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Bystander's video, cop's body camera capture two different views of UCF student's arrest

 
Published April 22, 2015

A student at the University of Central Florida, reportedly on a bad LSD trip, was subdued by a police officer using a Taser over the weekend, according to the school's police department.

It was a relatively minor crime — John Kane, 21, received a student affairs referral after police said he hit multiple people and pulled a fire alarm in the campus library. No one was seriously injured, according to UCF's police department, and authorities are reviewing the incident before deciding on whether to recommend other charges.

But police the next day released several videos, recorded on officer body cameras, of Kane being subdued shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday.

The footage is intense and offers a different perspective from a witness video, shot on a smartphone and posted to YouTube around the same time.

It's the exact kind of recording that members of the Florida legislature are considering shielding from public view ( tbtim.es/h00). Across the country, law enforcement officers are donning body cameras to bring transparency to the job following high-profile police shootings from Cleveland to Charleston. But legislatures everywhere are also tackling the question of whether such footage, potentially incendiary and an invasion of privacy for those involved, should be public record.

The UCF videos show what an incident looked like to bystanders and also to the officer who fired his Taser, potentially lending clarity to the motive behind use of force.

"The mission of the UCF Police Department is to provide and maintain a safe environment," Deputy Chief Brett Meade said in a statement. "In this case, officers recognized a student in distress and used their training to professionally diffuse the situation with his well-being and the safety of other students in mind."

What do you think? Should body camera footage like this be public? Does it help? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.