Given the world’s rapid YouTube-ification, it was only a matter of time before the viral videos popularized by the Google-owned site leeched their way into criminal-justice arenas. First it was lawbreakers bragging about their illicit exploits.
Then, knuckleheads began uploading how-to crime videos. Next, law enforcers from Washington, D.C., to the Philippines began posting crime footage, in effect creating global wanted posters. Most recently, media outlets have added videos (often leaked), and amateur videographers have created short films from crime-scene surveillance. Several local videos fall into the latter categories and raise questions about the wider ramifications of putting our sins out there for the world to see.
The 30-second video of the August 4 shooting at Caesars Palace is spliced into two frames. The first lasts 17 seconds and shows 34-year-old Richard Shepherd arguing with a man inside an elevator. When the door opens, Shepherd nudges his sister out of the way, raises a gun and fires at man in a T-shirt. As the target slips, gets up and runs, Shepherd steps into the elevator doorway and lets off at least two more shots, before retreating into the elevator, where he and his sister frantically press buttons.
The man he was arguing with warily scoots by. The second frame shows hallway footage of five people sprinting for cover as Shepherd unloads. Two people were injured. Jailed on attempted murder charges, Shepherd has pleaded not guilty.
A mini-controversy erupted over who leaked the video to the Review-Journal, as the R-J posted the video. Wasn’t us, says Harrah’s spokesman Albert Lopez. “We don’t release surveillance videos to the media.” Nor us, says Metro spokesman Bill Cassell.
The District Attorney’s office has denied responsibility. R-J news editor Mary Greeley directed the Weekly’s inquiry to the daily paper’s online department, which didn’t return a call before press time.
I tell Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director for the San Francisco digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, that the video’s silent-movie feel (no sound, captions or color) gives it an unreal quality. The danger doesn’t seem palpable to me, I say, and I’m sure others feel the same way.
“I disagree. I think it’s terrifying,” says Granick, who happened to be on-property during the shooting but was not injured. “I had to call my mom, who lives in Vegas, to tell her I was all right. She didn’t even know there was a shooting. I think it was underreported.
“... Now you will always have arguments about desensitization. People know that videos and pictures may not necessarily be accurate [as far as telling the whole story]. They know that somebody got shot.”
Steven Zegrean, 51, faces multiple counts of attempted murder for the July 5 shootings at New York-New York. At 2 minutes and 43 seconds, the YouTube video posted by “Rami and Armin” screens much like a movie, with tension-building music, up-close footage (cops, ambulances, someone wheeled out on a stretcher), even snarky captions. 12:43 a.m., 16 shots are fired on the casino floor at the bottom of the escalator ... screams erupt and people begin running for every exit ... me and Armin realize I have a camera on me ... 4 people were hit. Nobody died. If I didn’t stop at the arcade, we could have very well been shot. Best night of the vacation.
Rather than generating serious discourse, the June 25, 2006 YouTube video of a shooting inside the Silver Nugget prompted arguments about whether shooters behaved like niggers. I ask Cassell if this nonchalance toward violence (one person died, another was wounded in the Nugget shooting) doesn’t reflect desensitization. “It’s despicable to make light of these things,” Cassell says.
And what of Metro, which has had success posting video on YouTube? Cassell says they received a few leads from videos of a June 26 robbery of a check-cashing business on Valley View and a July store robbery on Decatur. “We’re anticipating that people will recognize that suspect, and somebody will have the internal constitution to recognize that this individual is committing a serious offense and needs to be dealt with.”
On the flip side, crime-scene footage can be unduly damning. The Shepherd video doesn’t show what precipitated his actions—attackers allegedly pummeling him and verbally berating his sister. He’s claiming self-defense. (The counter-argument is that he didn’t have to settle the score with bullets.) YouTube videos have a broader reach than newspaper mug shots and pictures on wanted posters, Granick argues. “A lot of times when you see videos identifying suspects the videos aren’t clear. When videos are good enough, you have the classic perp-walk problem. This person is now being convicted in an even larger court of public opinion.”