We've had plenty of stories lately about police overreacting to people filming them -- and multiple courts have ruled that filming the police is perfectly legal. Even the Justice Department has spoken out and warned police departments that they need to let the public photograph and video tape them if they want.
And yet, we keep hearing of new incidents of police going after people for filming them. Slashdot now points us to a story that takes that to a different level. It involves the NY Police Department creating a "wanted" poster for a couple who have been regularly filming them and posting the videos to a YouTube channel. While the poster did not technically say "wanted" it sure looked like a Wanted poster, and the couple worried that anyone who saw it would think they were sought for arrest. The poster did describe them as "professional agitators."
After calling police about the posters, they were told that they had been taken down, but the police still have not explained why they created them in the first place.
After Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna was caught on video tape pepper spraying protestors and then walking away (multiple times), police spokesperson Paul Browne insisted that the pepper spray was used appropriately and that the evidence proving this was, "edited out or otherwise not captured in the video." That seemed difficult to believe given multiple cameras from multiple angles all capturing the event.
So it's interesting to see NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne (surely, not the same person) now admitting that Bologna broke the rules.
The commander, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, has been given a so-called command discipline, according to a law enforcement official. Officials said investigators found that the inspector ran afoul of Police Department rules for the use of the spray. The department’s patrol guide, its policy manual, says pepper spray should be used primarily to control a suspect who is resisting arrest, or for protection; it does allow for its use in “disorder control,” but only by officers with special training.
The Internal Affairs Bureau reviewed the episode and found that Inspector Bologna “used pepper spray outside departmental guidelines,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. He declined to elaborate.
Apparently Bologna may be docked 10 days worth of pay. Though, I'm curious if we'll get an IAB investigation into false statements from police spokespeople insisting that something was done appropriately, and then later saying the exact opposite. Somehow, I doubt it.
NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna remains in the news, even as the NYPD ramped up their "arrest the protesters" campaign this weekend. After all of the video evidence that he randomly pepper sprayed some women at the OccupyWallStreet protests, the NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that the Internal Affair Bureau would open an investigation into the actions. But at the same time, he defended Bologna's actions. Of course, at about the same time he was doing this, a second video came out, once again showing Bologna appearing to indiscriminately pepper spray people, including a credentialed photojournalist (wearing his credentials around his neck).
So how is Kelly defending this? First, he blames the protesters for "tumultuous conduct." I've already said that I don't really think much of the overall protest, but the video evidence doesn't suggest that those who were pepper sprayed were involved in any such "tumultuous conduct." Later Kelly said that the group was "disorderly" and "intent on blocking traffic," and that could justify the use of pepper spray. That seems like a huge stretch. Again, the individuals who were sprayed appear to have been chosen at random.
The NYPD Deputy Inspector Roy Richter, who is basically Bologna's "union representative" is defending Bologna's actions thusly:
“Deputy Inspector Bologna's actions that day were motivated by his concern for the safety of officers under his command and the safety of the public. The limited use of pepper spray effectively restored order without any escalation of force or serious injury to either demonstrator or police officer.”
Someone else at the police department had another cover story:
A law enforcement official familiar with Inspector Bologna’s account of what occurred, however, said he was not aiming at the four women who appeared in videos to have sustained the brunt of the spray. Rather, he was trying to spray some men who he believed were pushing up against officers and causing a confrontation that put officers at risk of injury, the official said.
"The intention was to place them under arrest, but they fled," the official said.
Given how many videos of the scene and surrounding areas have been shown, it's amazing anyone can claim that with a straight face. There was no indication of these "others." There was no indication of any attempt to arrest others near the women. If Bologna was aiming at these mythical men, he's a terrible shot, because he hit those women he wasn't aiming for point blank.
In the meantime, the folks at USLaw.com remind us that Bologna wasn't the only police officer using random "escalation" techniques. They point out this video of an NYPD officer purposely tripping a protester who already appeared to be in the control of multiple officers. Of course, the act of tripping the guy makes it look like he's trying to resist arrest.
Of course, once again, all of this is caught on video. It really makes you wonder if all of this kind of video evidence is finally going to lead police to recognize that they actually have to behave and follow the law themselves.
The mess in NYC with the way the NYPD are handling the whole "Occupy Wall Street" situation continues. We've already covered the story of the police falsely claiming that video evidence of an incident where an officer (Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna) pepper sprayed women did not show the full story. In those posts, we highlighted the importance of photographic and video evidence from people around the incident, and noted how important the right to film police is for a functioning democracy. Now there's increasing evidence that the NYPD targeted people reporting on, videotaping or filming the police, in making a bunch of arrests.
