Ohio man arrested after recording video of teens in deadly crash

abc13.com ^ | July 16, 2015 | KTRK

[Berlin_Freeper]

Police said a man witnessed a horrible car crash. What happened next, just downright cold behavior, according to police.

[nathanbedford]

The definition and meaning of the "press" is at stake here.

If an individual with a cell phone can be arrested and prosecuted for doing what any television station can and routinely does with impunity, we have foreclosed part of the First Amendment from the general public and we have left ourselves even more dependent on an untrustworthy media.

More, we have left the decision of whether someone is a reporter or merely an officious intermeddler, a despicable voyeur, or a crass commercial opportunists wholly in the hands of the police to be remedied only by successful defense of a criminal charge. Since when has the media, that is the "press" acted other than as officious intermeddlers, despicable voyeurs or crass commercial opportunists?

In a society which is so litigious any good Samaritan is subject to some sort of potential civil liability even if a good Samaritan law exists. Why cannot someone approaching injured people in an automobile in this case film the experience as evidence that is approach and participation were reasonable and not actionable?

One of the most important technological advances that favor democracy is the ubiquity of our cell phones with their cameras. In jurisdiction after jurisdiction the police have demonstrated their hostility to transparency created by these phones. The evidence generated by the accused taking these pictures or films might be very valuable in an action against the third-party who might've caused the accident to catalog the extent of personal injuries. This prosecution takes away from the injured party that tool and for no good reason except to satisfy the moral outrage of the police or to provide expression of their general hostility to citizens with cameras.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Instead calling 911, he used his cell phone to video record the accident, hoping to sell it for profit. He entered the vehicle to video the injured passengers, one of them dying, thinking “what can I get out of this?” And I thought people who slowed down to watch an accident scene were creepy.

[wardaddy]

Do you read the whole context.

[nathanbedford]

Yes, I read the whole context and I also read the entirety of an article which appeared a short time ago which was virtually identical.

My point is that there is a very grave danger in subjectively applying our Bill of Rights depending on our moral outrage. Not the least of the problems with that approach is that we conservatives are out of sync with the moral consensus of the nation: we are mostly Christian they are mostly secular; we hold to absolute truths, they wallow in subjectivism; we believe in individual rights coupled with individual responsibilities, they believe in "compassion; "we believe in the sanctity of marriage, they do not and many of them seek to destroy the family unit; we believe in imperishability of moral values and want to maintain respect for the sacrifices resented by the Confederate battle flag, they abhor those values.

I could go on with examples but to do so would be very depressing because we are losing the culture war on front after front and the ultimate loss will be loss of our Bill of Rights. If we make those rights dependent on a moral consensus they are doomed.

[Berlin_Freeper]

"Had he videotaped it across the street, we wouldn't have an issue with it," Sivert said. "The issue started when he entered the vehicle to take the video and the fact that he's videotaping two young men who were, one critically injured, one seriously injured."

[kingu]

I don’t agree. Entering the car is breaking the barrier between reporting and being news. Even the police took the time to point out that difference. I’m very comfortable with this distinction; or are you saying that reporters (citizen journalist or so called professionals) should do the same? Instead of photographing a celebrity’s vehicle, they should open the car door?

[wardaddy]

I understand the slippery slope but this guy stood there and took pics of dying kids to pimp and didn’t help

That’s creepy

I’m ambivalent at most

[nathanbedford]

... they are allowed and encouraged to help one another in emergencies if they can do so safely, and that rendering aid or comfort to a dying young man and his severely injured friend is a commendable and kindly act. Persons are not, however, allowed to trespass into a person's vehicle criminally and without permission for the seemingly singular cause of filming, a young man's dying moments, for profit.

"Had he videotaped it across the street, we wouldn't have an issue with it," Sivert said. "The issue started when he entered the vehicle to take the video and the fact that he's videotaping two young men who were, one critically injured, one seriously injured."

So the objection is not to filming but to entering and not to entering but to entering to film and not to entering to film but to entering to film with the intention of making a profit and not to film with the intention of making a profit but to entering to film with the intention of making a profit while an occupant is seriously injured.

