclist. The officer was found to have blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit. A critical blood sample was then moved by police to a non-refrigerated location, spoiling its evidential value.
timdiaz
April 19, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A boot stamping on a human face, forever.
Gregory in Seattle
April 19, 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Something I’ve seen in science fiction stories that, I think, is not far from reality: a camera and microphone surgically embedded into the skin, wired to a tiny, surgically embedded live-streaming wi-fi transmitter. The technology exists already, all we need is a proof-of-concept.
As we become more and more a police state, I really think this might not be a bad idea.
scienceavenger
April 19, 2012 at 11:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Eric is right on, everyone everywhere will be on film in the very near future, us, the cops, everyone. I can’t help wondering how many cell phones captured the frisking of Rodda, probably several. The only question is how we as a society are going to handle this. Efforts to prevent it are futile at best, and in the case of the cops, completely contrary to the spirit of the laws they are suppposedly sworn to uphold.
Step one ought to be laws that REQUIRE cops or any other public servant to submit to being filmed while performing a public duty, and interference or resistence to said filming considered ipso facto evidence of wrongdoing and grounds for dismissal. A cop that doesn’t want his public behavior viewed by a judge has no business being a cop.
The biggest problem I see is that if we boot every such cop off the force, we may be faced with a shortage of cops. Any position of power will attract those who enjoy abusing it…
anandine
April 19, 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And the cop didn’t realize that hitting delete does not necessarily fully delete an electronic file. Cops will learn from this, and in the future either cameras will “accidentally” be destroyed when a meteorite falls from the sky onto them, or maybe a hammer, or the memory card will be removed and destroyed.
eric
April 19, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@5
Well, that was not exactly my point. I was trying to say that remote data storage will become ubiquitous, not that public event recording will.
But for the record, I think ubiquitous recording will probably happen too…whether we want it to or not. I actually don’t, despite its justice/accurate LE value. But maybe I’m an old fogie that way. :)
Marcus Ranum
April 19, 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
See, now if Rose Marie Woods was a cop, nobody’d have doubted that story about the watergate tapes getting accidentally overwritten. Stuff like that happens to cops all the time!
Marcus Ranum
April 19, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A few years ago, Taser was making a system that was, basically, a cop-cam. It records video, audio, and GPS location and, when the Taser gun is out of the holster, it records a bunch of extra stuff. The design was for the Axon system to automatically upload the video/audio, encrypted and checksummed, to a cloud service where it could not get “lost” or altered. The idea was pretty cool, I thought (I was a consultant regarding some of the security of the service) but it seems to have not caught on with police departments, for some reason. It could be a case of perverse incentives – since guns and bullets don’t have the kind of tracking that the Tasers do, civilians may be more likely to get shot with a real bullet. Although, since a “nonlethal” option is easier to dismiss, it may also be more likely that a cop will use it. Short form: avoid cops; they are not here to help you.
Modusoperandi
April 19, 2012 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
People, please! Being a cop is hard enough without having everybody jump down your neck every time you steal a camera and delete evidence!
zmidponk
April 19, 2012 at 2:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hmm.
Am I reading that right, or does that basically say that tampering with evidence is legal, as long as you’re a cop? That’s truly a bizarre thing to say, especially as ‘Crow’ is apparently Cristina Rodda’s attorney.
On the subject of recording cops, over here in the UK, police wearing cameras on their uniforms has begun happening – and, on occasion, it has actually protected the cop in question from false claims of excessive force. As such, I’m struggling to think why any honest and competent cop would have a problem with it.
hunter
April 19, 2012 at 5:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
zmidponk:
An honest and competent cop wouldn’t.
sailor1031
April 20, 2012 at 7:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hunter:
after all if he’s innocent what does he have to fear?