A Police Department Warns Against Sharing Surveillance Video On Social Media

I suggest giving the video to the police and let  them decide. 

I always advise my clients to talk with their attorney before releasing video to any party except a law enforcement agency. In addition to possibly jeopardizing a legal case, there is a potential for false defamation claims if the video somehow portrays an innocent person as guilty. 

Sorry, but I don't think Officer/Detective  Cool has any standing here. She isn't a lawyer. Her angle is that she wants to make the bust and get the recognition. Taking matters into your own hands as a member of the public makes cops somewhat less valued in her eyes. They don't want to relinquish that control, so they make up these anecdotes to persuade the public into their trust. If there is real evidence of a crime, it will hold up in court. 

If the police still have an expectation they will find them then let them do their job.

We recommend only posting publicly if the police are unable to ID the perp in a reasonable amount of time.

However, if the police say thanks for filing the report but it's not a big enough deal to warrant the manpower of any significant investigative activity. Then, by all means, post publicly and broadly with a request for help in getting an ID so the police can take action on a small but "easy case."

You can't expect a countywide manhunt for a vandal who broke your windows or stole your bike. 

Well this is partially true, partially untrue... Law Enforcement can still use video that has been posted on social media but they have to have the source file from the recorder directly not the file posted to social media. This is because they have to prove the video was un altered. Most video's directly from recorders have the ability to "water stamp" the video marking it so LE can prove its authentic in court. Social Media is always a weapon citizens can wield but I do recommend working with your local Law Enforcement agency. If you feel you have to take things into your own hands focus on being subjective. Avoid opinion statements "this guilty SOB just robbed me" for instance. Use statements that are intended to collect facts, Ex. "Looking to identify this person."  Remember, you are not a cop nothing is worth losing your life over!  I see hundreds of successful prosecutions yearly based solely on video evidence, video is extremely powerful and very hard to dispute when its been authenticated.

In a K-12 school district, as in most any school or public situation, there is always someone using a smart phone to video an incident whether it be a fight, fire, weather, or just something stupid. Campus administrators use video from confiscated phones, posts on Facebook, to even images from Instagram and screenshots from Snapchat to build a case for or justify consequences. In Texas, the state legislature recently passed a law expanding the responsibility of the school district and its administrators to include monitoring public forums such as FB for bullying. It has always been that anything that happened outside the hours and walls of the official school day were left up to parents and local authorities.

I'm more worried about the fact that usually it's a cell phone photograph or video of the security systems monitor. The images could be 10x better if they would just export the photo or video from the DVR. 

It makes no sense. Basically the post is claiming if the suspect is published publicly, it somehow taints the ID?

I see video all the time on nightly news of suspects. Are their cases ruined?

How is social media different?

Sounds like a comment the PD should retract 

If the video from social media is the ONLY thing the PD/prosecutor has on the suspect then I would agree the case is doomed.  However, that is rarely the case so the video ends up just being the topping on the cake that brings it all together. There are normally going to be live witnesses, snitches who know the perp, dna, or some other forms of evidence that individually may not hold up but collectively prove the case and I believe most law enforcement officers/agencies are very good at gathering the right pieces of evidence to build their case.

If the video from social media is the ONLY thing the PD/prosecutor has on the suspect then I would agree the case is doomed.  However, that is rarely the case so the video ends up just being the topping on the cake that brings it all together. There are normally going to be live witnesses, snitches who know the perp, dna, or some other forms of evidence that individually may not hold up but collectively prove the case and I believe most law enforcement officers/agencies are very good at gathering the right pieces of evidence to build their case.

Both arguments have some merit.  The issue involves whether a person who identifies the accused in court does so out of their own personal recollection of the accused during the criminal act or if their identification is the result of seeing someone who looks like them on video and subconsciously attaching that image to the accused.  Unfortunately, it happens more often than we would like to believe. There are numerous studies showing that victims who are shown an array of photographs of potential suspects often pick the photograph of the individual who most resembles their attacker.  Some believe that image often replaces the victim's  actual recollection of the event. On the flip side, I would rather catch the person who burglarized my home and risk a challenge to the in-court identification than allow them a free pass.  Serious violent crimes like rape, battery, or murder, however, require a much more cautious approach.  The right answer is always to consult with the detective working your case before making your decision.  Each case has its own little nuances and a high-profile case is more likely to be impacted by anything that deprives the accused of due process.