Cop Shooting Video Raises Questions

Deputy Appears To Shoot Unarmed Man That Was Obeying Orders

(CBS/AP) 
The impact of videos became clear in March 1991 after images of Los Angeles police officers beating motorist Rodney King were beamed into living rooms worldwide. Since then, videos have captured a number of incidents, some involving white police officers and black suspects.

The footage includes a police officer in Inglewood, California slamming the face of a handcuffed 16-year-old boy onto the hood of a police car in July 2002; the death in 2003 of a 350-pound man after Cincinnati, Ohio officers hit him repeatedly with nightsticks; and the beating by police of a retired teacher in the French Quarter of New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

Law enforcement agencies also recognize the potential importance of video. Departments throughout the country are installing cameras in police cruisers to protect officers against false allegations.

But images captured on tape are open to wide interpretation.

Los Angeles exploded in rioting in April 1992 after a Superior Court jury acquitted four police officers of criminal charges in connection with the King beating. The violence resulted in 55 deaths, nearly 2,400 injuries and about $1 billion in damage. Two of the officers were later found guilty of federal civil rights charges.

In Cincinnati, a police watchdog agency found officers used excessive force against Nathaniel Jones in November 2003, but a prosecutor concluded they were lawfully defending themselves when Jones began swinging at them as they tried to handcuff him in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant.

Two juries deadlocked in the criminal trial of Inglewood police officer Jeremy Morse, who was accused of assaulting 16-year-old Donovan Jackson.

In New Orleans, two police officers were fired and another suspended following the beating of 64-year-old Robert Davis — an incident photographed and videotaped by The Associated Press. The officers' attorney said the video didn't tell the whole story of the confrontation.

Morse's attorney argued the same thing, claiming his client slammed Jackson down after the boy grabbed the officer's testicles and refused to let go.

"That wasn't captured on this film angle," said attorney John Barnett, who defended Morse and one of the officers in the King beating.

"We have learned over the last 10 or 15 years that images captured on film show only a very small part of an event."

Similarly, San Bernardino County sheriff's officials caution that the video of the Chino shooting is grainy and the audio is at times unclear. They have asked the FBI to do a forensic analysis of the tape to determine what was said by whom and at what time, sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said.

"The average person is going to say, 'Oh my God, the cops screwed up again. They stepped over the line, they're guilty of misconduct,"' Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a Los Angeles author and political analyst, said of the incident.

"But we would really need to know more than just this videotape," he said.