Federal Appeals Court: You Have a Constitutional Right to Film Police Officers in Public (slate.com)

On Friday, a panel of judges for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the First Amendment protects individuals' right to film police officers performing their official duties. From a report: The 3rd Circuit now joins the 1st, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Circuits in concluding that the Constitution guarantees a right to record. No federal appeals court has yet concluded that the First Amendment does not safeguard the right to film law enforcement officers conducting police activity in public. Friday's decision involved two instances in which the Philadelphia police retaliated against citizens attempting to film them. In the first incident, a legal observer named Amanda Geraci tried to film police arresting an anti-fracking protester when an officer pinned her against a pillar, preventing her from recording the arrest. In the second, a Temple University sophomore named Richard Fields tried to film police officers breaking up a house party when an officer asked him whether he "like[d] taking pictures of grown men" and demanded that he leave. When Fields refused, the officer arrested and detained him, confiscating his phone and looking through its photos and videos. The officer cited Fields for "Obstructing Highway and Other Public Passages," although the charges were dropped when the officer failed to appear at a court hearing. Geraci and Fields filed civil rights suits against the officers who interfered with their filming attempts.

Comments

It's not like they risk anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

They can still be filmed shooting and killing people without any reason and get away with it.
Well, black people anyway.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[yeupou]

Starting point would be to ackowledge crimes figures in the USA and admit a police officer is more likely to kill a young black person carrying a weapon in a high crime rate area refusing to follow an order than a white grandma sipping a tea at home or a white male sitting on his ass posting anonymous comments on internet.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[JaredOfEuropa]

The officer might be a bit more wary, perhaps due to some unconscious racial bias, and it's fine if that means the cop will just be extra careful around that person. But if that translates to shooting a random guy at a traffic stop when he (rightly) informed the cop he was carrying, then that cop crossed the line. We get to be extra jumpy and fearful around a carrying but otherwise normal black guy, an officer doesn't. If he is, he's not fit for duty.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[Rockoon]

Starting point would be to ackowledge crimes figures in the USA

No, the starting point is recognizing that the Police Unions are too powerful.

All public sector unions need to be abolished. These unions work against the public interests. The voters need to be the only Union for the public sector.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[Vermonter]

I think you need to look up what "slavery" actually is. Your flippant use of the word is an abhorrent insult to people past and present who are actually enslaved.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[ghoul]

"Remember, it's not an officer's job to die in the line of duty"

Thats where you are wrong. Cop is one of the highest paying jobs for someone without a college degree and just like crab fishing or undersea welding they are being paid to take the risk.

They are supposed to risk their lives by holding on for a second before firing so that an innocent citizen does not get killed just because they were scared. Yes this is a risk but they are paid to take this risk. If you dont want to risk your life to prevent civilian deaths (including due to your own incorrect fire) you should not sign up to be a cop

Unfortunately nowadays we are hiring cowards as cops. Cowards get scared easily and shoot before asking questions.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[ghoul]

"an African American young man is far more likely to get shot by another fellow African American young man than by the police."

This is a strawman argument. Every African American man is not being paid a 6 figure salary for a job which does not need a college degree.

Cops are being paid to use their judgement and we are footing the bill so when it happens that they screw up and not use judgement we do get to criticize our employees.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[Kiuas]

Actually the standard is pretty clear. The officer perceives a threat (a person with a gun). He issues a lawful command to drop the weapon so he can sort out the reason the person is carrying. If said muppet doesn't drop the weapon he is under the law perceived as being hostile. Since he has a deadly weapon, deadly force is authorized.

The police are in a lose-lose scenario. If they dont shoot A) they can get killed or B) the muppet kills someone else and the public gets the pitchforks out or C) they shoot the threat... and the public gets the pitch forks out. Either way it sucks for the police and a large reason why areas are now NOT being policed properly as the cops are PEOPLE. People dislike sticking their dicks in a meat grinder if they can avoid it.

Its pretty simple solution. If you are CCW'ing or not. FOLLOW ALL ORDERS. Even ones that are 'wrong'. Do that and you wont get shot. You can always sue the next day. Can't do that if you are dead.

