“He wasn’t dealing with someone wanted for murder. He was dealing with someone without a front license plate.” That was Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announcing charges against a University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed a black motorist during a routine traffic stop. Deters described what happened as “chicken crap stuff.” How could he be so sure? He saw the video. There are pros and cons to our candid camera society. But as the NYT’s Damien Cave and Rochelle Oliver explain, there’s no doubt that recent videos are putting race and policing into sharp relief. “A lot of white people are truly shocked by what these videos depict; I know very few African-Americans who are surprised.”

+ The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot: These videos put “us in a strange, morally exigent position: we can’t say we didn’t see, we never knew; we have no plausible deniability. The videos keep coming out.”