Posted on 10/03/2016 3:50:17 PM PDT by MeganC
It was an apparent case of retaliation, but you’d have to see the video to believe it.
“Give us a call; we’ll be there when you need our help,” joked Little Rock Arkansas cops Jason Roberts and Thomas Thompson.
The two Arkansas cops who were so offended by a 79-year old legislator who championed people’s Constitutional right to record police in public that they arrested him for recording a traffic stop.
Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner immediaetly dropped the charges against Walker and wrote an apology for the arrest, which was caught on dash cam.
The shocking dashcam footage released last week shows dialogue between the two cops and Walker getting heated as they accuse him of being a “race baiter” for simply standing along the of the street recording them during a routine traffic stop of a black male.
As the dialogue ensues, Roberts and Thomas aggressively approach Walker.
“Mr. Walker, what is your concern today?”
“I’m here just to observe.”
“I’ve observed policemen at times, when they was involved in a case when they were arresting some black boys about ten years ago” said the legislator and civil rights lawyer. “They arrested me for watching.”
“Officer Roberts began lecturing Walker about how the driver had expired tags, and that he was training another officer and treated the guy he pulled over with respect, even though he arrested him for a traffic warrant,” he tried to calmly explain.
“And that’s why he’s in that car,” officer Roberts explained as if he didn’t have the discretion to let the man go without arresting him.
The conversation soon devolves in to Roberts screaming out at Walker.
“You’re a race baiter is what you are, OK?”
“I’m just telling you how it is, Mr. Walker.”
“What did I do?” asked Walker.
” You’re sitting there filming,” replied R0berts.
“This aint the first time you’ve done this, neither. You’ve been doing this since 1994, since I’ve been here” said Roberts.
Police then ask him if he would have stopped to record if it were a white person.
As officer Roberts walked back to his patrol car, apparently to mull over possibly arresting Walker he joked and sarcastically told, “give us a call. We’ll be there if you need our help.”
Which is the thin blue lines way of saying they wouldn’t help him because he chose to exercise his right to record police in public.
Police then ask him if he would have stopped to record if it were a white person.
Officer Roberts then walks back to the patrol car, apparently to mull over possibly arresting Walker and tells him, “give us a call. We’ll be there if you need our help.”
“By all means, call us,” said Thomas.
They then begin giving him directions, telling him where to stand when it was they who approached him.
Little Rock police then came back and arrested Walker, charging him with obstructing government duty.
Although he was released shortly after posting a $1,000 bond.
Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner issued a letter of apology, dropped the charges and cut him a check for the money spent on bail.
One of the officers can be heard saying the 79-year-old civil rights lawyer had been a “thorn in the side of police.”
Walker said he doesn’t accept the apology for his arrest, and expects a lawsuit.
How is it “applauding the jackals” if I’m not supporting the police arresting people who haven’t broken the law?
Good points
What frickin’ planet do you live on?
I watched enough of this video to see that this slick lawyer was interfering with the traffic stop.
He *should* have been arrested! He is a jackal.
Pretty obvious to me that the lawyer was trying to create trouble.
The cop wrongfully started the situation by challenging the man who was not breaking any law. If a cop can’t stand a law abiding citizen lawfully video recording them from across the street then they need to get out of the police business and get a job where they don’t have to submit to public scrutiny.
This is important because we’re also seeing situations in states where open carry and concealed carry are legal yet some cops are taking it upon themselves to enforce non-existent gun control laws against law abiding citizens.
It is cops like that which is why we have a Second Amendment.
Why you insist on cops having magisterial authority in a Constitutional republic completely eludes me.
Perhaps instead of my explaining why I want cops to obey the Constitution and the law maybe you can explain to me why you think they should have the authority to do whatever they want to whoever they want whenever they want to?
Yup. I have no problem with cops having little video recorders on their uniforms. In fact, I think it should be mandatory. What I WANT is for the cops to record me every time they interact with me. That makes a record of my bad behavior and also their bad behavior.
But if cops will have those cameras, and be recording me ...
Then it just makes sense that citizens should be able to stand across the street with their own cameras and record the same interaction. Where’s the harm?
I swear, a lot of the anger in this country is based around this sort of double set of laws. Hillary can do THIS thing, but I cannot. The cops can do THAT thing, but I cannot.
One law. One people. This is basic to our system, and yet it has slipped away from us.
“One law. One people. This is basic to our system, and yet it has slipped away from us.”
It’s slipped away from us because too many people are so willing to trade liberty for security.
“It’s slipped away from us because too many people are so willing to trade liberty for security.”
What good is liberty if there is anarchy?
.
I was reminded of the old Ben Franklin quote while recently watching the movie “Snowden”.
Snowden is controversial because he did expose classified data, and I think that this is generally a bad thing to do.
But Snowden wanted people to know that we had definitely traded our freedom in return for security. And we didn’t know we had made that bargain. No one told us. And perhaps we no longer deserved either freedom or security.
Certainly I feel less secure and less free as a result of the Patriot Act and so many other steps taken by our government. I think my government is out to get me.
What good is liberty if you’re willing to surrender it for the comfort provided by prison guards? North Korea is a perfect state by this measure because they have a remarkable absence of anarchy, do they not?
And to willingly surrender your liberty for security?
Samuel Adams spoke to this:
“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property.
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”
Perhaps you could explain why it is that muckrakers like that shyster lawyer deserve mollycoddling.
If you bothered to watch the video, you would have seen that said shyster hectored the police pretty much the whole time they were doing their job BEFORE walking over to them and interfering.
They *were* obeying the Constitution. If I had I targeted with a law fully executed police investigation, I would expect to be arrested also.
And I’d appreciate it if you would not put words in my mouth or think you know what my thinking is. You do not.
‘Pod.
If someone isn’t breaking the law then the police have no business interfering with them. As to “hectoring” the police the US Supreme Court already decided that I can tell a cop to go f*** himself and that it’s protected speech.
Again, if a cop can’t handle dealing with the public then they need to find another job.
And if they’re going to arrest people who are not breaking an actual law then such cops need to be arrested and prosecuted for kidnapping and whatever else they’ve done in violation of the law and their oaths.
Are you really this dense? You’re comparing apples and oranges.
Saying ‘F- you’ to a cop is not the same thing at all to interfering with a legitimate police investigation.
Which is what he DID!!!
The video doesn’t show what you’re spinning here. The man was across the street from the traffic stop and the cop approached him and instigated the problem.
Even the cop’s own police chief agreed the arrest and the whole interaction were out of line.
Who does he think he is, anyway? A judge?
I’m spinning nothing. The video has audio.
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