You Tube Video Leads to Officer Suspension

On March 2nd 2008 abc2news.com reported a police officer on a YouTube video berating and roughly handling a 14 – year – old – boy.

At one point in the video the officer said: “Obviously, your parents don’t put a foot in your butt quite enough, because you don’t understand the meaning of respect. First of all, you better learn how to speak. I’m not ‘man.’ I’m not ‘dude,’ I am Officer Rivieri.”

As a result the police officer was suspended.

A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department said: “We have invested a lot of time and energy in having better relations between the community and the police. The bad behavior of one police officer can jeopardize a lot of hard work.”

To read the full article and view the video visit the ABC news website.

This article illustrates how allowing videos like this on YouTube can lead to such devastating events. How are we to know what provoked the police officers behaviour? I’m not condemning what he did but there must be some reason behind his actions. Also, it brings such bad press to the Baltimore Police Department. On the other hand one could argue that the video being posted was a good thing as as a result the Baltimore Police Department has claimed to have improved their relationship with their community.

What do you think? All comments welcome…