Cameras Changing the Picture

We are confronted in Los Angeles today by a case of cops chasing at high speeds a motorist who wouldn’t stop, catching him and working him over with clubs.

And how did we come by this information? An amateur with a video camera happens to be in the area, records the incident and turns in the cops.

Certainly, no argument is going to be made in behalf of police beatings. All we are trying to do is picture a society in which guys are running about with video cameras, taping the everyday functions of the rest of us.

If, in the case of the beaten motorist, justice is served by the camera, what are the implications of cameras being used wide scale in much lesser matters?

Is all the world to be a picture? Are we safe from cameras on the streets, in offices, in washrooms?

The camera in sports has occupied an interesting role for years. At the recent Doral Open in Florida, for instance, Paul Azinger is trying to hit a shot out of the water. Some small rocks under his feet hamper his stance. He scrapes the rocks out of the way with his spikes.

Officials at the scene ignore it. But a guy watching television in Colorado telephones PGA executives at the Doral and blows the whistle on Azinger, pointing out that moving the rocks constitutes a two-stroke penalty, which wasn’t called.

Azinger is kicked out of the tournament for signing an incorrect scorecard.

Cameras in the hands of amateurs aren’t allowed at golf tournaments, but here is a situation in which a guy 2,000 miles away is using pictures to holler foul.

And he gets the rap substantiated.

Does the PGA have no shame, allowing a TV kibitzer to influence its ruling?

At San Diego one year, Craig Stadler, billed as “the Walrus,” faces a delicate shot that must be made from a kneeling position. Impressively tidy, Stadler places a towel under his knees, not suspecting he is doing something unlawful known as “building a stance.”

This calls for a two-stroke penalty, overlooked by officials. A viewer at home spots it and blows the whistle.

Reviewing the tape, the officials add two strokes--and it costs Stadler $37,333.

Was he a sucker to give it up? You bet your putter. You can’t use pictures for officiating, unless they are specifically authorized.

A major argument develops once in Los Angeles at a high school basketball game at which officials, reviewing tape shot by an amateur, change a three-point basket to a two-point basket, eventually costing a team the game.

Pro football doesn’t respond to amateur cameramen. As an arm of officiating, it employs its own system, often to the consternation of those who study it.

Say, for instance, that a game is tied in the closing minutes and the visitors are marching. On the sideline of the home team, a player waves a towel to the crowd, exhorting it to scream and prevent the visitors from hearing signals.

This is a clear violation of the rules. The referee doesn’t see it, but viewers at home do. Does one telephone the stadium, demanding that a penalty be called?

Even if replay officials see it on tape, they can’t tell it, because cameras in the NFL must occupy themselves only with plays of “possession and touching.”

Replay officials may spot interference or holding, but can’t call those, either. They are out of the camera’s jurisdiction.

At baseball parks, you are permitted to bring your video camera. Now suppose you tape an outfielder trapping a fly ball--and getting credit for a catch. You bring the evidence to authorities. You are told to get lost.

We want to make the following point indisputably clear. There is no defense for abuse by police. We merely worry about increasing deployment of video cameras by amateurs, poking into daily affairs, because they threaten the form of society we embrace.

Cameras also confuse us. In football, where cameras are authorized for officiating, they aren’t always used. But they are used in golf, in which they aren’t authorized.

So you ask a guy today if he gets the picture and he answers frankly, yes and no.