By TaRessa Stovall

“Seattle officer punches girl in face during jaywalking stop.”

That’s the headline for the video on the website of KOMO-TV News, Seattle’s ABC affiliate. You click to watch the chaotic scene unfold, then share your insta-analysis in the comments section. A strongly-worded opinion might get you caught in the web of a cyber-debate, tangled in a thread that can go on for hours or even days.

The June 14 incident is the latest example of how seemingly minor police-civilian interactions sometimes quickly escalate into violent, attention-getting confrontations. I felt this one acutely because it took place in my hometown, at the intersection of Rainier Avenue, which runs in the shadow of the famed Mount Rainier; and Martin Luther King Way, in front of Franklin High School, my brother’s alma mater, once lauded for its multicultural student body.

Two African-American teen girls are stopped by a white male cop for jaywalking, near the steps of a pedestrian overpass that arcs over the busy intersection. One bystander captures it on his cell phone; others become involved and the officer’s actions quickly move into the controversy zone.

Seattle P-I.com, the website for the former Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, reported on June 15 that “Seattle police are investigating what they call an assault of an officer in South Seattle. However, a police officer is seen punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during the incident captured by a video camera on Monday.”

Four young women jaywalked across MLK, a few minutes after 3 p.m., so I’m guessing that school had just let out. “The officer asked the women to step over to his patrol car, but the women were being ‘verbally antagonistic toward the officer,’ according to officials,” Seattle P-I.com stated.

One girl, 19, walked away from the officer while yelling at him. She refused the officer’s order to put her hands on his car. When he tried to grab her, she pulled away. The officer tried to handcuff the other girl, who is 17. She placed her hands on his arm, “causing the officer to believe she was attempting to physically affect the first subject’s escape,” according to the news story.

“The officer pushed back at the second girl, but [she] came back at him. The officer then punched her, police said.”

Both girls were cited for jaywalking. The 19-year-old was booked into the county jail for investigation of obstructing an officer. The 17-year-old was booked into the Youth Service Center for investigation of assault of an officer.

The news story stated that “Nobody was injured during the incident, police said.”

I watched the video as I have others, from the first in the genre: a gang of Los Angeles police attacking Rodney King in 1991,

to the police murder of Oscar Grant in a BART station in Oakland, California in January, 2009.

The 1991 video, which became a nonstop television news loop in the pre-Internet days, marked the first time that we, the public, were able to see the action for ourselves, that we had proof beyond the official police reports and investigations, which never seem to fault the officers. But, despite it, the cops who beat King went free without suffering any repercussions for actions witnessed.

The Seattle jaywalking-punching incident is notable not because it happened, but because thanks to a cell phone-video clip, it instantly became national and cyber-wide news, prompting passionate opinions from countless people. There is no clear-cut villain in this situation. While I believe the officer was wrong simply because he was the adult in the situation and, theoretically, a professional, not to mention a grown man striking a minor girl in the face, all parties contributed to the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right madness.

We weigh in about events that happen next door or around the world. And we believe that because we have seen what happened, we are contributing to the stream of informed discourse.

I also became embroiled recently in long online chats about the May 17 Detroit police shooting of seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones,  killed in what news stories describe as a “botched raid.” For days, I wrote and argued passionately about the heinous tragedy of a small innocent child brutally slaughtered by the police for any reason. What stood out for me most dramatically during the heated back-and-forth was that none of us knew what we were talking about because we didn’t have video. This despite the fact that the Detroit police were accompanied by a television crew filming for an A&E show The First 48, and a Michigan attorney claimed to have footage of the incident. It’s a fair guess that neither the A&E television crew nor the attorney will be posting that video online .

‘Are Cameras the New Guns?’

Thanks to changing laws, there may soon be fewer videos of police actions to post online or contribute to television news stories. The blog Gizmodo.com, reports that, “in at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer … even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.”

Using current wiretapping or eavesdropping laws as their basis, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland “are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested,” Gizmodo.com states.

That has already happened in Massachusetts, where attorney Simon Glick and webmaster Jon Surmacz were arrested and charged with illegal surveillance when capturing cops on their cell phone cameras in separate incidents, according to The Boston Globe.

Since nearly every American has a cell phone, and since a large percentage of those phones shoot both video and still photographs, it seems unrealistic for a police officer, or officers, in the middle of dealing with a suspect to turn bystanders into criminals as well.

Still, the issue will became more heated with every video posted online. “The police apparently do not want witnesses to what they do in public,” said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who was instrumental in getting the criminal charges against Surmacz dropped.

In the Information/YouTube Age, we expect to see an incident for ourselves. In an update to the Seattle incident, SeattleP-I.com reported that the 17-year-old girl apologized to the officer for punching him, in a special June 18 meeting brokered by James Kelly, CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle “to ease tensions in the community.” Kelly “said the teen wanted to say she was sorry, and [Officer Ian] Walsh agreed to meet with her,” in a community center on the North side of town, so far away from the incident that it was considered neutral territory.

But while the whole world saw the altercation, none of us will see the more peaceful aftermath. “This was not about cameras … this is about two human beings who might offer the rest of us a chance of learning from a situation which could present itself any time in any neighborhood with any one of us,” Kelly said.

Given the fact that the reason the news story gained instant national attention was that it was filmed, I think that was a huge mistake. It would be mighty powerful to see the resolution to this hostile situation for ourselves. In the meantime, we will no doubt be shocked by and weighing in on similar scenarios for the foreseeable future. At least until the police try to stop us.

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.