Arrested for Videotaping

[cannon_fodder]

One bizarre case specific ruling in a district Court case that is being appealed. There are Supreme Court and Circuit Court decisions that govern. Unfortunately, many police officers will read a headline and assume they are now an expert.

Photography is Not a Crime has a good write up on it here:
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/02/22/rookie-federal-judge-in-pennsylvania-rules-citizens-do-not-have-first-amendment-right-to-record-police/

TechDirt has similar coverage:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160223/09134633685/federal-judge-says-recording-police-not-protected-first-amendment.shtml

The cases:

1) Woman began video taping an arrest of a anti-fracking protester. A police officer bull rushed her, struck her in the neck, pressed against a wall, surrounded by police, and detained her for video taping. Other officers prevented anyone else from recording.

2) A Northwestern University student saw police gathering outside of a house party and thought it would make an interesting picture. He was told to leave and asserted his First Amendment Right to take pictures in public. He was arrested for blocking a highway (while on a sidewalk) and asked "How do you like  taking pictures of grown men now?"

The holding was that there is no first amendment right to record police unless you are protesting against them. Also, Freedom of the Press doesn't apply to citizens. Both holdings are clearly erroneous and fail to address other issues - namely, even if there is no First Amendment protection, the police are still government agents of limited power. They have to have a reason to stop your action and detain you. Things aren't "illegal" unless determined to be otherwise.

Neither criminal case held up. This case through out the retaliation case against the police. The point of the retaliation case is as a remedial measure. Basically, the holding means the police can do as they please and your recourse is to pay an attorney to get out from underneath the BS criminal charges and then go pound sand.

The Philly Log Blog puts it this way:

How does this affect the public practically? I guess if you want to film the police, also make sure to maybe yell at them too. Perhaps do a little jig while you're filming, or sing [an NWA song].

Filming the police = arresting and no recourse. Filing the police and screaming "F**K THE POLICE" = you sue the police and win!

Thanks, your honor.

It will be overturned on appeal and forgotten. The Judge is a corporate lawyer turned judge recently and simply doesn't know any better.

[Vashta Nerada]

Plainclothes NYPD cops nearly hit mailman with car and then they arrest him
https://boingboing.net/2016/03/24/plainclothes-nypd-cops-nearly.html


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jDDs-CzF5E


The footage was released this week by Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, who said Grays had been "carrying out his normal duties" as a mail carrier when he got out of his truck and a passing vehicle almost struck him.
"He made comments to the vehicle, as any New Yorker would," Adams said at a news conference last week. "The occupants of the vehicle stopped, backed up when he was crossing the street delivering the package."

According to Adams, those occupants were the four plainclothes officers, who followed Grays to his delivery stop. The video shows the officers telling Gray to "stop resisting." They then take him away in handcuffs, leaving his mail truck unattended.

Yelling at the unmarked car about driving recklessly "is the only action that Glen did that day that caused those plainclothes officers to stop their vehicle and to show who's the biggest and the baddest and place handcuffs on an on-duty postal employee who is delivering the U.S. mail," Adams said. "If they would do that to Glen, in his postal uniform, they would do it to any other person."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/03/26/black-mailman-handcuffed-by-nypd-while-delivering-packages-video-shows/




BROOKLYN — The on-duty postal worker whose controversial arrest in Crown Heights was caught on video said his run in with police two weeks ago could've been uglier had it not been recorded.

"The only thing that I think saved me was that it was on videotape," mailman Glenn Grays, 27, told CBS This Morning on Monday. "I was extremely terrified. I was afraid if I didn't comply, something was going to happen to me."

Grays, whose wife is a police officer, said he was working his postal route March 17 when an unmarked police car nearly sideswiped him as he tried to cross President Street near Franklin Avenue.

When he he told the officers they had nearly hit him, four plainclothes officers  surrounded Grays before cuffing him and yelling at him to stop resisting arrest. The entire incident was caught on video by a passerby.

