Two heavily redacted jail videos of Justin Bieber which black out his genitalia during a urine test for drugs taken at Miami Beach police station, after his January arrest on suspicion of DUI have now been released.
In the first video , Bieber can be seen from a side angle talking to just one police officer in a men’s bathroom, as the singer is shown a metal cup and offered instruction.
The 20-year-old does raise his black sweatshirt before standing behind a low partition in the top right corner of the frame, but a black rectangle swiftly swoops into view.
Bieber takes some time to do his business but the redacted block stays in place. The now gloved officer takes the cup from Bieber at the end of the clip, as yet another blacked out rectangle zooms in when the singer steps away from the cubicle.
In the second of the jail videos , Bieber is seen from the same angle but with a different time start. But essentially he is urinating into a cup for the urinalysis test.
The clip is once again shot from a side angle camera with the same officer keeping discreet watch from the door. He appears to talk to the singer at intervals.
Aside from the undignified surround, nothing unduly gross is revealed in either video and only serves to highlight the farce that footage of Bieber’s private, bodily act was released in the first place.
A toxicology report would later reveal Bieber had the active ingredient of marijuana and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in his system at the time of his arrest. That’s the crucial finding of the urine test and it was known by parties in this reality-show DUI spectacle of a case long before these redacted videos were released.
The thoroughly unnecessary release by Miami-Dade prosecutors of urination videos follows the roll out of over 10 hours of videos and a slew of photos of the singer’s tattoos captured by surveillance cameras over the past few weeks, as per an open records request by news media organizations including The Associated Press , CNN , The Miami Herald and others.
Redaction of Bieber’s genitalia by a Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office-provided technician was ordered by Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield in a Tuesday hearing to protect the Canadian star’s privacy rights. The judge told the technician what to blur and black out and reviewed the treated videos before they were released.
Altfield told lawyers in court that while Bieber was in custody as a jail inmate, “he has not lost his expectation of dignity and that’s what’s most important here.”
He later added, “Mr. Bieber’s right to privacy is paramount,” in The Associated Press’ video of the hearing.
At a previous February 20 hearing, Bieber’s lawyers – led by Roy Black – argued that jail clips showing Bieber in “various states of undress” and/or revealing his private parts were exempt from disclosure under Florida’s constitution, in Article 1, Section 23 and Statutes .
However, media attorneys — AP’s Deanna Shullman and Miami Herald/CBS4 Miami’s Scott Ponce — argued Bieber’s “embarrassment” could not override Florida’s open records law which covers police jail evidence once turned over to the defense in discovery.
The first Bieber jail video released by Miami Beach police on February 6, and showed him getting a pat down by an officer at the station.
Bieber was also seen attempting to walk a white line in a sobriety test clip. Another showed him doing pushups in a holding cell and was followed by an unredacted pee-in-a-cup clip unveiled Wednesday along with two vague videos of Bieber at the station and said tattoo photos.
All in all, today could have a lot worse for Bieber. It’s anticlimactic after days of hype, and that’s a good thing.
The parties that have benefited most from this celebrity auction of Bieber’s chance-to-see-genitalia [but for the redaction] are Miami-Dade state which previously sold nine-CD/DVD package to each media outlets for $135. Outlets then saw increased traffic from their related content.
Bieber pleaded not guilty to charges of DUI, resisting arresting without violence, and driving with an expired license, following a January 23 arrest along with pal co-arrestee and singer Khalil Amir Sharieff. Arresting officers said the pair were engaged in an illegal street drag race on a residential street in Miami Beach.
The next hearing in the case set for March 11, where a new trial is expected to be set unless a plea deal agreement is reached before.
What do you think of Bieber’s urinalysis jail videos going public? Invasive or not?