Videotape

The Baltimore Police Department is taking steps to begin videotaping interrogations in its most serious criminal investigations - a long-resisted move that is being adopted by an increasing number of Maryland law-enforcement agencies. The department, the eighth-largest in the country, recently began using video as part of a series of reforms of its sex-offense unit. Now officials are exploring equipment options and the policy impact of videotaping homicide and shooting interrogations.

I work at Courthouse East, where the assault that has now been widely viewed on the Internet took place. The article in the April 5 Sun ("Viewers of shock video shed light on Baltimore assault") states that "While police were troubled by the video, they said this week that they were not aware of the incident. " There are at least three "spy eye" cameras plainly visible from the courthouse steps. Are these cameras filming/monitored 24/7? If so, someone was asleep at the switch! D. Morris, Edgewood

Baltimore city schools CEO Andres Alonso has released his 2012 message to the district on testing integrity, as the school system gears up to begin administering the Maryland School Assessements to students in grades three through eight on March 12. A story on Monday outlined the district's efforts this year to continue its heightened scrutiny during the testing season, a measure Alonso began last year by hiring more than 200 external...

What's most troubling about the Baltimore Police Department's new rules regarding the public videotaping of police is that any new rules were required in the first place. The notion that some cadre of uniformed officers - perhaps even a majority - mistakenly believed until recently they have every right to confiscate the cell phone and delete the recordings of someone who did nothing more than tape an arrest in a public place is chilling to say the least. Not that one expects a city police officer to be a Constitutional scholar, but this isn't a Harvard Law School moment.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department on behalf of a Howard County man who says his camera was confiscated at the Preakness last year after he recorded officers arresting a woman. The ACLU had notified the department on Aug. 3 of its intent to sue but said a lawsuit could be avoided if police worked to develop clearer policies and acknowledged that the man should have been able to record the incident. The group said the Police Department did not respond.

A woman accused of orchestrating her husband's murder last year in a Towson gas station admitted to police that she had wanted him "hit," although she insisted she did not intend for him to die. In a videotaped interview with detectives, played publicly for the first time Wednesday during a pretrial motions hearing, Karla L. Porter initially claimed to have had no involvement in the death of her husband, William R. Porter, who was shot in her...

Anthony Graber is facing felony charges today. His crime? Recording a traffic stop with a video camera — supposedly prohibited in Maryland under an archaic "anti-wiretapping" statute that is well past due for a revisit by the General Assembly. Mr. Graber was riding his motorcycle on I-95 in Maryland, speeding and popping wheelies and recording the experience with a helmet cam. An unmarked car cut him off as he slowed for traffic, and a man in a sweatshirt and jeans jumped out with a gun in his hand.

An 80-minute videotape viewed by jurors shortly before they adjourned for Thanksgiving provided the breakthrough that led to Mayor Sheila Dixon's conviction, one of the jurors said Tuesday. Before viewing the tape, which replayed testimony of developer Patrick Turner and other witnesses, three jurors refused to convict the mayor on any charges, according to a 23-year-old Highlandtown woman named Shawana, known during the trial as Juror No. 3. One of those jurors disputed others' recollections that Turner had said the gift cards he gave Dixon were intended for needy children.

Many NFL fans might have felt it was long overdue for the New England Patriots, specifically coach Bill Belichick, to comment more fully on the circumstances surrounding Spygate and to address recent reports of further accusations. Those allegations include, of course, that the Patriots secretly videotaped a walk-through by the St. Louis Rams before the Super Bowl in February 2002 and that additional embarrassing evidence might be in the hands of a former team employee, Matt Walsh, who was fired in January 2003.