Texas Deputy Displays Ignorance Of Laws He's 'Enforcing' While Trying To Shut Down A Citizen's Recording
from the the-grabbing-hands-grab-all-they-can... dept
Want to record the police while they're on the job? Go ahead, the Supreme Court has (again) upheld your First Amendment right to do so, provided you aren't on the wrong side of way too many exceptions. This is your right, no matter what the officer 90 feet away is yelling about "interference." That's just plain ignorance on the part of that officer.
But be careful doing it in Texas, where apparently the news hasn't trickled down to members of the Gray County Sheriff's Department. Anonymous blogger Ex-Cop Law Student details everything this peace officer gets wrong in his lengthy quest to shut down a citizen's recording efforts.
At 3:00 into the video, the traffic stop has concluded and Andrew starts to walk away, when he is confronted by Deputy Stokes of the Gray County Sheriff's Office. Stokes, who has since become employed by the Pampa Police Department, immediately attempted to seize the photography equipment as evidence. Stokes refuses to get a supervisor on request, tells Andrew to stop talking, and threatens to arrest Andrew when Andrew points out that he has a First Amendment right to speak. When that happened, Stokes said that "I think I'll make up stuff" and attempted to grab the camera from Andrew (at 3:50)."Seized as evidence." This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Stokes wants to grab a camera (and actually gets ahold of it twice) but can't think of a good reason. So he falls back on this one. "Evidence" of what exactly, though? The concluded traffic stop? Stokes' own ignorance of the legal right to record law enforcement officers? The charges he's going to attempt to bring against the photographer? It would appear to be the latter, especially with Stokes' assertion that he's willing to "make up stuff."
But the obnoxious, abusive stupidity doesn't end there.
At about 4:20, the demand for ID begins by Stokes and he really shows his ignorance. First, as has been noted numerous times before, in Texas, under the Failure to Identify statute, one has to be under arrest to be obligated to provide their name, residence address, and date of birth to an officer. Otherwise, the statute merely makes it an offense to provide fictitious information."Failure to identify" is a Texas law enforcement specialty. Where other departments are forced to rely on nebulous charges like "interference," "disorderly conduct," wiretapping law violations or straight-faced discussions of law-enforcement-centric urban legend "the cellphone was a gun," Texas officers deploy "failure to identify" when shutting down camera-wielding citizens. But the law doesn't work the way they think it does.
After making this "error," Stokes compounds it by claiming -- in direct opposition to a great many court decisions (as well as common sense) -- that it's illegal to record police officers. This, too, fails to stick. The citizen knows the law better than Stokes does and other officers begin to realize Stokes is taking this interaction in a dangerous direction and convince him to walk away.
While I would not expect police officers to know every nuance of the many laws they enforce, I would at least expect them to remain current on the ones that are routinely abused. If they don't know the details, the problem lies with those responsible for training them. There's no excuse (other than simply being a bad cop) for an officer to make this many errors in the course of one interaction. Any law enforcement agency should be up-to-date on court decisions and (especially) lawsuits that target oft-disputed areas like citizens with cameras. At this point, an officer needs to be wilfully ignorant to remain this out of touch with the reality of the situation.
Stokes tried intimidation and his own, very personal version of legal statutes to get his way. He even tried a little physical force. But the cameraman stood up to him and he was ultimately forced to back off. But that's only one of the several dozen interactions between police and people exercising their First Amendment rights. The person doing the recording stayed out of jail and was never charged with anything, somewhat of a rarity in situations where laws are improperly forced into service by someone with more power than knowledge.
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Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
That on it's own should have been an immediate 'YOU ARE FIRED!' moment as soon as it became known, if not grounds for charges of fabricating evidence. If a cop is flat out admitting that he'll just make up charges, on camera no less, they've proven that they aren't someone who deserves to hold any position of authority, and certainly not one that has such enormous power over others.
Instead what happened? He just got transferred to another department elsewhere. Oh yeah, the police are so very dedicated to holding their own accountable when they overstep and/or abuse their authority... /s
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Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
I mean, he got full retirement benefits, and he probably wasn't put on any sex offender list or anything, but at least they fired the guy.
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Re: Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
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Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
He said this more than once, but this isn't what I heard him say.
Each time, I heard it as "You think I make up stuff?"
This seems to fit his ignorance better and is far less damning than the quoted interpretation.
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Re: Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
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Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
Couple of other fables the common person should understand. Officers are at no time required to get their supervisor upon request. Seriously, this isn't a call center, and the supervisor isn't typically sitting on his/her thumbs waiting on the opportunity to go out and meet folks.. The supervisor on duty may be covering an area, over an hour away, or on a call themselves. The supervisor is there for questions, and admin issues that the officer may have. If you have an issue with an officers conduct, start with a formal complaint and escalate from there. Cities cannot afford to have Officers that assault citizens, it gets very expensive and even bad administrations understand budget issues....
That said - he should file a complaint with both departments to ensure this officers conduct becomes the center of attention by both agencies, and if that doesn't work, get an attorney to see what options are available. I'd love to see this officers TCLEOSE cert be revoked if he acted outside the agencies protocols.
