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'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery
An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."
Mad Dogs and Policemen.
So this is why police don't like to be filmed?! It makes them accountable for their douchery after the fact.
Looks like the court of public opinion made its ruling on Officer Bubbles, I sure hope the official court sees things the same way.
Citizens need the right to record any public police action, and any police action in which the individual citizen is involved.
This needs to be a law now.
The public needs a clear law allowing for the recording of police actions and allowing for the recording to be owned by the citizen and protected from seizure by police officers.
Some police do lie, some police do overstep the bounds, some police protect fellow officers.
And often, taking 'control' of the situation means backing off. Moving back a few feet, losing the shades (notice the female officer with her glasses up) and smiling would have defused the whole thing right there.
It's not like she was being particularly menacing. The officer was being an aggressive jerk for no good reason. Makes everybody look bad.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
However, according to CNews, Winkels [the lady] confirmed that she wasn’t arrested for blowing bubbles but instead detained for wearing a backpack and having a lawyer’s number written on her arm. She was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mischief over $5,000.
So are people really upset that she was asked to stop or are they just misinformed due to suggestive editing in the video?
Wow that seems an even more ridiculous reason for arrest then for blowing bubbles.
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
He didn't give her a warning. He gave her a threat.
I guess. He did give her a "threat" of arrest if she continued her behavior. Some might call that a "warning". It seems a pointless exercise in semantics.
No, he gave her an arbitrary order, followed by "or else". She was doing something perfectly legal, and a cop told her to stop or he would arrest her on a trumped up charge if she did not obey him immediately.
That's abuse of power. That's not something you should defend.
don't expect me to cry any tears over the injustice of it all
Oh, don't worry, I don't expect you to cry over an injustice. I expect you probably get half a hard-on when you witness an injustice, I figure your love for authority (and the limitless exercise thereof) must be conflated with your lust.
You can't take the sky from me...