FBI Director James Comey Links 'Viral Video Effect' to Spike in Crime Rates

[Luiz 4,253]

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation doubled down on controversial comments he's previously made asserting that videotaped encounters with police are compromising the ability of officers to do their jobs and contributing to a spike in crime.

"There's a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, 'Hey, what are you doing here?'" James Comey told reporters Wednesday at the bureau's DC headquarters.

Crime rates have risen in more than 40 cities in the first three months of 2016, according to a private briefing the FBI director received on Wednesday. Comey suggested that officers are deterred from more active policing because they fear being filmed and ending up online.

"What I'm talking about is sort of the viral video effect," he remarked. "Changes in the way police may be acting and in the way communities may be acting in terms of how much information they share with police could well be at the heart of this or could well be an important factor in this."

Comey raised this issue last fall, dubbing it the "Ferguson effect" in reference to the Missouri city where a white officer shot an unarmed black teen named Michael Brown, sparking nationwide protests as well as spurring the Black Lives Matter movement and calls for police accountability. Part of the effort to increase transparency and accountability has been the proliferation of online videos documenting incidences of apparent police brutality and excessive use of force.

Comey told a group of students at the University of Chicago Law School in October that officers are "under siege" from viral videos. He said that a spike in murders across the country has come after homicides fell to historic lows in 2014. He added that there are other possible reasons for the jump in crime, but the one that seems to fit best is a change in police behavior.

"I actually feel the lines continuing to arch away, and maybe accelerating, incident by incident, video by video, hashtag by hashtag, and that's a terrible place to be," he said. "The question is, are these kinds of things changing police behavior around the country? The honest answer is I don't know for sure whether that's the case... but I do have a strong sense."

https://news.vice.com/article/fbi-director-james-comey-links-viral-video-effect-to-spike-in-crime-rates

[Bear 7,515]

It's a little bit of reach in my opinion. 

and even if it is a contributing factor, then they need to realize that if they're doing their job correctly then there's nothing to be concerned about

[Cody Draco 2,531]

Power hungry police officers are the problem, not civilians reporting them and making what they do known.

If a police officer was doing their job correctly in the first place than they would have nothing to fear video wise and nothing to change behavior wise.

[RainingOnMe 7,280]

1 minute ago, Hooker said:

It's a little bit of reach in my opinion. 

and even if it is a contributing factor, then they need to realize that if they're doing their job correctly then there's nothing to be concerned about

+1

[PartySick 172,545]

18 minutes ago, Hooker said:

It's a little bit of reach in my opinion. 

and even if it is a contributing factor, then they need to realize that if they're doing their job correctly then there's nothing to be concerned about

Pretty much this.