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.

[stephanruby]

Putting aside for a moment that suicide by cop in some cases is actually a thing, and yes, I do believe that it's real, and putting aside that that an African American young man is far more likely to get shot by another fellow African American young man than by the police.

Another starting point would be to actually listen to this podcast, a super insightful interview of a criminologist.
https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/201...

He also wrote a book, When Police Kill
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674...

Civilian deaths from shootings and other police actions are vastly higher in the United States than in other developed nations, but American police also confront an unusually high risk of fatal assault. Zimring offers policy prescriptions for how federal, state, and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of officers. Criminal prosecution of police officers involved in killings is rare and only necessary in extreme cases. But clear administrative rules could save hundreds of lives without endangering police officers.

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.

[drinkypoo]

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.

That is not the standard. The standard is that being jumpy and fearful is not a valid reason to shoot someone, whether you are a cop or not. Remember, although many states interfere with your constitutional rights (I'm looking at you, my home state of California) you have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. And with that right comes the responsibility to not shoot people just because you find them to be scary.

Of course, in our society it remains permissible to shoot someone because they are black and you are scared, and that is shit

Re: It's not like they risk anything.

[SumterLiving]

I believe the U.S. Military standards for behavior and conduct are more stringent than local police departments. Obviously, there are exceptions but it's rare to find a LEO who isn't an authoritarian asshole. Yep, they have a tough job but when they are still authoritarian assholes in their own offices or in a place where weapons are not allowed (except on the LEOs hip), serving and protecting can be accomplished without all the assholery. I had a job where I had to interact with LEOs quite often. I lost all respect for the LEO profession very quickly and basically gave up trying to be friendly and moving towards a strictly business demeanor after one year. Most eventually became more aggressive and sarcastic for the next year I was on the job. At this point any time I deal with LEOs, I use a voice recording app on my phone as a safeguard ... likely a useless safeguard but at least I have evidence of their behavior that I can turn into a written transcript.

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.

[Enigma2175]

I understand that they take up a very dangerous mantle

They like to create that perception, but it's really not the case, they rarely make the top 10 dangerous jobs. For example, this list pegs them at number 18 with 11.7 deaths per 100,000. And it's not getting shot that causes that danger, the most common cause of on-duty police officer deaths is traffic accidents. I worked for many years in a much more dangerous job but nobody had parades and 21 gun salutes when one of us died.

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.

[Zero__Kelvin]

Any time anyone tries to form a well regulated militia the ATF stops that RFQ.

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

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[LynnwoodRooster]

DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago pretty much settles it - the right is an individual right, and being part of a militia is not a requirement. Restrictions on the right to possess and carry firearms is a complete violation of your individual 2A rights.

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Black officers tend to shoot black suspects as often as white officers shoot black suspects. Meaning it's not "racism" that is driving the police shootings (unless your position is that all black officers are "uncle Toms" or "oreos" like Justice Thomas is often called). Perhaps it's the fact that blacks account for the majority of murders, manslaughter, and robberies?

Re:It's not like they risk anything.

[stephanruby]

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.

That was my point actually. That is a separate issue that also needs to be addressed, but for a variety of reasons, I didn't want to address it in my response.

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.

Yes, that's true, but the podcast I pointed to specifically addresses the training issue.

For instance, there is a myth going around that a person with a knife can kill a police officer with an undrawn firearm if that person is within 21 feet of the police officer. And that myth is used to train some police officers to shoot anyone who threatens them with a knife within the distance of 21 feet. However, in Germany where knife violence is much more prevalent (because criminals don't have guns, they have knives), and where German police officers are trained completely differently, there isn't an epidemic of police officers dying of knife attacks because of the different training they've received.

Also, the podcast and book address the different ways civilians can be killed by police officers and other issues that the police training has a direct impact on, but the devil is in the details, and I don't want to repeat something incorrectly when you guys could easily listen to the podcast for yourselves (without me as the filter).

Re: It's not like they risk anything.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Statistically, you are more likely to be killed by a black man. Is that statement correct or not?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that phrase I always hear them say?

Ignorance of the law is not a valid legal defense?

Interesting how it only goes one way.

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.

Re:Your right to point your camera

[slashrio]

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

Yes, it's criminally distracting to constantly have to think of what is permissible to do and what not, only because some annoying person is filming you.

Re: Your right to point your camera

[Solandri]

Problem is there's no law saying "Police must allow the public to photograph/video them, under penalty of..." If a police officer wrongfully arrests you for recording, he can later simply say "oops, I didn't know," drop the charges, and not face any penalties. Very different from when you're caught speeding and you say "but I didn't see that speed limit sign." The law says you're subject to a fine for violating it, so you still have to pay the fine even if you didn't know.

It's like what Rambus did when they joined JEDEC (a standard-setting consortium of memory manufacturers). The JEDEC rules said members couldn't patent any ideas being discussed between them. Rambus patented SDRAM and DDR anyway, then sued the memory manufacturers for violating "their" patents. The trials found that Rambus had acted in bad faith and violated the JEDEC rules. Unfortunately those rules didn't include penalties for when a member was in violation - mainly financial penalties and being forced to give up patents obtained in violation of the rules. Consequently, the only thing JEDEC could do was kick Rambus out. The patents were still valid (the USPTO was operating under first to file back then, not first to invent). And Rambus was successfully able to extort licensing fees from all the memory manufacturers for something they themselves had invented and that Rambus had stolen.

I'm not even sure establishing a Constitutional right to photograph/video police helps, unless you can establish a pattern of violation. Otherwise, all it's good for is forcing them to drop charges.

Re: Your right to point your camera

[Chris Mattern]

(the USPTO was operating under first to file back then, not first to invent).

Say what? The USPTO has issued patents under the principle of first to invent since its founding, being almost the only national patent office to do so. It became first to file in 2013, well after the RAMBUS case (and still is so today).

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.

nodal voltage analysis

[sheramil]

Good lord, how many circuits are there? And when are they going to be combined into one integrated circuit that doesn't generate as much heat?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Selective editing of one sided videos is a real threat to cops and anyone not protected by their own videos.

Not really a problem. The only thing that prevents cops from having their own videos is themselves.
If video evidence from other sources starts to show up then the cops misplaced recordings will start to show up and the recorders will have way less malfunction issues.

The first step about justice should be about finding out the truth, not getting people you consider to be bad locked up.
Having video evidence from several sources is a good step in that direction and should be beneficial both for law abiding citizens as well a law abiding police officers.
The only ones who wouldn't benefit from it are criminals, regardless of if they are police officers or not.

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:video lottery tickets

[Applehu Akbar]

Selective editing of ANY video is a problem in this context, including mandated footage that is mysteriously "lost" when needed as evidence. That's why both sides need to be aware that the other can be recording. It keeps everyone honest.

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!"