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Boston Pays Out $170,000 To Man Arrested For Recording Police
Ian Lamont writes "The City of Boston has reached a $170,000 settlement with Simon Glik, who was arrested by Boston Police in 2007 after using his mobile phone to record police arresting another man on Boston Common. Police claimed that Glik had violated state wiretapping laws, but later dropped the charges and admitted the officers were wrong to arrest him. Glik had brought a lawsuit against the city (aided by the ACLU) because he claimed his civil rights were violated. According to today's ACLU statement: 'As part of the settlement, Glik agreed to withdraw his appeal to the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel. He had complained about the Internal Affairs Division's investigation of his complaint and the way they treated him. IAD officers made fun of Glik for filing the complaint, telling him his only remedy was filing a civil lawsuit. After the City spent years in court defending the officers' arrest of Glik as constitutional and reasonable, IAD reversed course after the First Circuit ruling and disciplined two of the officers for using "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Glik.'"
...that a precedent had been set in by court instead of by settlement. When one party (in this case, the government) is forced by the court to do something, it tends to have more legal weight behind it than when the party instead voluntarily takes an action.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
For 5 years of hassle to a citizen's effort to keep the government honest? I think it's a bargain compared to the payments we give out to politicians. Compare this to the millions that CEOs receive? A rounding error. This number is too small, not too large.
ridiculous for falsely arresting someone, then dragging it through the courts for years? Anyway, it says it paid damages AND legal fees. What do you want to bet that 5 years of legal fees are about $160,000? The city got of easy.
Not ridiculous. He was arrested, then spent years in court trying to get the police to do the right thing. What should he have done instead? Stopped when the time he invested became ridiculous? Then they would never change their behavior, and our rights would be even worse off than they are.
Let it be a lesson to those people electing someone on a "tough on crime" ticket (which in turn means: free reign for the police to do as it likes.) They pay with their tax money for their mistake.
So until, the police and Internal Affairs get caught breaking the law, the law on the books isn't actually followed by the exact people who should know the law? Vigilante justice from within the police system is not a good culture to have brewing. Shouldn't anyone within the policing system that breaks the law or supports breaking the law be fired? Seems to be a conflict of interest to me.
Not sure what this guys occupation is, but 5 years later with $170,000 isn't much to show for it. That's $34,000 a year. It's also a payout for his legal fees. Net profit??? In fact, he could still be in negative when it's all said and done.
Life is not for the lazy.
The taxpayers are also the voters. They deserve to pay until they take notice and send a message to their government.
Quoting from the apeals court ruling: "The presense of probable cause is not even arguable here."
I wouldn't want to try arguing a similar arrest was legal when the court uses language like that in it's ruling.
The court didn't say that they didn't find the police officers arguements unconvincing, they more or less said get a clue.
The police were told that it did not matter what their boss told them, they were still guilty of violating Gilk's first amendment rights, and could be personally sued for it. Which should put a chill in law enforecement officers making those types of arrests.
Work bio at MMWD
The apealls court claimed that the police officers position was "not even arguable" Ouch.
Work bio at MMWD
So government employees do something wrong and the court punishes the taxpayers? How about paying that $160k out of the cops retirement fund?
This is like when a Priest gets caught molesting a kid and the Church pays the victim with the congregations money.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.