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UK Police Threaten Teenage Photojournalist
IonOtter writes "In what seems to be a common occurrence, and now a costly one, Metropolitan Police in the UK still don't seem to be getting the message that assaulting photographers is a bad idea. UK press photographer Jules Matteson details the event in his blog, titled The Romford Incident. The incident has already been picked up by The Register, The Independent, and the British Journal of Photography, which contains an official statement from the Metropolitan Police."
This journalist will be alright. Nothing gets the government scared like a big steam of bad press (which the internet is more than willing to provide).
Now is a great time to be living. Despite all of the bad news about orwellian government in the UK, not even they can get away with harassing citizens in the age of the internet.
Yup, can't stop the signal and all that.
It's not just photographers who are at the receiving end of this absolute abomination of a law. Does anyone remember Damien Green whose house was raided by Anti-Terror police for basically selling tittle-tattle to the press?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Green
Makes me sick.
...but now's the right time to buy a nice Nikon DSLR and some decent glass on a credit card, then walk around central London taking photographs. When you get illegally stopped on trumped up charges it's just one quick trip to the lawyers and that thing's paid for itself.
The Metropolitan Police are the London police force. A quick survey of complaints against the police will show why this is unsurprising. Most British police forces are pretty good. I've lived in Herts, Cambs,Hants,Somerset, and never had the least concern about the local police force, as regards its competence or its honesty. But the Met has a reputation for corruption and violence, along with the West Midlands Police. Whether this represents the reality of policing in those areas - I wouldn't want to live in either of them - or whether large urban police forces just tend to go this way (think LA) I don't know. The Met also suffers from having a national role (which I believe to be quite wrong) and to be subject to lots of political pressure. But the motto of the Met really needs to be "quis custodiet ipsos custodes".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The only qualification required generally to join the police is a clean criminal record, and some very basic skills, mostly physical. After that the course length is stunningly short(weeks) for a job which has a responsibility as strong as high responsibility jobs. High school qualifications are minimal, and tertiary is a waste of time, untill you have done the hard yards and learnt the chain of evidence mantra.
Lets simplify it. When push comes to shove and they are chasing a theft suspect, the ability to run, react, tackle, and subdue are at the top of the list. The police officer could not be like Richard Stallman for example. The mere presence of some intellectual brilliance, probably removes any ability to "do the grunt work".
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
I have just resigned from a county force after serving 4 years and this doesn't really surprise me at all. Most cops just don't know the law and certainly aren't kept abreast of developments. This isn't aimed at the officers, as there is simply no time for this. My normal working week was around 55 hours consistently working 12 hour day / late / night shifts. When on duty you are writing an hour for every hour you are out doing your job, and have around 15 fairly complex investigations ongoing at any one time... all the time being expected to respond to 999 calls... Not that we were flush for cover; at least once a month there were periods of several hours where only one or two officers covered a large suburban area of around 100,000 people, it was a wonder no-one is seriously hurt during such times.
As a result.. officers don't keep up on the law, they aren't trained in it and expected 99% of the time to generally do what they think is right and then look it up afterwards. 20 years ago there was a "spare" shift every fortnight used to learn updates to legislation and practise self defence skills; this is seen as a wasteful excess in the modern police service.
Some things never change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
He sounds hysterical in the video and has an attitude problem from the very beginning.
No, he doesn't. Unless by attitude problem you mean he informs the cops that what he's doing is legal when they claim it isn't.
The police demonstrate, in the face of an aggressive asshole, a supreme amount of calm and reason.
lol -- the police demonstrate a supreme lack of reason, actually.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Britain has recently elected a new government, one which (on a few issues) is less authoritarian than the previous Labour government. Thirteen years of Labour led to some unwarranted laws coming into being, ranging from making it illegal to photograph a police officer - technically a video filmed by an American at a G8 summits' protests in London is illegal and should not have been shown...despite the fact it showed an officer shoving a man to the ground having not even been provoked; the assaulted man died minutes later of a heart attack.
So yeah, Labour (a right-wing party whose swing towards that direction began in the Thatcher years) brought all sorts of unpleasent socially restrictive policy, implemented gradually to the point where - ironically for those who saw it once as a permissive, left-wing outfit - they became more authoritarian than our traditiional right-wing party (Conservatives) ever have been. One of the early Labour architects, Lord Mandelson, has among the most poignent views on Internet restriction; ranging from prosecuting people with cartoons for 'possession of child porn' to much tougher sentencing for those who infringe copyright.
But to stay on topic; two things are probably most disturbing (yet predictably New Labour) about laws like forbidding photographing police is that they are justified as 'stopping terrorism'. Ridiculous as photographs of British plod are all over the Net. The other disturbing point is how easily most of the population rolls over and takes this like some apathetic whore. Two people close to me, a friend and a family member, both have no qualms with providing samples for the proposed 'DNA database' that our government pondered bringing in, and I know even more individuals with absolutely no qualms with the (now scrapped) identity cards. Want to encrypt your hard drive but get charged of a crime that requires computer access for the police? Not giving up your password can get you years in jail; and no freedom-loving geek has yet set a precedent against this.
