flyless

My issue is not that he forgot the exact words that were used in the exchange but that he (Officer Dilley) characterized Phil during the encounter as yelling, disorderly, and disrupting the other passengers. That was not forgetfulness but setting up a false scenario so he could get a conviction.

MikeMpls

And somehow both recordings (Mocek's video & Officer Robert F. Dilley's belt recorder) that would refresh Officer Robert F. Dilley's memory reportedly were erased.

What an amazing coincidence!

bdschobel

That's what I believe, also. Dilley should really go to jail for what he attempted to do. I bet even the police who post here would agree with me. Firebug, what do you think?

Bruce

eastport

He likely knew that the video had been deleted when the camera was in police custody.

The prosecutor might not have told him that it had been recovered/undeleted.

What would be the motivation? The prosecutor asked to delay the case after seeing the video. They had to have spent time to consider the options. They likely knew at that point there had been evidence tampering, even though it was at a level they couldn't prosecute. (No chain of custody, combined with an excuse of "we didn't break or keep anything, we just deleted what we believed to be SSI images.") On the other hand, telling the officer starts down a path of conspiracy. Not on the first step, but it's easy to continue once you start.

In the final analysis the prosecutor did protect the police, by avoiding having the issue brought up in court. Imagine scenario 1, where the officer is questioned on cross examination and says "yes, I did delete that video". That action wasn't in any report, and is an admission of gross misconduct. In scenario 2 the officer says "no, nothing was deleted". There is a risk that a defendant that had a deleted video recovered also got timestamps showing when it happened. At that point an ethical prosecutor has a lot more work in front of them.

(I'm well aware of filesystem timestamps and structures. But most people are not. And even experts can't be certain about what extra information might have been logged by a particular camera. Do you know for certain that your camera doesn't have a timestamped button press log?

Boggie Dog

Did Officer Dilley see the recording before his testimony?

bdschobel

Yes, I'm almost certain that he did. I recall testimony to that effect.

Bruce

Caradoc

"SSI" only applies to information in the possession of someone who's taken an oath or made a promise to protect it.

Once that SSI holder has leaked it, the individual citizens are under no constraint to keep that information "secret."

Especially if they're being asked to sign such a document.

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

Deleting images or video on a camera taken into custody is a clear-cut case of "tampering with evidence" and possibly "destruction of property." At most, they could have secured the camera pending evaluation - but deleting the images is (to me) clear evidence that the police officers in question knew beyond any doubt that the video would show them in the wrong.

Boggie Dog

If he did see the recording and still testified as he did how could anyone interpret his recollection of events compared to the recording as anything other than his effort to inflict punishment on a person without cause?

Sure seems like ABQ airport has a dirty cop, perhaps more than one!

pmocek

Officer Dilley claims he never turned his recorder on during this incident. I suspect that is correct. Wiggins use of his was very obvious, and he accompanied Dilley and I from seconds after Dilley addressed me until I after I was locked in a cage at the airport police station. Part of Wiggins' recording, however, is missing. The part that is missing starts during a brief time when you can see his hand with the recorder in it -- apparently not switching anything off -- on my video. The cut point is right at the time he and Officer Dilley were telling me that photography was not allowed there. The next file starts a bit before he told Jesse that I was being arrested ("Yes, sir, for being stupid," Officer Wiggins said. We had to assume this loss of what might have been useful evidence was due to operator error or device failure. Digital audio recorders, USB and moving audio files off them and onto a CDROM for me is a fidgety process.

Here's what was in a disc labeled "10-39 - CASE09-115050 CAD09110445" that I received in the public records dump:
Notes I took:
You can find those at http://phil.mocek.org/tmp/mocek_albu...re_2009-11-19/ for now.

The things that all this slack in their system allows to happen are maddening. If one person repeatedly takes advantage of the benefit of the doubt people are conditioned to give him, he's at great advantage. I think we should find a way to very consistently and reliably take accurate and tamperproof recordings of our police' interaction with the public, then save those recordings in such a manner that complete loss of them is extremely difficult.

bdschobel

You can be sure that next time Officer Robert F. Dilley decides to destroy evidence, he'll do a better job than just hitting the "delete" button. He'll probably remove the memory card and throw it away.

Bruce

chollie

^^^

I am sure that any LEO of integrity would welcome a tamper-proof system as an aid to memory.
I am sure any LEO of integrity would admit that time and stress and many other factors can affect accurate recollection of facts.

I am sure that any LEO of integrity would want all prosecutions to be based on facts, not faulty recollections or selective memory lapses or enhancements.

Caradoc

I have a feeling that people who're into that sort of thing will be using something like this in the future.

sbagdon

That's a new one. Just one of me.

Silly question... what now? This has all been great recap, yet is there any action being planned or taken against the parties, or is this all just post-mortem for the next flight?

MikeMpls

Even uploads direct to YouTube!

danl08

Had he deposed the officer before seeing the video and then after seeing it realized that the officer's statement to him was misleading? Did he need a delay to get everyone's story correct?