Reporter John Farley, working for WNET MetroFocus -- which is part of New York's PBS station -- wrote the story after being arrested himself, on "disorderly conduct" charges. What was his disorderly conduct? Apparently it was attempting to interview some of those women who were pepper sprayed by Bologna. He properly identified himself to the police as a reporter, but they did not care. He was still arrested and spent nine hours in custody. While some of the others in custody with him were, in fact, protestors, some were merely bystanders trying to record what was going on. He notes two such stories. The first is of a guy who was working at a cafe right by the pepper spray incident:
The arrest of my cell mate, Sam Queary, 24, adds another dimension to the issue: that of the inadvertent, spontaneous citizen journalist. Queary happened to be at work at Grey Dog Cafe near Union Square when the protesters marched by.
“I heard a commotion and went outside to find cops macing women and arresting people and hitting people with nightsticks, so I started taking pictures,” said Queary. “I followed a young, black male as he was being accosted by five cops. As I tried to take a picture I was pushed away. I asked why I was pushed away and then the next thing you know I was being judo flipped.”
The second involved a woman who just pulled out her camera phone as events were unfolding in front of her, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the protest:
I also met Rosa A., 33, in the police van while we were being transported to the 1st Precinct for processing. She had been shopping at the Barnes and Noble on Union Square when she saw the protesters outside. As many New Yorkers do when they see something unusual, she snapped a picture. And she was arrested.
“I’ve never been arrested,” said Rosa A., in visible pain from the plastic handcuffs. “I was just there looking at magazines.” She laughed, lightening the mood in the police van. Even our arresting officer, in the van with us, chuckled.
While an NYPD spokesperson has been telling the press that police did not target those with cameras, it's hard to understand any other reason for those three people being arrested and charged. Besides, given the fact that NYPD spokespeople talking about this incident have already had their credibility destroyed by the video evidence, it's tough to take those claims seriously. Even if the police weren't officially targeting people with cameras, as Farley noted, they didn't seem to make any attempt to distinguish protesters from bystanders or press:
I don’t know precisely why I was arrested, though I have been charged with disorderly conduct. But what I realized is that in a sudden burst of urban chaos, how can the police distinguish between passersby and protesters who may be committing civil disobedience or any other type of punishable offense? Or between citizen journalists and professional journalists?
In the past, we've seen police use "disorderly conduct" charges against those who film them. It's a nice catch-all that police can use to arrest almost anyone. Perhaps we should be looking to fix the law that allows arrests on "disorderly conduct" when such a law seems to be regularly abused by police to target those who are respecting the law, but doing things the police just don't like?
Yesterday we wrote about the NYPD claiming that the video evidence of a police officer, now identified as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, pepper spraying a group of women shows that it was done appropriately. The specific claim from NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne was that "Pepper spray was used once after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier -- something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video."
The problem, of course, is that the video evidence suggests no such thing, and with more videos taken by other people at the same time and place indicating no such editing or confrontation, it's increasingly clear that the NYPD's Paul Browne lied to the press, and falsely accused folks of editing out a confrontation that does not appear to have happened.
The US Law blog, which has been at the forefront of covering this particular story, has linked to another video at the same place (at about 5:45 in the video). While the person taking the video is turned away from the pepper spray at the moment it happens, you can see as she walks through the women just before it happens (in fact, you can see this same person in the original video passing right behind the pepper sprayed women, seconds before it happens).
Add to that another video that actually pulls together two perspectives of the incident, which you can see below:
And, finally, we have a 4th view of the events surrounding the incident, immediately prior to the pepper spraying. From these multiple videos at multiple angles, two things are abundantly clear: contrary to the claims of the NYPD, nothing was edited out of the first video and while there was lots of screaming, the women who were sprayed do not appear to have "confronted the officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier" at all. Some others may have done so, but not the women being sprayed. Instead, as originally alleged, it appears that the spraying was entirely arbitrary.
Furthermore, as pointed out on the US Law Blog link above:
Having approached the immediate area from some distance away, it is difficult to understand how the Deputy Inspector could have had any instant awareness of what, if any, confrontation may have been happening at that time and place. The officer does not appear to take adequate time to assess whether the handfull of people in the immediate vicintiy were obeying police orders. In fact, his approach with outstretched arm and the surprised reaction of the blue shirted officers suggest he may have made the decision to release pepper spray in advance of his arrival at the immediate location of it's deployment.
Furthermore, they note that the NYPD rules say that pepper spray may be used if "it is necessary to effect an arrest of a resisting suspect." And yet, after pepper spraying the women, no arrests were made (some of the people sprayed were arrested later, at different locations for different reasons). It appears that even if there was a confrontation, which there does not appear to be, involving these women, the use of pepper spray was inappropriate.
Once again, what fascinates me about all of this is all of this video evidence, and the value in showing that the "official story" from the police is almost certainly false. I'm curious as to how long the NYPD will keep up the charade of pretending its version is accurate.