"I believe they wanted him to resist," Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who released the video, told CBS This Morning. "Those officers were extremely aggressive. He was smart enough not to resist. I believe because of that, he's sitting here today telling his story."

Once in the police car, Grays claimed the chaos continued.

"I was told to shut up a numerous amount of times," he said. "They rear ended a car and I wound up from the back seat banging my left shoulder onto the driver's seat and banging my face onto their arm rest."
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160328/crown-heights/mailman-beaten-by-nypd-say-cameras-capturing-crown-heights-arrest-saved-him



Doubtless, the two NYPD undercover cops may be getting a visit from the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) to discuss the arrest which may have violated one of the laundry list of federal crimes enforced by the oldest American police agency, founded by THE Ben Franklin in 1772.
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/03/23/new-york-city-postal-worker-arrested-duty-delivering-packages/

[cannon_fodder]

Offending a police officer is not a crime. But there are at least two really easy crimes to arrest the police for:

1) Assaults (18 USC 111 & 1114)
The protection of Postal Service employees is one of our most important responsibilities. Inspectors promptly investigate assaults and threats that occur while postal employees are performing official duties

An assault, in this context, is an unauthorized touching. Police have obvious exemptions from assault if they are arresting you for a crime or otherwise lawfully intervening. If they have no reason to place you under arrest or intervene, then it is assault.

2) Destruction, Obstruction and Delay of Mail (18 USC 1700, 1701, 1702 & 1703)
The Postal Inspection Service upholds federal statutes aimed at securing customers' mail, including those related to the desertion, obstruction, delay or destruction of mail.

They caused the mail to be delayed and caused the package he was delivering as well as his entire truck to be deserted.

Oh dear. It looks like years in prison for each of the easily offended over bearing police officers. Surely the FOP will applaud the Postal Inspector's efforts to thin the NYPD of misbehaving officers.

[patric]

A Pennsylvania cop who ripped a phone out of a woman's hand because she was recording, then slammed it on a sidewalk before punching the woman was arrested Wednesday.
All because another camera recorded Reading police officer Jesus Santiago-DeJesus criminal actions.
Otherwise, he would still be free while the woman, Marcelina Cintron-Garcia, and her boyfriend would still be facing charges.

In fact, Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said they reviewed a total of five videos before deciding to charge Santiago-DeJesus for the April 5 incident.

But the cop's lawyer said his client was only trying to protect himself from a phone that could have been a weapon.
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/05/pennsylvania-cop-charged-for-destroying-phone-of-woman-recording-him/



Adrian Burrell was standing on his porch on 22 January and filming a Vallejo police officer who had stopped his cousin at gunpoint in the driveway. The officer, Ryan McLaughlin, then demanded Burrell stop filming and go inside. According to video taken by Burrell, when he declined to stop filming, McLaughlin handcuffed him and threw him against a wooden post where he hit his head.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/20/vallejo-police-department-racial-profiling-brutality-claims

[Conan71]

A Pennsylvania cop who ripped a phone out of a woman's hand because she was recording, then slammed it on a sidewalk before punching the woman was arrested Wednesday.
All because another camera recorded Reading police officer Jesus Santiago-DeJesus criminal actions.
Otherwise, he would still be free while the woman, Marcelina Cintron-Garcia, and her boyfriend would still be facing charges.

In fact, Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said they reviewed a total of five videos before deciding to charge Santiago-DeJesus for the April 5 incident.

But the cop's lawyer said his client was only trying to protect himself from a phone that could have been a weapon.
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/05/pennsylvania-cop-charged-for-destroying-phone-of-woman-recording-him/

Jesus De Jesus???

Self-righteous much, Officer DeJesus?

[Vashta Nerada]

WAGONER — Former Wagoner County chief deputy and public information officer Shannon Clark denied accusations Friday that he was pressured to leave the agency based on the Board of Commissioners' knowledge of a series of audio recordings that captured a heated exchange between him and a deputy.

