Video Evidence Doesn't Discriminate

Here's one for people who worry that surveillance video puts too much power in the hands of police. In this case, video helped a defendant (Guillermo Alarcon, Jr., pictured left) prove that police had planted evidence on him, or, at the very least had lied under oath about his arrest, which was enough to get charges against him dropped. We've all seen the movies, this is being painted as one of those cases where good cops go bad because the rules of their job keep them from doing a good enough job keeping bad guys off the street. Here, they planted cocaine on a gang member to make the charges stick. Some would argue that if you break the law to send a gang member to prison, the end justifies the means, but I think laws are laws and if your job is to enforce them you probably shouldn't be breaking them. Moreover, as an executive in the security surveillance industry, I think it would be just plain wrong if surveillance video were only used as evidence against certain wrongdoers and not others.