Orlando City Surveillance Cameras Capture Altercation, Alleged Police Brutality

City surveillance cameras work  both ways: not only they capture perpetrators, but also the police doing somethings questionable.

Orlando city surveillance cameras capture an altercation (click to view video)

View the video and decide for yourself whether it’s police brutality (the shoving incident happens towards the end of the video). The point here is that the incident has been captured on video, so it’s not “he said, she said.”

Also note that the cameras are being controlled live, presumably by a police operator – this is the best practice for municipal video, rather than recording only for post-incident analysis.

Orlando has a lot of fiber, so it’s likely that this (downtown?) camera is on a fiber connection. Firetide wireless mesh is used there to extend the fiber to where no wired infrastructure exists, such as Lake Eola and some bad parts of town that I did not visit.

Updated: As a follow up to the story, ClickOrlando now reports:

The police report filed by Orlando Police Officer Livio Becacchio conflicts with the video taken from the scene in downtown Orlando when 20-year-old Lisa Wareham was thrown to the pavement and then arrested a few minutes later, the state attorney’s office says.

Becacchio claimed Wareham assaulted him and resisted arrest. The state attorney’s office announced all charges against Wareham were dropped following a review of the OPD video taken from a city surveillance camera across from the Orlando Library.

Randy Means, a veteran investigator with the State Attorney’s Office, said Friday’s decision was made after it was obvious the video conflicts with the police report narrative filed by Becacchio.

OPD Internal Affairs has been reviewing the tape since last week. Incoming Chief Paul Rooney said there will be a “full formal investigation.”

See the news report on ClickOrlando.

The point here is that while the public safety cameras (according to ACLU) may be a “threat to our privacy,” they can protect us against police misconduct and being unfairly persecuted.

For more posts on Orlando city surveillance system, see:

• (Short) Orlando Walking Tour, Video Mesh Edition: Lake Eola
• Muni Wireless Video Surveillance at Work in Orlando

By: Ksenia Coffman – Connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn.