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$125,000 Settlement Given To Man Arrested for Photographing NYPD
mpicpp sends word of a $125,000 settlement for a man who was arrested for photographing members of the New York Police Department. On June 14th, 2012, the man was sitting in his car when he saw three African-American youths being stopped and frisked by police officers. He began taking pictures of the encounter, and after the police were done, he advised the youths to get the officers' badge numbers next time. When the officers heard him, they pulled him violently from his car and arrested him under a charge of disorderly conduct. The police allegedly deleted the pictures from his phone (PDF). Rather than go to trial, the city's lawyers decided a settlement was the best course of action.
Answer:
When either one does viciously illegal shit, they get away without punishment, and somebody else pays the fine!
Rights: You know... your right to remain silent (unless told to "start talking", or forced to talk with torture), your right to attorney (after they get done with you), your right for a fair trial (unless charged with the espionage act, thrown into gitmo, or blown up by drone strike), etc. You have plenty of rights*. You live in the land of the free and home of the brave!
*some exceptions apply. Void where prohibited by law (aka constitutional free zones) or where simply inconvenient (e.g. NSA, TSA, etc).
Contracts between a private individual and a government entity are not protected by any such privacy considerations. The public has a vested interest, and a right, to scrutinize their government's conduct and to know why it's tax money is being paid to a private individual.
What I love is none of this 'terms kept confidential' nonsense that is so typical in court settlements.
The public has a right to know.
You do realize that settlements are basically private contracts right? Are you really saying that I must publicly disclose the terms of any private contract I am a party to, just because the "Public has a right to know"?
No, No, they don't have a right to know. I may allow you to use my intellectual property and by contract disclose it to you for your use, but that doesn't mean everybody in the world is now entitled to see everything.
When a crime is involved (such as unlawful arrest, harassment, theft of property, etc. the cops engaged in), the public has a right to know.
When one of the parties IS the state or one of its many agencies, the public has a right to know.
When the public courts handle a case on the matter, criminal or not, for however long, the public has a right to know regardless of whether the case is settled by the court of by the parties outside of the court.
I take it you've never been Black, right?
And you've also never heard of 'Stop and Frisk'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Exactly. Leave New York and go somewhere safe and free and rights are respected. I'd suggest somewhere in the safe Midwest, close to a major city so that you have services and activities that are of interest, but not too close so that you are under the actual jurisdiction of the big city's police department. I hear the St. Louis area is nice and quite. Maybe Ferguson?
It's not a New York City problem or even a big city problem, it's a law enforcement problem.
WTF is with all you idiots bitching about Obama's vacations. Reagan only played eight rounds of golf? Well gee, I guess Obama should be more hard working, like Reagan, right?
Reagan: 335 vacation days in 8 years = 41 days per year Obama: 129 vacation days in 5.5 years = 23 days per year. (shit...I get more vacation days than that)
Yep, Obama...what a slacker. He also took fewer days than either GW Bush or GHW Bush (but more than Clinton).
Don't bother. These guys have learned their lessons from the G.W. Bush Administration:
our friends are very busy out there creating new realities. They don't have time for that "fact" stuff.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr