Slashdot Mirror
NH Man Arrested For Videotaping Police.. Again
OhPlz writes "Back in 2006, a resident of New Hampshire's second largest city was arrested while at the police station attempting to file a complaint against officers. His crime? He had video tape evidence of the officers' wrongdoings. According to the police, that's wiretapping. After world wide attention, the police dropped the charges. His complaint was found to be valid, but the evidence never saw the light of day. Well, guess what? Round two. There are differing reports, but again the police arrested Mr. Gannon and again, they seized his video camera. This time it's 'falsifying evidence' because he tried to hand off the camera, most likely to protect its contents. If there's the potential of police wrongdoing, how is it that the law permits the police to seize the evidence?"
What do you mean police wrongdoing? Can you use those two words in a sentence?
... I reckon "die" is all that's left.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Evidence of what? Evidence of him having videotaped officers? This makes as much sense as when the police arrest someone on the sole charge of "resisting arrest." He was resisting arrest. Why were you arresting him? For resisting arrest. Do they really think anyone buys that?
It's quite obvious. Cops are here to serve and protect, themselves, above all else. You don't take videotaped evidence of police wrongdoing to the police, that's the last thing you do. You think there would have been riots in LA had there not been a helicopter overhead filming police beating the shit out of Rodney King? Dashcam footage of that beating would have never seen the light of day. First thing you do when you have video evidence of police wrongdoing, you upload it to the internet. Plain and simple.
No, we're moving toward awareness of the police state we are already living in.
Once when I was 16 and a huge smartass, I yelled, "I smell bacon!" out the window of a car I was a passenger in. There was a cop on the side of the road that had someone pulled over. I see him drop everything, run back to his car and get back into it. I thought there was no way he would ever catch us, and anyway I thought yelling out the window was not illegal. He didn't try to catch us - instead he radioed ahead to someone else who pulled us over within a few minutes. The cop comes up to the car, says, "Which one of you yelled, 'I'm going to kill you fucking cops'"? We played it off like it was the radio and said nobody yelled that out the window. Anyway, they took all our names, made us get out of the car, the whole nine yards. For yelling, "I smell bacon" at a cop. I guess we were luck we didn't get beat up, tazed, maced and put in jail like this guy.
I'm a big tall mofo.
If people, especially authorities can't be recorded when in public, then there is nothing to prevent them from abusing their authority, doing anything they wish, and lying about it. I most places around the US, the police video tape the public every time they stop a vehicle. The public has the same right, no matter what laws they try to create or enforce to prevent you from taping them. When they're in public, you have the right to record their actions. If not, then you're already living in a police state.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
We need a "National Record the Police in Public Day". I think that a public event like this would enforce the point far more strongly that the police losing an occasional lawsuit.
This time it's 'falsifying evidence' because he tried to hand off the camera
Preserving it is falsifying it? Orwell had nothing on this.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The feature I love most about Google+ is that, as soon as I take a picture or a video on my Android phone, it is immediately uploaded to my Google+ account, without any further action on my part. Suddenly, having control of the device isn't enough to guarantee that you have control of the data.
You mean like Gandhicam ?
Who's gonna pay for that? You?
Good call. It is inconceivable that anybody would pay for a mobile, net connected technology.
On another matter, can anyone tell me how this Amish Anonymous Coward managed to make this post on Slashdot?
No, we are 100% IN a police state right now.
The final brick in that particular wall was the aftermath of 9/11, when the nation as a whole suddenly became obsessed with safety.
I run a youth program. We have HD security cameras covering all of our premises (not the bathrooms). We have caught police misconduct more than once with those cameras.
Back in May we had a police officer from the next town over come in to "talk" with one of our teens about a crime that "they may have witnessed". When I got this call, my next call was to 911 to put on record that this was going to go on (standard policy for us, any time a police officer calls to interview a kid in our program, a staff member calls 911 to put it on the record. We find this stops a lot of police abuses, along with our ready access to lawyers). When the police officers came, the two of them tried to strong arm the kid out the door. We flatly refused to allow the teen to be taken to the police station to be questioned, and told the police officers that they would need to arrest the teen and read them their rights before we would allow them to leave (and that the teen was then invoking the right to a lawyer). They were not happy - they even accused me of not 'playing ball'.
When they started shoving the teen and talking about how the teen had just hit the officer (to be clear, the teen never touched the cop, the cops flatly made it up), and that was grounds for arrest, I physically stepped between the cops and the teen (I am 6'1, 220, a third degree black belt in Tie Kwan Do and like to lift weights) and informed them that the interview was over, and they were to leave. My volunteer assistant (who works part time as a judge at the state Department of Education!) called 911 at that point - calling 911 also activates the audio recording of all of our cameras, as well as an auto backup of our cameras to the law office next door.
Long story short, it was a weird stand off until local police arrived - the two cops having their hands on their guns, my telling them they had to leave or be escorted out. When local police arrived (with whom we have a generally good relationship) we informed them that our security cameras had caught the whole thing and we wanted the two cops arrested for assault. The first thing the local cops wanted to do was take the recording device and arrest the teen. When I said that it was no problem, our system recorded to three redundant devices, one of which is at our lawyers office, suddenly they didn't want to take the teen, and couldn't get out of their fast enough.
We sent a copy of the video to the DA's office, asking for an investigation, another copy went to the lawyer we set the family up with to represent this kid, and a third to the police department of the next town, with a letter from our lawyer stating that we would not allow any officer from their department to enter our premises or interview any of our kids without the programs lawyer present.