A similar video was captured in Arcadia, California, in September 2019. Wearing what looks like a nightgown, a woman runs into a frame for another home camera. He, too, looks over his shoulder at the knock, but the offender catches him quickly. As he shouts “No!” and trying to resist, the man pulls her and her hair up front. His mind wanders, but he seems to be beating her repeatedly and stomping on her. Finally he says, “Arise or I will kill you.”
These videos reveal problems, and experts say that people who are photographed on camera cannot correct what is happening on the images. In both cases, the camera is for the guest, as well as for the video. The homeowner is the one who decides how Amazon works and decides how to distribute the video – whether it was upgraded to the Neighbors app, handed over to the police, or given to the press.
The protagonist “has no relationship with the company … and has not admitted that their image is being cut, made into a commercial one,” said Angel Díaz, attorney general for Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Critics like Díaz argue that such videos are the Ring’s free advertising material, which sells terror and voyeurism.
The company reads that videos like these, as frustrating as they are, can help protect people. “The ring set up neighborhoods to help people share important security information and communicate with the security agencies they serve,” Daniels, who spoke with Ring, wrote in an email.
And, Ring says, it takes the privacy protections of the people seen in such videos. “When it comes to sharing the media of the media clients or radio stations we have, our view at the moment is that we may be able to release or confuse the face of any known person in the video before sharing.”
When such violent incidents are captured on camera and shared, the above can be seen that the video and social media monitors are working as they should. Video evidence can help police and prosecutors. But advocates for victims of domestic violence say that once the trade deadlines are clear, victims are also being harassed, losing their power to make their own decisions. The women in such videos may need help and need help, encouragement – but not the police.
In Manor, Texas, for example, police charged the man in the video with arresting him. But the woman in the video later told local media that she was looking for a lawyer to try to get the charges dropped.
“They sell fear in exchange for people who have lost their secrets.”
Angel Díaz, Brennan Center for Justice