Yes we're the most watched people in the world, yes you can be detained and not charged for weeks if suspected of 'terror offences', and yes our local governments have enthusiastically used some of New Labour's reforms to enforce their own supposed justice (think monitoring people suspected of avoiding tax or claiming welfare wrongly etc). What's worst is that much of Labour's work along these lines won't even be done away with by the imcumbent coalition; which has our most liberal major party as a component.
"it is however a conscious provocation" So what? Should the fact that it is a conscious provocation alter the police officer's behaviour in any way? also, note that speeding is a criminal offence. taking pictures of a public parade is not.
"an internal NUJ event on public property". wtf? what kind of "internal" event would take place on "public property"?? and what has that analogy got to do with filming a *public event* on public property and then subsequently filming *public servants* going about their *public duties*??
these copper twunts were irritated because this guy wouldn't do what they asked him to. but he wouldn't do what they asked him to, because he was *doing nothing wrong*.
"he sounds hysterical in the video" Of course he does! He's a 16-year old kid and these big burly twats keep on grabbing him and his camera for no reason other than that they've decided they don't want him to do what he's perfectly entitled to do.
hint: just because they wear a uniform doesn't make them automatically right.
But the biggest point is that to make police behave in society you MUST embarrass the specific officer.
All this generalized crap is bullcrap.
the headline should be "Officer Freeman of 1234 West East street" was a complete dick to a journalist today. How often is OFFICER FREEMAN a complete disgrace to the city?"
You need to out the officer, publically humiliate them. It's the only weapon we have against the police.
When it's generalized and hidden it empowers the bad cops to continue to be bad and corrupt cops.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In this case, though, you had a photographer that sounded like a total prat, ranting on about his rights and refusing to answer reasonable questions by a police officer (listen to the audio).
Isn't it odd how different people can hear different things. For example, I heard the kid asking why he was being detained (consistently throughout the audio) and the Police trying to find some valid reason ... and failing!
The problem here was the intervention from the first police person (a cadet IIRC). Had the next (real!) copper who rocked up listened to the cadet's reason for intervention and then put him/her? straight and apologised to the kid photographer all would have been well, but he decided to back up the cadet instead! And why? Because Police always (ALWAYS ALWAYS!) stick together!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Part of genuine civil liberty is the ability to be as big of a dick to the cops as you want and not get arrested.
Even when you're polite, it doesn't mean you'll get good treatment. I encountered Homeland Security while driving from California to Texas, and even though I smiled and submitted to the Armed Soldiers, they still made me stand-around in the hot sun for two hours. Why? I refused to pop my trunk. I politely told them if they get a search warrant from a judge, then I'll open the car, but I will not submit to an warrantless search. So they punished me.
And then there's the guy who was flying from St Louis to Washington DC (his home), and the TSA forced him to an interrogation. He too was polite but it didn't stop the Armed Idiots from harassing him and making him miss his flight. Oh yeah - his crime? He had about $5000 in his wallet. Oh noes! OMG! A fucking american who has money! He must be a criminal!
Fuckign a. Freedom? More like serfdom.
AUDIO OF TSA INTERROGATION of innocent traveler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWcUFB92S2o#t=1m15s
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Uh, no.
Failure to comply with a lawful order is only applicable in situations where the police legally can make you do something, it doesn't give the police any authority to order things in the first place.
Police can require people to do things in a few, specific circumstances. The main ones:
When the person is breaking the law, they can order them to stop (obviously).
They can demand people identify themselves.
Both those are covered under the specific laws, though. Failure to comply with a lawful order is complicated, but here are some examples where it can be used:
Refusing to allow yourself to be arrested via passive resistance. Aka, refusing to hold out your hands to be handcuffed, or to come out of a locked car. (This is not resisting arrest, which requires violence on your part. And this is where the whole concept of locking yourself to things and not having the key came from...the police can't charge you for failure to obey orders you cannot physically obey.)
When there are breaches of the peace, even if that specific person is not committing a criminal act (Aka, ordering a crowd that is unpeacable assembled to disperse. If they do not, they can start arresting random people for that.)
Likewise, if there's been a fight, the police officer can order the two participates to stay away from each other, or even for one of them to leave.
When they have a reasonable suspicion of someone's behavior including lawbreaking, but do not have enough evidence to, or just do not feel like, arresting them. Aka, someone keeps looking inside the car window of a car they admit don't own, and the police officer believes they are going to steal it or break into it....he can order them to leave that car the hell alone.
But they cannot just randomly give orders and demand they be followed. There has to a legally justified reason for the order. And something like 90% of 'Failure to comply with a lawful order' is probably an additional charge to other lawbreaking when the person wouldn't stop breaking the law, like someone who was trespassing and refused to leave even after the police ordered him to.Or, as is listed above, 'loitering'. This is exactly how loitering laws are designed to be used...not to wander up and charge with, but, for the police to have the ability, when they see suspicious behavior, to make the people stop. The police see you loitering, tell you to leave, you don't, they arrest you for refusing to do something they can lawfully do.
This does not mean, of course, that the law is not abused, or even that it's a good idea. But it doesn't let them order whatever they want.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?