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Activist Shahid Buttar Argues that Body Cams Won’t End Police Violence

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[audio https://www.peterbcollins.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Buttar.mp3]

Shahid Buttar, attorney, activist, and executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, makes the provocative argument that Obama’s proposal to equip all cops with body cameras won’t solve the problems of police violence.Buttar is an outspoken advocation for our rights under the Bill of Rights, and today he raises some important questions about President Obama’s plan to equip all cops in America with body cameras.  Buttar notes that access to the videos is not assured, and that this would add more virtual eyes to the existing network of surveillance cameras, satellite and drone surveillance, and could lead to more mass incarceration.  He calls for citizens with camera phones to provide the footage of police misconduct, and challenges the new Illinois law that criminalizes such an act.  You can read his commentary here.

We also look at the big picture of muscular police power, demonstrated by the arrogant counter-offensive by NYPD and its supporters aimed at Mayor DiBlasio, President Obama and others who acknowledge wrongdoing by cops and the failure of the justice system to hold them accountable.