In 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by four police officers, while five others looked on, in Los Angeles, California following a high speed chase.
What distinguished this not uncommon act of excessive force is that George Holliday, an ordinary onlooker videotaped it from his nearby balcony.
That video was shown all over the world sparking outrage and, a year later when the officers were acquitted, fuelled the L.A. riots that killed 53 people and injured more than two thousand.
The King case may still be the watershed moment in citizen journalism, but even the visionaries of the early 1990s who foresaw amateur video playing an increasing role in the news and courts could not have predicted the present mayhem of documentary-obsession.
Keep in mind that was 1991. The first transmission on public networks of still photographs taken by a cell phone was six years away. Youtube wouldn't be founded until 13 years later and Facebook a year after that.
Today, HD-quality video is at virtually everybody's fingertips. Youtube logs 72 hours of new video every minute and Facebook boasts more than a billion worldwide users.
Citizen journalism has become near-obiquitous with social media users documenting everything from the most mundane minutia of their lives to capturing hard news in the absence of traditional media. And they don't even have to rely on traditional broadcasters to disseminate their as Holliday did.
Is it any wonder then that police are getting in on the phenomenon to help solve crimes?
Just last week, Yorkton This Week posted a police news release on Facebook. The local RCMP is seeking public assistance to solve an assault on a woman that happened at a Yorkton business in September.
That post, complete with a video still from a security camera, almost instantly became the most talked about item we have ever posted and even generated a lead that local investigators are currently chasing down.
It is not unprecedented that social media traffic leads to arrests, perhaps most famously after the hockey riots in Vancouver. Pictures and videos of the rioters taken by onlookers-and in some cases participants-eventually resulted in dozens of charges being laid by police.
Criminals beware: Big Brother may only be a unorganized legion of cell-phone wielding individuals, but you are being watched.
Legalize it
In last week's Crime Diary, "The high cost of failure to comply charges" (Yorkton This Week, October 31, 2012), I argued something needed to be done to unclog the courts.
Sitting in Yorkton provincial court on Monday confirmed my belief that one thing that would help a lot would be to end the prohibition on marijuana. I have advocated for years that the ban on weed is a ridiculous waste of justice system resources. Watching pot-smokers tie up valuable court time and walk away with "alternative measures" or a fine, underscores that how we view the drug is incongruent with our current laws. Even cops let half the people they catch off with a warning.
Pot does not belong in the criminal code.
This is a substance that is proven to be less harmful than tobacco and alcohol, which are legal, yet we continue to treat it like heroin or crystal meth.
It is estimated that 600,000 Canadians have criminal records-potentially affecting their ability to find work and travel etc.-for doing something 66 per cent of Canadians think should be legal according to a 2012 poll.
Even the Senate of Canada, traditionally a bastion of conservative thinking, recommended legalization (not decriminalization) in 2003. Senator Pierre Nolin (Progressive Conservative) described prohibition as a "patent failure" which is not only economically taxing but has extremely detrimental social costs.
It is time to end the travesty of Canada's marijuana laws.
