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What To Say When the Police Tell You To Stop Filming Them
HughPickens.com writes: Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that first of all, police shouldn't ask. "As a basic principle, we can't tell you to stop recording," says Delroy Burton, a 21-year veteran of DC's police force. "If you're standing across the street videotaping, and I'm in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I'm subject to recording, and there's nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording." What you don't have a right to do is interfere with an officer's work. ""Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations," according to Jay Stanley who wrote the ACLU's "Know Your Rights" guide for photographers, which lays out in plain language the legal protections that are assured people filming in public. Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant and police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."
FTFY
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
When an officer of the law (which implies "officer of the law-courts") tells you to do something you, as a citizen under the law, must comply.
If you do not comply, then the officer has the right and obligation to clear you from the area by whatever means necessary.
Yes, you have the "right" to occupy public space, but only so far as you are not A) creating a public nuisance or hazard, or B) violating a law or rule. Not obeying an officer would fit nicely into both A and B and so the officer is well within his job description to detain you, force you to leave or even arrest you.
Provided you did not do something that might possibly cause harm to the officer (which forces the officer to defend him/herself) and the officer arrests you, then you will be able to plead your case to a judge.
In a case where you are charged, a judge can only decide on the charges against you, not on the actions of the officer. Officers usually do not arrest people who can prove they did nothing. It wastes the court's time and judges don't like it.
If you decide to bring a complaint against an officer, the police department must look at that complaint in the light of what dangers YOU placed against A) the public and B) the officer. If they think there was a danger against either, then the officer acted as he/she should have and the complaint will be dismissed.
If you bring a suit against the officer then, provided the suit is allowed to go forward by the judge, you must prove the officer either A) endangered you or others, or B) deprived you of a basic right of assembly, a right that requires you to obey the rule of the law and the officers of the law-courts.
Please don't bring that weak-ass "I have rights" crap to court because even your lawyer will want to smack you. The American Public has rights, an individual citizen has no rights.
Welcome to America, sucker.
What an epic idiot you are...