I wasn’t sure whether this should be in IMHO or Cafe Society. It could end up in GD, which would be fine too.
But, has everyone heard about Afroman (of “But I got High” fame) and his run-in with the local police?
Apparently they got a warrant to search his house for narcotics and kidnapping. They executed a no-knock warrant and busted in the door. Aaaaand, found nothing.
So Afroman wrote a bunch of songs about it, and used his home security footage in the videos. They’re pretty effective, if you ask me. And now the police involved are upset and suing (Steve Lehto, among others, thinks they have no case).
But beyond the obvious Streisand Effect, it does seem that there’s no accountability when the police are wrong about these things, and it seems like no-knocks have become way too common, even when confronting someone with no prior violent past.
For me, it’s patently offensive for the police to claim they’ve become targets of ridicule and bullying due to the videos, when the videos only exist because of their actions (I’ve not heard what precipitated the warrant, to be fair). Actions which, at the very least, yielded no actionable evidence. Hey- when I go out on a limb at work, and I’m wrong, there are repercussions.
Also, I really don’t like that they disabled his security cameras. The police are serving a warrant, and I can see no reason all involved aren’t protected and better served by the cameras. And anyway, I’d think they would need an additional warrant to do that, or at least they should.
And I highly recommend checking out some of the songs and their videos.