I didn’t want to write about this. I sat with it for a couple of days first, which is about as long as I can manage before the pressure of having thoughts about something forces me to put them somewhere.

Jodi Knott. A woman in mental health crisis, off her medication, trying to get help. What she got instead was an hour of sustained, deliberate cruelty from two NSW police officers who then sent the footage around to laugh about it. The family has now asked the public to see what happened. That takes a particular kind of courage. To take the worst thing that happened to your person and hand it to strangers, because you believe the truth of it matters more than protecting yourself from having to relive it.

There’s a story doing the rounds at the moment that has been sitting uncomfortably in my head all week. Researchers reviewing media reports in the US have identified at least 14 cases where police officers used automated licence plate reader (ALPR) systems to stalk romantic interests — current partners, exes, even strangers who happened to catch their eye. And the kicker? That number is almost certainly a laughable undercount.

The technology in question — largely supplied by a company called Flock Safety — is pitched as a community safety tool. Cameras everywhere, reading plates, building databases, helping cops catch criminals. Sounds reasonable on the surface, right? That’s always how these things are sold to us. And then, predictably, humans do what humans do with unchecked power.