Except that's not what happened for example in the Castile case. If we break down the chain of events that lead to him dying from the video footage it goes like this;

1. The officer asks for a license and insurance (1:01 in the video). Castile hands over a part of it (either ID or insurance), and the cop returns it to him (1:08) and starts going for the rest. My guess is that he's going for the insurance papers from the glove box.
2. Before this, probably because the documents he's about to get are close/near the gun he informs the officer he has a weapon (1:09) so as not to scare the cop if the weapon becomes visible when he's getting the stuff that was asked for. He says: "Sir, I do have to inform you I do have a firearm on me"
And here's where things go wrong
3. The cop acknowledges what Castile said, saying at first "Okay" (1:11) following it up with "Don't reach for it then". The cop has not ordered him to stop moving, or told him to stop going for his insurance papers or ID. He simply repeats 'Don't pull it out' (1:13). If you listen close you can hear Castile saying something after this, the audio is a bit bad but I thin it's: "I'm not a criminal" (1:14). It's also notable that Castile is stuttering, he's obviously nervous by having had what began as a peaceful exchange now turn immediately hostile even though he was trying to ensure the opposite by informing the officer about the gun. He apparently keeps going for his ID/insurance papers (again, something he was told to do and at this point has not been told to stop to do) at which point the officer yells a third time "Don't pull it out!" (1:15) and the immediately opens fire (1:16).

If you look at the timestamps, this goes from a point where Castile and the cop both think the situation is under control (the "okay' at the 1:11 mark) to deadly in 5 seconds. The officer does not give clear orders, if he wanted Castile to stop moving entirely he could've told him to freeze and then ask for the location of the weapon for example. Castile also should have told the officer where the weapon is, and I think he actually would have done so had the cop not immediately interrupted him by telling him the same thing 3 times in 4 seconds with increasing aggression. This is a clear case of a total failure in communication, and that's something that's entirely the fault of the officer.. Police are trained to handle these kind of situations and they're specifically trained to give clear commands and de-escalate, which is the exact opposite of what happened here. In this case instead of saying what he actually wants Castile to do (stop moving so he can know where the weapon is) he simply tells him what not to do, and Castile follows that order completely by not pulling the weapon out as he was told and still gets shot because he was unable to read the thoughts of the panicking police officer in the time span of 5 seconds that it took for the officer to escalate the entire situation

Odd...

[JaredOfEuropa]

The 3rd Circuit now joins the 1st, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th

Something different about the even-numbered ones?

Your right to point your camera

[Anonymous Coward]

ends on an officer's fist. Please remember: officers enjoy qualified immunity even when they are completely wrong about the law as long as they can make believe that they are clueless, and they are preselected for stupidity: a high IQ score disqualifies applicants from service.

Re:Your right to point your camera

[drinkypoo]

If the person filming becomes a distraction in the execution of their job, they are well within their rights to stop it, and should.

Wrong, and also wrong. If the person becomes a direct impediment to the execution of their job, then they have a right to stop them from being an impediment. Getting in the officer's way to get a better shot of the action would be that. Nothing else is. It doesn't matter how distracted the officer is by the fact that there is a camera present. He should be glad it is there if he is acting scrupulously, because it is evidence of what actually happened. The only time an officer would not want a camera present and rolling is if they themselves are violating the law.

The benefit of the doubt should be given to the officer.

Absolutely not. The benefit of the doubt should never be given to someone just because they have a badge. Period, the end, absolutely never. They should always have to have evidence.

Just remember

[Anonymous Coward]

that the police officer has the right to use deadly violence to defend himself, if he feels that his life is threatened by a camera. And the law is always on its own side, never yours.

Do nothing wrong & you've got nothing to hide

[Hognoxious]

If you're not doing anything wrong you've got nothing to hide, right? This applies to them too.

Re:video lottery tickets

[drinkypoo]

So if only their body cams would stop "malfunctioning" when there's an incident they could show their side of the story.

Now that body cams exist, we must stop taking cops' word for things. No evidence? No conviction. Period, the end. That's the only thing that's going to make the cops act responsibly vis-a-vis video evidence. Accepting a cop's word for anything has been conclusively shown to be harmful to justice.

Re:Body Cam.

[drinkypoo]

They are cheap enough for ANYONE to own one now. Even a Covert one! And just Like My Amex.... I Never leave home without it. If they want to beat people up, violate their own laws, and generally act like thugs... At the Very LEAST They will become Internet Infamous for it! :-)

The worst thing that will happen to them is that they will get a reprimand for wiping the memory on your body cam after they imprison you and take all of your stuff. This is why we need a law that says that if there's no evidence that an arrest was warranted, whether from body cam footage or another source more reputable than officer hearsay (which has conclusively been shown to be unreliable, and indeed, typically outright false) we should never grant a conviction. It should be "what, no body cam footage? case dismissed!"