Straight Talk: Videotaping Police

FOXNews.com ^ | June 19, 2007 | Radley Balko

[JTN]

Last month, Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pa., was riding with a friend when the car he was in was pulled over by a local police officer. Kelly, an amateur videographer, had his video camera with him and decided to record the traffic stop.

The officer who pulled over the vehicle saw the camera and demanded Kelly hand it over. Kelly obliged. Soon after, six more police officers pulled up. They arrested Kelly on charges of violating an outdated Pennsylvania wiretapping law that forbids audio recordings of any second party without their permission. In this case, that party was the police officer.

Kelly was charged with a felony, spent 26 hours in jail, and faces up to 10 years in prison. All for merely recording a police officer, a public servant, while he was on the job.

There's been a rash of arrests of late for videotaping police, and it's a disturbing development. Last year, Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly threatened Internet activist Mary T. Jean with arrest and felony prosecution for posting a video to her website of state police swarming a home and arresting a man without a warrant.

Michael Gannon of New Hampshire was also arrested on felony wiretapping charges last year after recording a police officer who was being verbally abusive on his doorstep. Photojournalist Carlos Miller was arrested in February of this year after taking pictures of on-duty police officers in Miami.

And Philadelphia student Neftaly Cruz was arrested last year after he took pictures of a drug bust with his cell phone.

[JTN]

Ping

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Before the police bashers show up let me say that it would be very interesting to see what would happen if the police simply went on strike and emptied the jails. This doesn’t mean that I think the police are above the law, but they have a VERY tough job and a large majority are good, hard-working people who have the public interest at heart.

[tired1]

pass out the guns then let the thugs out. let’s see what happens.

[Pablo64]

So does this work both ways? If you don't give your consent to be video taped by the police car's dashboard cam, will they shut it off? And if not, will they be charged under the same law?

I don't really need the sarcasm tags, do I?

[Poser]

I guess the Rodney King cops should be exonerated and given back pay and the people who taped the beating should be thrown in jail.

[John Semmens]

Man May Go to Prison for Taping Traffic Stop

Eighteen-year old Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pennsylvania is facing a felony charge and a possible 7-year prison sentence for videotaping police as they issued a traffic ticket to the driver of the pick-up truck in which he was a passenger. Kelly is charged under a Pennsylvania “privacy” law that bars the recording of anyone’s oral conversation without that person’s consent.

Carlisle Police Chief Stephen Margeson defended the officer’s actions. “We already videotape our officers,” Margeson said. “There’s no need for others to duplicate these efforts. Multiple tapes of the same incident could lead to different interpretations and cause confusion. It’s best if the Department controls the recording of arrests and other confrontations.”

District Attorney David Freed brushed aside contentions that the intent of the law was to guard private citizens’ privacy. “The law says you can’t record anyone without his consent,” Freed pointed out. “We think that covers police officers. An officer’s ability to control a potentially volatile situation would be hampered if he had to worry that his words or actions might be monitored by unauthorized persons. We don’t need another ‘Rodney King’ type episode to undermine respect for law enforcement officers.”

Freed said he may be willing to drop the felony recording charges if Kelly were to plead guilty to a charge of obstructing an officer in the performance of his duty.

“I wasn’t obstructing anything,” Kelly said. “I was just recording what happened. I don’t see how I was invading the officer’s privacy. Presumably everything he would be saying is something he would be repeating in traffic court if the case went that far. If the police aren’t doing anything wrong they shouldn’t object to being taped on a public street.”

read more...

http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm

[PeterFinn]

Rights don’t mean much to some of our tyrant overlords, do they?

[Shimmer128]

a large majority have our best interest at heart. Oh that just warms me right up. So if you take 100 cops and only say...30 will hurt you, abuse you, kill you...that’s ok. Cause dey is nice peoples.

No thanks. And if you want to call me a police basher for holding them to account, you go right ahead.

[tiki]

I’m not a police basher but why would they care if they aren’t doing anything wrong. I would think that in this day of the internet it could be considered freedom of the press if it was going to be posted as news. We do pay their salaries and they do work for us.

[sionnsar]

We don’t need another ‘Rodney King’ type episode to undermine respect for law enforcement officers.

Odd...

[fr_freak]

This doesn’t mean that I think the police are above the law, but they have a VERY tough job and a large majority are good, hard-working people who have the public interest at heart.

Their job is tough, and I know they don't write the laws - they just enforce them, but one would have to expect that every now and then, honest cops will cringe at enforcing a law they know is unreasonable. In this case, a word from the cop and compliance from the arrestee should have been enough. Instead, the cop chose to apply an arcane law out of all proportion to the situation. Without knowing more about the incident, it sounds like this cop was on a power trip.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Before the police bashers show up let me say that it would be very interesting to see what would happen if the police simply went on strike and emptied the jails.

[samm1148]

Maybe if police weren’t so busy checking to see if people: Have their seatbelts on, aren’t talking on a cell phone, don’t have an open container in their car but are otherwise sober, have their chillens buckled in, have a current pollution inspection, have auto insurance, and any other silly laws the socialists and moderate republicans have foisted onto us maybe they would have time to solve REAL CRIMES.

[robertpaulsen]

"We don’t need another ‘Rodney King’ type episode to undermine respect for law enforcement officers."

I agree. But if there is one, we want to film it.

[PeterFinn]

Carlisle Police Chief Stephen Margeson defended the officer’s actions. “We already videotape our officers,” Margeson said. “There’s no need for others to duplicate these efforts. Multiple tapes of the same incident could lead to different interpretations and cause confusion. It’s best if the Department controls the recording of arrests and other confrontations.”

Try this again and see how this is absolutely unAmerican:

Beijing Police Chief Wu Tong defended the officer’s actions. “We already videotape our officers,” Wu said. “There’s no need for others to duplicate these efforts. Multiple tapes of the same incident could lead to different interpretations and cause confusion. It’s best if the Department controls the recording of arrests and other confrontations.”

That's what this sounds like to me, something that some apparatchik from China would say and it's somehow worse hearing something like this from an American who has sworn to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.

[Las Vegas Ron]

So COPS (the show) is just a PR stunt after all /s

[steveo]

fire at will.

[keat]

if the police simply went on strike and emptied the jails.

If the police empty the jails then it's open season on police and I'm first in line.

Any other hypotheticals?

[orlop9]

In the spirit of the WOD canned question...

If police have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear from being filmed.