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Photograph the Police, Get Arrested
Servo writes "Last month a man was arrested in New Hampshire after presenting evidence of a police officer being verbally abusive that he had captured on his home security camera system. Now just recently in Philadelphia a 21 year old student was arrested on his property after he took a photo of the police who were in the process of arresting a drug dealer down the street." From the article: "Cruz said that when he heard a commotion, he walked out of his back door with his cell phone to see what was happening. He said that when he saw the street lined with police cars, he decided to take a picture of the scene. 'I opened (the phone) and took a shot,' Cruz said. Moments later, Cruz said he got the shock of his life when an officer came to his back yard gate."
The attitude should surely be, "if you ain't got nothing to hide..." ; it's what they are increasingly coming to expect from the rest of us.
While I can understand that police are probably lairy of being photographed, because it's probably so easy to make mistakes in police procedure that if you were to record their activities, a good lawyer could probably shoot down a large percentage of arrests and whatnot... it does not inspire confidence that a public organisation who allegedly operate inside the law, to uphold the law, should feel it necessary to use their power to conceal the detailed workings of their activities.
Anyone able to point a finger at the legislation that enables them to do this? Or is there none, and they are just overstepping the mark?
In 1976 for the first time, Americans spent more on private security firms than on police forced.
I've photographed cops here in Canada arresting people a couple of times. They don't care.
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If this was indeed a law, then incidents like the Rodney King incident would never be able to surface.
Police also denied that they told Cruze he was breaking the law with his cell phone.
So did I miss it or did the police never say 'why' Cruz was arrested?
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The cop grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward him and growled in my face "you want to get arrested?!?!"
I laughed again and said "for what?"I lucky in that there were plenty of people around and also that a managing officer pulled the cop away and told him to cool off... but if I had been arrested it wouldn't have been the first time I was arrested on false premises.
Not all cops are dishonest - but it only takes one to mess up your day, and generally the otherwise honest cops will look the other way when it happens - they have to stick together.
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Some criminals wear badges, which is why police departments have an internal affairs divsion, to find and remove bad cops from the force. These sound like cases for IAD to me, big time.
..... on a public street. The girl and her friend spent the night in jail. They weren't charged of course because they hadn't committed any crime.
Now maybe its just me, but there does seem to be an increase in cases of police officers getting confused and thinking they work for the gestapo. There was a case a month back or so where the daughter of a police officer was arrested for "trespassing." She and a friend were lost and had stopped to ask a police officer for directions. The officer refused to help them, stating that they would have to find their own way out. A few moments later they spotted another officer and drove over to where he was to ask for help, at which point the first officer rushed over and berated them for daring to ask her partner for help when she had already told them to get lost. So they drove up the street a ways, pulled over, and began trying to find out where they were on a map while trying to call the girl's father on a cell phone. A few minutes later these same officers arrested them for "trespassing"
I don't know how this case turned out for the officers involved, but it shows a serious lack of oversight when two cops are able to run wild and abuse the public in that manner.
Now I know for a fact that most cops are decent men and women who treat citizens with all due respect, despite having to be human-garbagemen and spend much of their time doing what I call "white trash patrol." Just watch a few episodes of Cops and you'll know what I mean. But even so there are a few who are bad apples, and unless they're culled from the force then you end up with situations like these, or worse.
The last thing any police department should be interested in doing is making themselves the enemy of the public. The police depend upon public goodwill to do their job, and to come home alive at the end of their shift. If the police do not have the trust of the public, then they will not have the cooperation of the public. This is already the case in urban slums where calls of "five-O!" cry out day and night warning the residents that a police car or officer is in the area. When the police become a nuisance equal to that of the criminals they are supposed to be pursuing, then the public will treat them with equal disdain.
In most parts of the world, being a police officer is met with about the same level of respect as a personal injury lawyer would be here, if not less. The police are held in contempt because in most parts of the world, particularly the 3rd world, corruption and abuse are almost part of the job. Police officers in the US are, at least among healthy segments of society, viewed with respect if not admiration. But this esteem is fragile because at the end of the day the police are armed agents of the state and that makes them difficult to love. So when officers abuse and betray the trust of the public and make false arrests, all it does is make life that much more difficult for them and and their fellow officers. Things like these are noticed, and remembered.
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I don't know why anyone would mod the parent as flamebait. Think about it for a moment. During any time in U.S. history can you think of any other president about which such comments have been raised? We want to blame the guy in charge for the stte of affairs, but in this case, many of the changes we've seen have been directly related to the over-reaction to terrorist threat... cues taken from Bush himself. But there's more to it than that I think. But it certainly seems to have started at the top.
"This isn't a major civil liberties breach because it's an isolated incident, not far reaching."
First off, if you even read the summary let alone followed the links, you would know it was not an "isolated incident" but just the latest manifestation of police making up "laws" to fit any situation they do not like.
Second, even if it were an "isolated incident" (whatever that means), that does not mean it "isn't a major civil liberties breach." Any breach of rights is major and serious.
Third, even though the guy "got off," the chilling effect (just what the police/government hoped for) is VERY "far reaching." Who among us after reading about incidents like this will not henceforth think twice before photographing police or any other government official?
On a personal note, I was once threatened by a fire marshall and told, "You've taken the last picture you are going to take here!" because I was photographing a wildland brush fire--and I was/am a journalist.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
I've been waiting for a mini-stealth-camera-and-recorder to appear. I want a little device, the size of a cellphone camera, that fits in a button or a necklace or a belt buckle or something equally inconspicuous. It should be connected to a waist controller, which would include battery pack, storage (hard drive or flash), and wifi. Wifi so that, whenever it can find an available internet connection, it can upload its contents to a secure server located elsewhere.
Just imagine that. "Sorry sir, you took a picture of something you weren't supposed to. I'm going to have to confiscate your camera." "The pictures are already in Texas, and in ten minutes they'll be posted online. Same as the recording of what you're saying right now. You really want to illegally take my possessions, Officer Frank, Number 3894?"
Obviously there would be privacy implications as well, but it's kind of inevitable that this will occur someday.
("Oh yeah, and there's six other people taping this right now. Don't bother looking for them. You won't find them. At least two of them are sending it outside the country.")
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