Social media and police transparency

Opinion

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This article was published 31/01/2024 (613 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 35-year-old Winnipeg man has died following an encounter with police officers. Multiple bystander recordings of the interaction have been shared online.

The incident in Winnipeg is reminiscent of other highly publicized deaths caused by police actions that came to light on social media, bringing increased transparency to policing.

Consider the death of Eric Garner in New York City in 2014.

An officer with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) used a chokehold to restrain Garner. Three bystander recordings captured the struggle between Garner and police. Garner’s last words heard on video were “I can’t breathe.”

The recording of his death quickly went viral, attracting significant attention across North America.

NYPD administrators acknowledged they were initially unaware of the officer’s use of a chokehold, a tactic that violated department policy, and only became aware of the chokehold when they saw the video online. The bystander recording was used by the city medical examiner to conclude that the officer’s use of force caused Garner’s death.

In 2020, police in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd, setting off global protests with demands to end police brutality — and particularly the police targeting of racialized people. An officer maliciously kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd cried out for help and finally went unresponsive. A few hours later, the Minneapolis police issued a press release with the vague and misleading headline: Man dies after medical incident during police interaction.

It was a bystander recording of Floyd’s murder that provided the necessary context for the public to understand the police role in this “interaction.”

Context matters and should always be as comprehensive as possible.

Social media materials continue to bring important context to public understandings concerning police encounters with citizens. The role of social media is even more important when police are less than transparent about their own actions.

Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth held a last-minute news conference less than 24 hours after the 35-year-old man’s death following the encounter with police. Smyth stated that the aim of the press conference was to provide the public with “some context” about the incident and he acknowledged that police are “certainly aware” of bystander videos of the incident circulating online.

Smyth explained during the news conference that officers encountered the man lying on the ground in a parking lot, and described that police officers “restrained the male” when they arrived. Smyth continued, “As they were escorting him to their cruiser car, he became unresponsive.”

When a reporter suggested that witnesses online indicated that the man was shocked with a conducted energy weapon (CEW) and asked Smyth if there was a struggle with police the chief responded, “I don’t know what was being said online.” Smyth continued, “I know that our officers chose to restrain the male… and by restrain, I mean handcuff.”

About 25 seconds later, when another reporter questioned Smyth about the man becoming unresponsive, Smyth said “I’ve seen a small clip online, it looks like he went limp while they were escorting him, so that is what I mean by unresponsive.”

What Smyth fails to mention is that multiple videos online appear to show police use of force during the encounter, including the threat and possible deployment of a CEW and an officer striking the man multiple times with a baton. If Smyth could see the man go unresponsive on the bystander video, it is then perfectly reasonable to assume that he must have also seen these police use of force measures.

There are renewed calls for police body cameras following this most recent incident. However, the devices are unlikely to bring additional transparency to the public in response to questions over police encounters, since body camera footage is typically not publicly shared in Canada.

Instead, body camera footage, which police maintain control over, provides opportunities for police to provide context to the public. This context includes events that precede an interaction with police that are not part of the footage. In other words, police context then undermines the hypothetical objective perspective that the devices are assumed to bring to an incident.

Winnipeggers can view the social media footage online and can see the police actions for themselves yet Smyth did not acknowledge police use of force in the online footage.

We can reasonably surmise that had Winnipeg police officers been wearing body cameras during this encounter, and recorded footage that the public would not see, that Smyth would have similarly informed the public that the man went unresponsive, likely not mentioning the CEW or baton strikes. And the public would be none the wiser.

Body cameras will always remain limited in scope in relation to police transparency issues, not only in terms of what the devices can document during an incident, but also because the public cannot expect to view body camera footage of an encounter with police.

Mobile phones will not be present during every incident with police but encouraging the public to record police interactions with citizens at every opportunity will contribute to increased transparency, and a more comprehensive documentation of any police encounter subject to further evaluation.

Christopher J. Schneider is professor of sociology at Brandon University and author of Policing and Social Media: Social Control in an Era of New Media.