$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.

Comments

idgi

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the civil settlement, but did the police not also commit a crime?

Re:idgi

[penguinoid]

Some crimes don't get prosecuted if the victim refuses to press charges. This may be because the victim can forgive it, or because without his testimony there would be no case.

On the other hand: Hey everyone, did you know that photographing police officers can be worth over a hundred grand? Everyone could use an extra $125,000, photograph your local policemen today!

precedent

[roc97007]

Right, because trial can set precedent and the city *really* doesn't want that.

Re:precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

what's missing from the summary is that the cops involved are being sued in six other federal cases... this was not a single case.

These particular cops are used to f.ck you left,right and center and they don't care about your rights.

Re:precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they don't care about your rights.

My what?

Re:precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:precedent

[Frobnicator]

Right, because trial can set precedent and the city *really* doesn't want that.

Precedent is only part of the story.

A settlement comes with the clause that they do not admit to any guilt. If the courts get involved, and a guilty verdict comes down, it also comes down with the "under color of law" modifier. That comes with a year in prison at the lowest tier. If there was bodily injury if weapons were used or threat of weapons was used, it jumps to a ten year prison term. The third tier, which triggers if the acts result in death, threat of death, or if they include kidnapping (which false arrests can qualify under), attempt to kidnap, sexual abuse or its attempt, the punishment can grow to life in prison.

It doesn't matter what their original violation was, those are additional bonus punishments of up to a year, a decade, or life in jail.

They will fight in the courts right up until the court decides they are no longer immune. The moment the immunity is broken they will do anything to take a non-guilt settlement.

LEOs (both as individuals and as departments) will do all they can to avoid an actual guilty verdict when their own acts are done under color of law. They will try to get any other deal or settlement they can rather then spend time in the prisons they helped create.

Re:precedent

[Wrath0fb0b]

There's already binding precedent in the Circuit that covers NYS.

Tunick v. Safir, 228 F.3d 135, 137 (2d Cir. 2000)
loom v. Levy, 159 F.3d 1345 (2d Cir. 1998).

I'm not sure what another case would prove -- the appellate courts are loath to repeat themselves.

how are cops like bank executives?

[bouldin]

Answer:
When either one does viciously illegal shit, they get away without punishment, and somebody else pays the fine!

Re:how are cops like bank executives?

[Michael Woodhams]

From TFA:

“Now we’re going to give you what you deserve for meddling in our business and when we finish with you, you can sue the city for $5 million and get rich, we don’t care,” Lt. Dennis Ferber said, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

It appears the police followed exactly your logic. However if that statement is substantiated, Ferber's boss would be seriously derelict in their duty if they didn't fire him for this. He's publicly stated that he doesn't care about knowingly causing a multi-million dollar liability for his employer. IANAL, but I expect that should these cops not get punished and pull a similar stunt again, the city would open themselves up for greater punitive damages, as they'd let employees with a known track record of rights abuse continue working where they were likely to abuse again.

It would be good to see criminal proceedings, but I doubt it will happen.

Always lock your phone!

[HaeMaker]

Always lock your phone and set media to sync to the cloud (if you can afford the data...). It would have been really interesting to hear what the cops told the judge when they sought a warrant to unlock it.

Re:Always lock your phone!

[Anonymous Coward]

>"It would have been really interesting to hear what the cops told the judge when they sought a warrant to unlock it."

The same thing they tell every judge. "See you on the golf course this Sunday!"

Re:Spilling over to white people

[NotSanguine]

By the way, the President of the US is THE top of the Executive branch - meaning HE is in charge of ALL the police around the country - if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs).

Shame on you Obama. And Double shame for being a Black guy and NOT doing something.

Bzzt! Wrong. Thanks for playing. The POTUS is the head of the Executive Branch of the *Federal Government.* He's also the Commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. He is in charge of the Department of Justice (the FBI, the ATF, etc.) and the Army, Navy, etc.

He is not in any chain of command the includes local or state police forces. The closest he *could* come to that is to federalize the National Guard (which is equivalent to a state militia), which has been done from time to time (notably in Arkansas to block the state government from halting enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision).

The POTUS cannot legally give orders to local or state police, which are civilian organizations answerable to the municipal and state governments that raise and fund them, and not the Federal government. The only tools that the Federal government has to affect local police is litigation and withholding federal grants to police organizations. You'll note that this author of the linked article is decidedly not a fan of Federal power over police.

As such, your appeal to authority:

if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs

falls short. Please try again.

Re:NOT CONFIDENTIAL!! YAY!!

[apraetor]

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.

Re:NOT CONFIDENTIAL!! YAY!!

[sexconker]

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.

Re:The three made some mistakes

[YrWrstNtmr]

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...

Re:We need cops to turn their guns

[cbiltcliffe]

FUCK MOHAMMAD!!

No thanks. I don't swing that way....

Re:Leave New York

[cdrudge]

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.

Re:Spilling over to white people

[NotSanguine]

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:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actorsand you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

our friends are very busy out there creating new realities. They don't have time for that "fact" stuff.

Re:That's awesome! Taxpayers get fucked!

[NormalVisual]

I think it needs to come directly out of the affected officers' pockets, in the form of an individual professional liability insurance policy similar to what doctors carry. Make that coverage a condition for employment in a law enforcement capacity. If the cop does his job right, his premiums stay low. If he screws up too much, his premiums will get so high that he can't continue to work in that field, or won't be able to find an insurer to cover him. No insurance, no job. A side benefit is that as the percentage of claims that get paid out rises, the cost is spread over the entire profession, which gives cops a financial incentive to keep their own in line.