https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/body-cam-youtube-foia-abuse.html
"The worst 40 minutes of April’s life are a hit on YouTube. The lengthy,
humiliating clip has 195,000 views and more than a thousand comments, nearly
all insults and jokes at April’s expense. It includes her full name, unobscured
face, and clear voice. April can’t bring herself to watch it through, but she’s
read every comment. She fantasizes, sometimes, about replying, letting everyone
know that she’s no longer the person in that video. “This is April,” she would
write, “and I’ve now been sober for three years.”
It happened during the pandemic, back when April’s addiction was at its worst.
She was in her third year of college, and her small southern city was a sleepy
place. Just about the only thing to do, she tells me, was drink. And so she
drank. On the night in question, she got into a fight with her best friend: It
was late, they were a few shots in, and things got heated. He stormed out, and
she drove off to look for him. She was “completely tweaked.” She crashed into a
parked car and was arrested on the spot. The video starts as the officer steps
from his cruiser, clicking on his body camera. April looks frantic and
disheveled. She protests that she’s sober and tries to talk her way out of
things. That doesn’t work, and the video ends at the county jail. The
commenters call her a “liar” and a “brat.”
April was sentenced to a year’s probation, and during that period, she changed
a lot in her life. She took time off school and joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
Her family supported her recovery, even attending her two-year celebration.
Today, her life is markedly different. Three years clean, she’s finished her
degree and now works as a schoolteacher. Her job is exhausting, but she has a
sense of purpose: She’s fulfilling a lifelong ambition. She’s in a
relationship, too, and she’s finally feeling a little more grounded.
April keeps a wry sense of humor, and together with friends from AA, she’s able
to laugh about the bad old days. In fact, it was with pals from her program,
sitting in a Chili’s, that she discovered the video. Everyone had been Googling
each other’s mug shots, sharing in the gallows humor of recovery. April plugged
in her name, followed by the letters “D-U-I.” The video popped right up. “It
was very surreal,” she says. “Nobody reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re
gonna post a video of you on the internet!’” But there it was, in
high-definition, labeled with all her identifying information — even her
license plate. Maybe it was a good thing, one of her friends joked. “Maybe
you’re gonna be the Hawk Tuah girl.” But April’s mind raced. Would her family
see it? What would happen if the school found the video? Would she lose her
job?
The video continues to rack up views and snide comments. The school, to April’s
knowledge, still hasn’t seen it. She tries to stay upbeat about it all. One of
the things they teach you in AA, she reminds me, is that “the reason I’ve gone
through everything I’ve gone through is so that I can share it with another
person.” It’s a noble idea, and she wants to believe it. But the endless,
embarrassing footage of her arrest — did that really need to be shared with
hundreds of thousands of people for all eternity?"
Via
Garbage Day: A singular theory for the Epstein network
https://www.garbageday.email/p/a-singular-theory-for-the-epstein-network
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
