Police, Yet Again, Arrest Someone For Filming Them, Saying It's Obstruction Of Justice
from the sad dept
These stories are becoming all too common. The police in Suffolk County, New York (where I grew up, actually), arrested a freelance news photographer who was videotaping the conclusion of a police chase. The police told him to "go away," while letting others stay. The guy, Phil Datz, moved further away, and started filming again... at which point he was arrested and charged with obstruction. After realizing that they had no case (and after the story got some press attention), it was announced that charges would be dropped and that "officers will undergo media relations training." But it's pretty ridiculous that such training is needed in this day and age. There's simply no way that police should be on the street if they believe it's illegal to film them in public.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: arrests, chilling effects, filming, obstruction of justice, police
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Obstruction?
Filming is not obstruction. In fact, NOT filming would be more obstructive, as possible evidence of what actually happened might be lost.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obstruction?
Carlos Miller that runs the Photography is not a Crime blog always refers to the charges in cases like this as "contempt of cop", which is (sadly) a much more accurate description for why they charged this guy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obstruction?
Which says alot, if the idea that what your about to do is being filmed makes you change what your doing... are you doing the right thing?
Would a better rule of thumb for these departments to tell their men to behave like your being filmed all the time.
That way we could always get them on their best behavior and those few bad eggs who get the press attention and put the police in a worse light would crack under the stress and leave.
Cameras are not huge giant things anymore, and most people have at least one on them at all times.
Any group in "power" that spends time creating rules to stop people from filming them work, have made it perfectly clear that they are up to no good and should be removed.
As long as someone is not jumping into the fray, pushing you out of the way for a better shot, or otherwise physically impeding your work... it should all be acceptable and expected.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Obstruction?
your - my what?
you're - you are standing on my cat.
http://www.youryoure.com/
and there is where and not theirs yet they're all still mildly dumbfounded
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Obstruction?
What really pisses me off is how fascist this comes off as. Those in positions of power should never abuse their authority, especially when they live in a country where freedom is supposedly held as your most sacred belief. How many people have died protecting our way of life? How many more will be expected to lay down their lives? It truly angers me to see the people I used to look up to piss on their memory this way.
No wonder the public is losing faith in those whom are, at least to some extent, expected to uphold such ideals for the common good. Instead they trash them with what I consider to be shameful abhorrent behavior. Sigh... some days it really does feel as if we're marching headlong into the world depicted by "V for Vendetta" and "1984".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I know..!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I could give you a song and dance about because those cameras are passive, so the cop doesn't have to worry about being caught doing something wrong.
I could point out most CCTV cameras on a good day can't get you a clear picture of anything.
But I agree with the idea that police who make these arrests for people filming them are stupid. Using wiretap laws or anything else they can dream up to get these people is stupid. I think the real reason cops fear video is you can't put it on the witness stand and make it question what it thought it saw. You can't put pressure on a video to make it "unable to recall clearly" the events.
Video rarely works out in the police's favor, but that is because other than Officer Lyons, a majority of video of police shows them in a negative light. I think it hurt their feelings so they get sad and lash out at people to feel better.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The lack of video only protects the bad cops.
This stupidity makes the cops look bad and makes it so we the people, can not trust them. Every cop should have a camera as part of their equipment as a matter of course, just put a small one on his / her shoulder next to the microphone, and we eliminate all this �he said / she said� nonsense. And we can see exactly how drunk the drunk driver who refuses the breathalyzer. For the life of me I do not get why the departments fight video, their job is to get the objective truth, they should be embracing this stuff.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
damm you fat fingers from missing the name field, damm you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
what the guy filming should have done is get one of those neat new cameras that look like a hands free headsets and go james bond on their asses. no telling what they'll do/say if they don't know it's recorded.
what the da should have done is immediately drop the charges when they realized what asses they looked like, and further, send the arresting officers to some kind of training where they learn about media relations and so that...
let me work on that last one some more and get back to you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Military training coming home.
So expect more and worse as lawless thugs come home trained that who has the guns are in total control and pay no attention to rights of "civilians". Wars of empire never leave the "homeland" free. -- As John Galt said, "Brothers, you asked for it."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why are these vermin still employed as police officers?
Do we really want asshats like this wearing a badge, carrying guns, and "protecting" us?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Why are these vermin still employed as police officers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Why are these vermin still employed as police officers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"Media relations training" is not a sufficient consequence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Some training is in order
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bad boys, bad boys!
Granted, the TV show was voluntary and they were able to portray themselves in the best light possible, but these days, cameras are practically omnipresent.
You cops (the ones that don't like being filmed) out there need to realize that when you make a traffic stop, or arrive on the scene, if there's a crowd gathered, SOMEONE has a camera and is filming whether you like it or not, and there's not thing one you can do about it. Especially if it's a public place.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There's a phrase that keeps running through my mind now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: There's a phrase that keeps running through my mind now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Simple fix.
It is simple to fix, the fact that we are not doing anything against this blatant slide into a police state says more about us individual than it does about the government.
We are weak and ineffectual. We are sniveling cowards too afraid to stand up for ourselves. Look at the rest of the world. You kill one person in England without just cause and the people there burn cars and buildings. In Greece millions protest against the government imposing austerity measures on the people, while letting the rich grow ever richer.
I'm more than a little disgusted about how far we have fallen in the past 50 years. We used to stand up for ourselves. We used to be great.
I guess it was good while it lasted.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just shows..
I'd much rather have an encounter with a mugger than a cop, any day. A mugger only wants your phone or wallet, which is easily replaced. A cop, however, can arrest you, toss you in jail (without cause), and cause you tens of thousands in legal fees to get yourself cleared and even then you will still have an arrest record. If you are skilled you have a decent chance of fighting back against a mugger anyway.
And the fact that they dropped the charges won't clear the fact that the record will still show he has been arrested, which follows you forever.
Cops have to deal with really nasty characters, so they simply become so much like the criminals it's hard to tell the difference. Prosecutors have become more like Mafia Consigliores(sp?) and just use whatever part of the law they can find to hurt people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If, for example, someone's watching an incident between a police officer and a citizen. The exchange gets heated and the citizens slugs the cop...now, all of the sudden the camera comes out because who wants to miss this and the video clip shows the cop beating the guy into submission.
That's the problem.
A better solution would be, as some have suggested, for everyone to be recording - it would increase the likelihood of getting a fuller perspective of these incidents. Two things makes this impractical, though - first, who's going to coordinate all of this filming? CCTV doesn't work because it's too stationary. Second, do YOU want to be filmed 24/7? Talk about big brother...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
follow in San Jose's Footsteps
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7177894
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In Massachuetts..
Strange that a liberal state like Mass helps the cops to avoid prosecution for any wrongdoing. There would never be a Rodney King beatdown in mass because the police would seize all of the video evidence and prosecute the people who did the taping.
I try to avoid going to Boston and Cambridge - the cops are not to be trusted.
The cops go out and beat innocent people and arrest people videotaping it happening and then they wonder why people don't trust the police. Why should people trust the police or the prosecutors anyway?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: In Massachuetts..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ignorance of the law is no excuse....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]