Posted on 04/28/2015 9:41:55 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
First of all, they shouldn’t ask.
“As a basic principle, we can’t tell you to stop recording,” says Delroy Burton, chairman of D.C.’s metropolitan police union and a 21-year veteran on the force. “If you’re standing across the street videotaping, and I’m in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I’m subject to recording, and there’s nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording.”
“What you don’t have a right to do is interfere,” he says. “Record from a distance, stay out of the scene, and the officer doesn’t have the right to come over and take your camera, confiscate it.”
Officers do have a right to tell you to stop interfering with their work, Burton told me, but they still aren’t allowed to destroy film.
Yet still some officers do. Last week, an amateur video appeared to show a U.S. Marshal confiscating and destroying a woman’s camera as she filmed him.
“Photography is a form of power, and people are loath to give up power, including police officers. It’s a power struggle where the citizen is protected by the law but, because it is a power struggle, sometimes that’s not enough,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Stanley wrote the ACLU’s “Know Your Rights” guide for photographers, which lays out in plain language the legal protections that are assured people filming in public. Among these: Photographers can take pictures of anything in plain view from public space—including public officials—but private land owners may set rules for photography on their property. Cops also can’t “confiscate or demand to view” audio or video without a warrant, and they can’t ever delete images.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Ping!
“As a basic principle, we can’t tell you to stop recording,” says Delroy Burton, chairman of D.C.’s metropolitan police union and a 21-year veteran on the force. “If you’re standing across the street videotaping, and I’m in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I’m subject to recording, and there’s nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording.”
Good let me know when these police officers are prosecuted for Strong Armed Robbery ( A Felony)
Grand Theft(over $400 is a FELONY)cellphones cost is over $400
Using a Firearm during the Commission of a Violent Felony
Then we can talk.
Works better if the perp is shirtless.
But ...
That may be a GUN, disguised as a camera.
Or ...
You now have EVIDENCE. Turn it over to me, or face charges for withholding evidence.
2. Send pictures or video to another location as quickly (or even instantly if possible) as you can so that they aren't destroyed if the camera is. It's also good if you can get live video of Officer Friendly grabbing your camera and stomping on it with the video ending with his heel coming down on the camera.
Just FYI, there are cellphone apps that continuously upload video to a safe site, so that even if the camera is stolen or destroyed the video is retained.
I do agree, though, that the police rarely police the police.
Please see posts #7 and #8.
I know some LEOs and people in said community. The problem usually arises in uh, urban, areas where two or three cops are struggling with one or two suspects and the whole neighborhood shows up screaming at them and crowing around them. Stay back and don’t yell at them and it shouldn’t be a problem.
Add this one: the best way to record police is with a wing-man who is also recording them, so if one of them tries to take away or destroy a camera/phone he will be recorded doing it.
So far we haven’t heard anything of the ‘investigation’ of the Federal Marshall to jumped the woman filming him and destroying her cam phone.
Clearly this is an abuse of power.
I do agree, though, that the police rarely police the police.
And there is the reason and answer to Baltimore, Ferguson....
Clearly this is an abuse of power.”???
NO It is a FELONY, got it.
a Yankees cap with the N and the Y pre-blurred would help...
Agreed on all counts.
*grin*
There you go! Start singing “Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do?” and the cops will probably pose for you.
Anything in plain view, as long as you don’t interfere with their work is ok. Distribution, however may be tricky. Best to blur faces if you have the technology, but don’t blur it on the original. Preserve that for evidentiary purposes.
One time I intimidated an abortionist by holding up my garage door opener pretending to be filming her. She bought it and called the cops on me. The cop laughed out loud when I showed him my “camera.”
In a public place anyone can photograph anything they want...just stay out of the way...
Sounds right to me.
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