Personally, I love in dash video cameras and private citizens videos - if your acting within the scope of your training, they usually prove useful during trial, and can help exonerate the officer if accused of something they didn't do.. YMMV :)
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Re: Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
In New Jersey (don't know about anywhere else) those lawsuits are paid for by insurance, not out of budgets, so they don't really care.
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Re: Re: Re: Do not pass GO, do not collect your next paycheck, go straight to the unemployment office
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Re: "lucky he's a white guy"
Because you are a racist, and use the terminology of racial discord and division, you probably aren't intellectually gifted with the ability to realze that the white guys are fighting these types of camera wars for rights you are leveraging with your racist stupidity.
Or your a boot licking cop troll, doing what has kept you in business since the inception of the klan-dividing and klankering.
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mudlock
Doesn't matter. I'm white and it scares the crap outta me the the supervisor claimed "after 9/11" as an excuse.
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Re: mudlock
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Re: Re: mudlock
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Camera morons are juts looking for a way to get police officers on tape and to embarrass them on youtube and eventually, the federal courts and the Supreme Court is going to start reversing its stand and finding for these police officers.
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Re:
Yeah, keep dreaming, multiple ruling have found that the public does in fact have a right to record the police, they don't have to leave as soon as some poor little cop tells them to, unless they're causing a real disturbance, and standing there with a phone/camera is anything but.
As for the 'mere presence' of a video camera 'drawing them into a confrontational situation', maybe if these children pretending to be police weren't so insecure, so adverse to having any evidence of their actions other than just their word, those 'confrontational situations' wouldn't exist.
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Any order to stop properly exercising a constitutional right in a peaceful way is unlawful. Any order to disperse intended to stop someone from lawfully exercising their rights is unlawful.
You are not only not required to obey an unlawful order, you have a duty as a citizen to disobey it.
Why do you feel greater hostility for a good citizen exercising a right than you do for an oathbreaker who is breaking the law? What does that say about you as a person?
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Re:
Clothes wearing bitches are juts looking for a way to get raped so they can get noticed and eventually, the federal courts and the Supreme Court is going to start reversing its stand and finding for these rapists.
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Baiters
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Re: Baiters
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Re: Baiters
Texas law says that you only have to show ID when under arrest. The deputy didn't make an arrest, therefore no ID was required.
Arresting someone in Texas for refusing to show ID when they aren't required to is itself a crime.
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Re: Baiters
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Re: Baiters
Oh noes!!! Brown people doing stuff!
"you DO have to show ID when asked"
Papers Please.
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Re: Baiters
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Re: Baiters
I would like everyone that has the opportunity to bait a law enforcement officer into acting inappropriately while on camera. This will weed out officers that may act inappropriately in situations that could be extremely dangerous for both the citizens they should be protecting, other officers, and the officers themselves.
It would be my expectation that good police officers would be ok with being recorded and would welcome bad officers being recorded because it will be likely to clean out the bad officers and eventually restore the reputations of the good ones.
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Re: Re: Baiters
No it won't, because officers like this one don't get fired for this crap.
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Re: Baiters
No, you do not. You are neither required to carry ID, nor are you required to produce it on demand.
If you are a suspect and the police cannot determine your identity, they can detain you until a positive identification can be made. That doesn't mean you've broken the law, and you aren't being arrested (although you might be held in a jail cell during your "detention"). In the end, it's probably better to produce ID, but you don't HAVE to.
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How much training do the cops get?
http://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/forms_pubs/publications/faqs.shtml#ae1
"1. How many hours are needed to qualify to take the State Board examinations?
Cosmetologist = 1600 hours, Barber = 1500 hours, Esthetician = 600 hours, Electrologist = 600 hours, Manicurist = 400 hours."
http://theacademy.ca.gov/basic_police_academy
"This full-time, 888-hour intensive course satisfies the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) minimum training requirements for California entry-level peace officers."
Makes sense, right? Barbers can totally ruin your life with a careless grooming.
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Re: How much training do the cops get?
To be fair, if the barber screws up while giving you an old-fashioned shave with a straight razor it could kill you...
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Re: Re: How much training do the cops get?
Hmm, ok, let's list what a police officer could do to you...
1) Beat you up and then arrest YOU for 'resisting arrest';
2) Get you thrown in jail on trumped up charges. Sure, you might not get convicted, but while spending 18 months on remand you could get murdered, raped, assaulted, and/or pick up one of the many contagious diseases in jail, hep C, HIV, and so on;
3) Jump-up on the bonnet of your stationery, trapped and fully surrounded vehicle and empty a full clip of ammo into the unarmed (with no witnesses having seen any weapons) occupants shooting them dead, AFTER 30 OTHER cops had already fired in excess of 100 rounds into the vehicle;
4) get you put on the no-fly list with no evidence;
5) arrest you and escort you to hospital where you are subjected to x-rays, forced rectal exams, and a fully-anesthetised, non-consensual colonoscopy;
6) Shot and killed as collateral damage when the police shoot at the offender;
7) Get pulled over at gunpoint by a swarm of armed police because an ANPR system mis-read a number plate for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT type of vehicle (make, model, colour, style all different).
Need I go on?
How many people die from "death by barber" as opposed to "death by cop"? And here I'm just thinking of unarmed/unjustified shootings, innocent bystanders, and so on, not the classic "shootout with armed criminal" scenario.
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