Clark announced his resignation from the agency on Wednesday less than five months after being hired by Sheriff Bob Colbert, who agreed to be suspended with pay in April after he and a deputy were indicted on felony bribery and extortion charges.

He denied there was a correlation between the recordings being released and his resignation, adding that he's looking into the possibility of pursuing a criminal case against the deputy who recorded him, saying the employee violated Oklahoma law. The law states consent is not required to record a nonelectronic conversation that involves a person who does not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy," but that it is a misdemeanor to loiter in secret to eavesdrop and repeat anything overheard.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/former-wagoner-county-chief-deputy-denies-claims-regarding-reason-he/article_67df3c6a-2259-5d84-95e3-d11685d8a157.html

[Vashta Nerada]

Police: "We can spin it"
Bodycams catch cops rehearsing story to justify their pepper-spraying an 84-year-old lady in her home.

http://www.fox23.com/web/koki/news/video-muskogee-investigates-controversial-pepper-spray-video_20160913103447/444965419
http://www.fox23.com/web/koki/news/video-muskogee-officials-speak-on-pepper-spray-incident-at-city-council-meeting_20160913032221/444821253

[heironymouspasparagus]

Police: "We can spin it"
Bodycams catch cops rehearsing story to justify their pepper-spraying an 84-year-old lady in her home.

http://www.fox23.com/web/koki/news/video-muskogee-investigates-controversial-pepper-spray-video_20160913103447/444965419
http://www.fox23.com/web/koki/news/video-muskogee-officials-speak-on-pepper-spray-incident-at-city-council-meeting_20160913032221/444821253

I saw the video.  She was lucky it wasn't me.  I woulda tased her.  And then arrested her.

[patric]

I saw the video.  She was lucky it wasn't me.  I woulda tased her.  And then arrested her.

84 years old?  Much younger people have asphyxiated from pepperspray, and not-always-lethal force isnt an option just because you're impatient.

[heironymouspasparagus]

84 years old?  Much younger people have asphyxiated from pepperspray, and not-always-lethal force isnt an option just because you're impatient.

I have been known to exaggerate just ever so slightly upon rare occasions... but in this case...  



It is a good thing I am not a cop - I don't have the patience some of them show...!!

[Hoss]

I have been known to exaggerate just ever so slightly upon rare occasions... but in this case...  



It is a good thing I am not a cop - I don't have the patience some of them show...!!

Hopefully your decision-making skills are better than some of them.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Hopefully your decision-making skills are better than some of them.

Obviously.  Recognizing my limitations, I decided not to pursue law enforcement as a career path.

[Conan71]

Obviously.  Recognizing my limitations, I decided not to pursue law enforcement as a career path.

I figured my profanity-laden Tourette's outbursts would be terribly inappropriate for a court of law or a family medical practice, so I dropped out of !@@# #$%@ *&^%$ college. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

I figured my profanity-laden Tourette's outbursts would be terribly inappropriate for a court of law or a family medical practice, so I dropped out of !@@# #$%@ *&^%$ college. 

I enjoy the use of "colorful metaphors" without the affliction of Tourette's!!  Best of all worlds....like Florida!!

[patric]

I have been known to exaggerate just ever so slightly upon rare occasions... but in this case...  

...you wouldn't have been punished.

The "we can spin it" Muskogee cops that pepper-sprayed an 84-year-old woman get to skate with only a couple unpaid days off. 
Of the eight cops that kicked in her door over a ran stop sign, one got a reprimand. 

http://www.newson6.com/story/33308439/community-wants-stronger-punishment-for-officers-involved-in-pepper-spraying-incident


Attorney for the police Scott Wood said the force was justified.
http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/video-shows-police-use-pepper-spray-on-woman/article_c026df8a-0ddf-5613-b759-d32367615080.html