14 DAY TRIAL // A 2003 prison murder clip was published on the Internet, numerous users accessing it on the popular video sharing service YouTube. Although it's not quite clear where the clip came from, the 10 minute video showed Joseph Druce killing John Geoghan while the guards are trying to open the doors of the cell to enter and separate the two prisoners. According to CBS, the surveillance clips were used in a lawsuit in January 2006, the investigators being now focused on the way the clips appeared on the Internet.
"We have no idea where he got it from. We don't know where the tape came from or how it got on the Internet. It is under investigation," State Department of Correction official Diane Wiffin said according to CBS. "We are deeply concerned that an internal security video was posted by an inmate or an inmate's family. It's absolutely a public safety issue, posting emergency response actions of correction officers on the Web," added Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, for the same source.
This is not the first time when YouTube shows surveillance clips that shouldn't be published on an online video sharing service as popular as Google's product. For example, numerous fights involving several students were uploaded on YouTube after they were recorded with mobile phones. Obviously, some of the students were suspended while others where even more unlucky and were sent to the police.
However, it was proved once again that YouTube is more than a simple online video sharing service because it hosts all kinds of clips. In the past, multiple police officers turned to YouTube to post surveillance clips in order to obtain private information and valuable details about the suspects. Also, a woman fighting against leukemia published a video on YouTube to require help and find a matching donor for a bone marrow transplant.