Although I don't like the thought of being videotaped, I count that as part of the job. God knows the tape can be edited, put on YouTube and present a misleading image of what happening. As I've told many a person who's complained about the law, "get over it...that's life"
Now on this article, there are a few things....
"Police Officers Don't Check Their Civil Rights at the Station House Door"
Three law enforcement officials defend the arrest of citizens who record on-duty cops.
Radley Balko | August 9, 2010
...Outside the law enforcement community, a consensus seems to be emerging that it’s bad policy to arrest people who photograph or record police officers on the job. The Washington Post, USA Today, the Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, writing in Popular Mechanics, all weighed in on the side that citizen photography and videography can be an important check to keep police officers accountable and transparent....
On the flip side of that coin, it can be used to mislead the public on what happened. Rodney King anyone? The one thing those cops did wrong was hit him in the head. They had justification for use of intermediate force (baton strikes and tazer). They did not have justification for deadly force (baton strike to the head). Again, that's what investigations are for.
...Joseph Cassilly is the Harford County, Maryland state’s attorney. He’s currently pursuing felony charges against Anthony Graber, who was arrested last April for recording a police officer during a traffic stop. Maryland is one of 12 states that require all parties to a conversation to give consent before the conversation can legally be recorded. But like nine of those 12 states, Maryland also requires that for the recording to be illegal, the offended party must have had an expectation that the conversation would be private. To bring charges against Graber, Cassilly would not only need to believe that on-duty police officers have privacy rights, but in the Graber case in particular, that a cop who had drawn his gun and was yelling at a motorist on the side of a busy highway would, also, have good reason to believe the entire encounter was private. This seems all the more absurd given that motorists in such a situation clearly don’t have any reasonable privacy expectation. Anything they say during such a traffic stop is admissible in court.
"The officer having his gun drawn or being on a public roadway has nothing to do with it," Cassilly says. "Neither does the fact that what Mr. Graber said during the stop could be used in court. That’s not the test. The test is whether police officers can expect some of the conversations they have while on the job to remain private and not be recorded and replayed for the world to hear."
1. I’ve seen both the long and short version of the video. The writer here is hung up on the fact the trooper pulled his weapon. Get over it. A cop in a civilian vehicle is taking action against someone who is driving at high speed and is a hazard to other drivers. If you look at the video he does not point it at the motorcycle operator but and puts it back in his holster (right next to his badge) as soon as the uniformed unit arrived.
2. Agreed on his other point. The officer had no reasonable expectation of privacy on the side of the road and even if this is in accordance with the law it should have not been prosecuted. Makes the cops and the DA look bad.
Last February, University of Maryland student Jack McKenna was beaten by riot police after a basketball game. Cell phone videos of the beating contradicted police reports, and resulted in the charges against McKenna being dropped and in the suspension of several police officers. ...Generally, Casilly says, police actions in front of large crowds of people can probably be recorded. But citizen recorders put themselves in legal jeopardy when there are fewer people around, and an officer is more likely to think his conversations are private...
Again, welcome to the 21st century. There is no expectation of privacy, especially in public. I won't comment on the incident they are referring to. This video is one image of what happened. I'll leave it for the DA and police department to investigate it and see what happened fully. But I can't see anything justifying charging the video taker with any crime.
...I spoke with Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. Pasco, who supports these arrests, says he’s worried that video could be manipulated to make police officers look bad. “There’s no chain of custody with these videos,” Pasco says. “How do you know the video hasn’t been edited? How do we know what’s in the video hasn’t been taken out of context? With dashboard cameras or police security video, the evidence is in the hands of law enforcement the entire time, so it’s admissible under the rules of evidence. That’s not the case with these cell phone videos.”...Agreed Jim, I’ve often said I don’t lose my civil rights because I put on a uniform and badge. But in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, period. If I’m issuing a driver a ticket, interviewing someone on the street in view of the general public I am not in isolation. I should not expect privacy. If someone is shoving a camera in my face or getting to the point they are interfering with my investigation that is one thing and I need to take action to insure safety and conduct police matters. But someone across the street is probably not a problem child.
More to the point I’m a government officer and my actions should be open and accountable to the taxpayers. If a review of my actions is needed, so be it. However a YouTube video is part of the examination, not the entire investigation. Openness is the best policy for all public officials, be they politicians or police. Telling the public you can’t see what is happening on the street leads to suspicions that are not good for the public or the government. Undercover operations are one thing...but again, actions on the street are another.
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