Before I get into the details of this post, I will say that I don't quite get the purpose of the whole "Occupy Wall Street" protests. I mean, I guess that they're supposed to be some sort of American version of the Arab Spring protests or the riots in London, but, honestly -- like many of these things in the US -- they strike me as people protesting for the sake of protesting. I just don't quite see the point. The folks in the Middle East had real problems with their government. Protesting against a "financial system"? What does that do?
From that video, it seems pretty clear that the guy just walks up to a group of the protesters, sprays them, and walks away. So here's where it gets more interesting. The NY Police Department have insisted to the NY Times that the pepper spraying was appropriate, even as they admit they only use pepper spray in extraordinary circumstances:
The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police had used the pepper spray “appropriately.”
“Pepper spray was used once,” he added, “after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier — something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video.”
Of course, accounts in that same article from one of the women who was sprayed (who wasn't arrested) suggests a different story. While admitting there were some "rough" people there, she says that she and the folks around her had done nothing to cause the police to single them out with pepper spray. Furthermore, the folks at USLaw.com have more information including an additional video taken by one of the pepper-sprayed women. While right as the pepper spraying happens the camera is facing away from the action, and there was a lot of screaming and activity a bit earlier, it's hard to see how anything anyone did in that area provoked the sudden spraying:
On the YouTube page for that video, the woman states that, for the most part, she supports the police force and believes they're good and honorable people. Right before she was sprayed in the video, she appears to be asking police politely where they want her to go.
Yes, this was a chaotic situation with lots of people yelling and lots of movement. But the evidence from the two videos (and two of the women sprayed) certainly suggests that the police spokesperson is lying in saying that the use here was "appropriate." I find this interesting not because of anything to do with the protest itself, but because of the way the ability to record and upload videos like this is really able to impact and change the debate. In the past, it would have been the police's word against the protesters, and lots of people would have simply believed the police. But, as chaotic as the situation may be, law enforcement around the world is going to have to learn that they can't hide behind false claims of acting appropriately if they didn't, in fact, act appropriately.
Last week there was a big controversy over the fact that some stores in NY were caught destroying unsold garments rather than donating them to charities. After people got upset, the main store in question, H&M promised that this wouldn't happen again. This week we've got a related, but somewhat different story, as the NY Police have admitted to shredding and burning the counterfeit clothes they've confiscated, rather than giving them to the homeless, as had always been done in the past. When asked to explain why, the police claimed "no one asked" for the confiscated clothing -- but many charities insist they had, in fact, made many requests for the clothing. Apparently, the destruction is being felt at clothing banks, who say they have many fewer clothes on hand this year than in the past.
Not surprisingly, a lawyer representing various clothing designers was quite happy with the news, saying that they don't want those clothes "back on the street," which suggests that the designers may have pushed for the police to destroy the clothes rather than help the needy. Of course, it's worth pointing out -- yet again -- the recent study that showed most people are not fooled by counterfeits, and they rarely represent a "lost sale." In fact, many counterfeit purchases lead to real purchases later on. So the idea that they act as a "substitute" or somehow "harm" a brand is not actually borne out by the research. And, of course, some companies have learned that there are ways to embrace counterfeiting to their own advantage, as a form of price differentiation.
Well, here's a case that may interest various bloggers who like to get press credentials to various events. Three "alternative" journalists in New York City are suing the NY Police Department for denying them press credentials, because they work for online or nontraditional publications. To be honest, it's difficult to see this lawsuit going very far. If a court finds that the NYPD is somehow required to give any alternative journalist press credentials, then it basically means that anyone can get press credentials (as, these days, anyone can become part of the press with a fews clicks) -- and makes the whole concept of press credentials meaningless. Of course, there are some who might say that's not a bad idea. But, on the whole, it seems like the NYPD (and anyone else) should be free to give out press credentials to whoever they want. It's not denying anyone's ability to report on things -- it's just determining what kind of access they have. The freedom of the press is about the freedom to report and publish -- not the freedom to go wherever they want and access whoever they want.
These days, people are beginning to recognize that surveillance cameras can be found all over -- especially in major cities. There have even been semi-mocking "tours" held by civil liberties supporters who will walk around a city and point out all the surveillance cameras there are. But there is an open question: are cities that install such cameras required to tell people where they are? The NY Civil Liberties Union is now suing the NY Police Department for not revealing where it's installing surveillance cameras, claiming that the public has a right to know this kind of information. Of course, the whole thing is a bit odd, as one of the major points of these surveillance cameras is deterring crime -- and what better way to deter crime than to let people know they're being watched. As the article notes, it sounds like the NYPD may be holding back this info just because it doesn't like the NYCLU. Alternatively, there's some thought that the info on the cameras will show that they're not particularly effective.
And, of course, even if people know where the official surveillance cameras are located, it might not matter, since New York City's Mayor Bloomberg has actively encouraged NYC citizens to be their own security cameras -- videotaping and photographing anything suspicious and sending it to officials. One would assume that the NYPD wouldn't be able to publish where every person with a camera is located as well.