My question is where does freedom of the press stop and the subjective morality of the police begin?

[nathanbedford]

Agreed, the creep with the camera was a real creep.

Do we want to prosecute people for being at creep?

Do we want to water down the Bill of Rights so we can feel good about bitch slapping a creep?

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

NB, I’m not a lawyer or anything approaching one, but it seems to me that his touching the car for the purpose of anything at all except helping the occupants was a problem because it potentially muddies any evidence.

[wardaddy]

I’m pretty sure media folks are not prosecuted for not helping

Though some do help

Like some war correspondents are armed and fight

Some don’t

I used the term ambivalent in the conventional sense like conflicted rather than literary as in immensely torn between competing feelings of high intensity

[Berlin_Freeper]

The law is - against entering private property for no good reason, i.e. to call people idiots instead of rendering assistance.

[nathanbedford]

Evidently those passersby who opened the door and entered the vehicle to render help did not violate the law. This is explicit in the statements by the police. I suppose someone who enters an accident vehicle does so with some sort of implied consent of the people injured within. Is that implied consent limited to those who have a fixed intention from beginning to end to render aid and not to photograph?

Suppose the one who renders aid decides also to photograph, has he violated the implied consent? Has he violated some objective law? Does it matter when, before or after entering, that he conceives the intention to photograph? Suppose the one who renders aid and photographs does so without an intention to profit? With an intention to profit? How does that change the quality of the act and render it criminal or innocent? The freedom of the press turn on eschewing all profit?

Suppose someone enters the vehicle fearful that he might be sued for negligently rendering aid and decides to photograph to protect himself from civil liability? Suppose after doing so he forms an intention to sell the photographs for profit?

You will note that the defendant in this case has denied any intention to make a profit. We are free to believe him or not, but for the purposes of analysis we ought to consider both possibilities. If we decide that he intended to make a profit, did he enter the car with that intention? Does that matter?

Suppose we believe him when he says that his only intention was to provide photographic evidence to encourage safe driving within the speed limit? Does it make him innocent?

These hypotheticals are not presented to be tendentious but to illustrate the slippery slope problems. I don't believe these hypotheticals would even be considered if the photographer were a "bona fide" news media organization.

I suppose I am a rank populist when it comes to First Amendment rights and all the rights of the Bill of Rights, I do not want to see these rights reserved only for the elite.

[nathanbedford]

Or, as I said, he provided a very valuable service to the injured survivor and to the family of the deceased victim of the accident by providing graphic evidence of their injuries and their pain.

[abb]

As a practicing citizen journalist, I tend to gravitate to your views. Once government recognizes “journalism” as some sort of guild, then it operates under a governmental “license,” that can be revoked at a whim.

Recall this timeless piece.

http://www.bigeye.com/drudge.htm

nyone With A Modem Can Report On The World

Address Before the National Press Club
Matt Drudge | June 2, 1998

[nathanbedford]

I recall Matt Drudge appearing before The National Press Club in defense of his website generally and in defense of his exposure of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky in particular. The main rap against Drudge was that there was no editor, no "gatekeeper" between Drudge and the public.

Drudge was utterly devastating in his presentation pointing out time after time in which the establishment media with all its vaunted gatekeepers had either gotten a story wrong or outright lied. The questioning by the reporters was passive aggressive but Drudge handled them with aplomb. He was brilliant.

I have been on his side ever since. If the establishment media is deciding what you're going to see about automobile accidents or what you are going to know about the perjury of the president of the United States, I would much prefer to know that Matt Drudge is there to do the job no establishment media American will do.

[driftdiver]

Even the press would call an ambulance while they filmed. E tering the car for any reason other than to provide aid is criminal. If he did this to my son he’s be feeding the crabs in a short amount of time.

[driftdiver]

You’ve chosen the wrong place to stake your flag on this one.

[nathanbedford]

E tering the car for any reason other than to provide aid is criminal.

Citation?