Thanks for cctv and smart phones! Thanks for our evolving technology!
Nowadays, it would be easy for us to document anything and everything and broadcast to the world that is thankfully done thru advanced technology.
More than a decade ago video cameras and even photo cameras can only be afforded by some.
Taking picture is even limited for we still have to consider the capacity of the film which is measured per shot.
Recording videos is also a hassle, for video cameras before are huge and bulky and handy ones are way more costly.
But even then these devices are helpful and a great instrument in prevailing the truth and justice.
With these gadgets crimes are solved and police investigation are done more accurately and timely.
Let us take for example the video shot by George Holliday from his apartment in suburb of Los Angeles that happened way back March 3, 1991.
The video has been compared to that of Rodney King being clubbed and kicked on the roadside by LA cops in 1991.
The incident even happened before “viral” and “internet” are common and surreal to most people before.
Fortunately, these days bystanders will just have to pull out their smart phones to document brutalities that otherwise may have not been known ever.
The video was recorded by Holliday after he was woken up little after midnight to the sound of sirens on March 1991.
He then grabbed his Sony Handycam and recorded the incident which appeared to be a group of police officers beating a man with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on.
The said beating becomes a part of America’s collective memory.
Thus, the video of King’s beating managed to become as “viral” as pre-internet recording could have been.
And such, Ten California police officers have been suspended over the taped beating.
As told, King was struck as many as 56 times, reported by The New York Times in 1991.
Back then Holliday would still have to give the hard copy to a news channel according to the Los Angeles Times.
As oppose to today all he have to do is post the 9-minute video to YouTube or any social media channels for the incident to be known to the world.
The video ultimately spurred a national conversation about police brutality and became the “most-played video in the history of the country,” as Holliday’s lawyer told The Times back in 1991.
TV stations played the clip endlessly, “the early version of video gone viral,” as the Associated Press put it.
According to the Times, “the tape represents complaints about police brutality, racism and street violence”.
That tape is now in the federal archives, and Holliday told the LA Times in 2012 that he knows his “name appears in the history books.”
Internet and social media are not so bad as long as we use it wisely and with the right purpose.
