#41 parse

What’s the motivation for overheated rhetoric when a cool, clear presentation of the facts is sufficient to convince a reasonable person that police misbehavior is a serious problem that deserves prompt remedy?

You can call it hyperbole. I call it being pissed off.

“Extremism in the cause of Liberty is no vice! Moderation in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.”

Given that the reality of police corruption and abuse of authority is such a problem, I don’t understand the value of engaging in hyperbole, which only gives the impression you need to exaggerate the level of cop misbehavior to draw people’s attention. Obviously police corruption has not been operating, in pitch darkness or anywhere else, “since the beginning of time.” What’s the motivation for overheated rhetoric when a cool, clear presentation of the facts is sufficient to convince a reasonable person that police misbehavior is a serious problem that deserves prompt remedy?

Be very, very careful trying to pull that sort of thing – I really wouldn’t advise it. When the law is on your side (learn more about your state here, for instance, and no, that isn’t my site), best to play it straight.

Playing games like that is very likely a great way to find out how flexible a local prosecutor wants the law to be. I’m not saying that’s right, but I am saying that’s likely to happen.

That sums it up brilliantly!

Instead of letting two freedom fighters sit alone in their cell, there should have been a whole mob of us showing up at the police station to tape the fiasco.

We have to find some way to start organizing around one simple motto: AN ATTACK ON ONE IS AN ATTACK ON ALL.

Here’s my point: How many of us do you think they’d be willing to arrest, all at once, in Maryland, Massachusetts, or Illinois, before they decided it was easier just to change the law?

They are trying to have it both ways so I take what they say as suspect.

I agree that the recording (video and/or voice) of anyone on public payroll should be, without question, completely legal and appropriate, at any time, where ever they are conducting official business.

It would be one way of putting a leash back on government.

#25 Kevin3%

I tend to agree with the summation Big Chief put forward. Nothing terrible here just an attempt by LEO to sway (under color of law) the video-grapher from recording voice. The cops was not a complete dick-head as so often is the case.

The fact that he was only a partial dickhead instead of a complete dickhead isn’t much of a consolation.

While it’s true the cop didn’t whip out a gun and shoot the woman or go looking for a dog to kill, he still attempted to use his position and authority to intimidate a woman to get her to stop a perfectly legal activity. I might also point out that the camera may very well have been the single thing keeping the cop from crossing further over the line. After all, there’s a reason the cop wanted her to shut the camera off. My guess is that he wanted the option to embellish the story later as needed to support his actions (an option usually denied when video is available).

Of course there is also probably also some sort of “duty to withdrawl” clause to public taping, if you don’t want your picture taken in public you can not go to a location where the public is taking pictures, cops can’t avoid that since they’re on the job. However, cops should be held to a higher standard, if they don’t want their conduct recorded and distributed to the public, they need to improve their conduct.

I see your point, but I don’t see what angle this would take. What PC could the officer use (and would use, in a low-intensity situation like this) to search the camera? Furthermore, afterwards you could just say that the audio on the camera was turned off, but the digital recorder in your pocket with the hidden microphone wasn’t.

But see, that’s where stupid policies and official misunderstandings lead us: citizenry having to lie (or lying, making it easier) to do legal things in the face of institutional incompetence.

Well, without audio it’s just the witness’s word against the cop’s, as video can be interpreted in many ways. Dashcam recordings with audio can always be “lost”.

I feel this is a grand opportunity for civil disobedience. We all know that whenever someone gets arrested for filming the police the charges are routinely dropped. With this knowledge, anybody with a spare 24hrs can vote for changing the law via use of police resources, causing a budget problem that anybody can fix in about one day.

Furthermore to your point, I agree wholeheartedly and believe that is why there is such pushback on this. If an officer is doing something bad to someone, it’s best to have a witness. Better than a witness is a witness with a good memory. Better than a witness with a good memory is a witness with a contemporaneous document of the occasion, narrating their interpretation of what they are seeing. That don’t qualify as a fuzzy memory.

we Agitator readers have seen police behave far, far worse in similar situations

Correct, which is why a slippery-slope argument is perfectly apt. We already know where this leads.

I totally disagree with the goal of their protest, but I’ll be damned if anyone takes their right to do it.

I just realized what the Maryland prosecutor meant when he said police can expect privacy in one-on-one or small group situations. It means that in a large group there are innumerable witnesses, so recording or not recording audio of an officer’s actions doesn’t really matter. But in one-on-one situations? Well, without audio it’s just the witness’s word against the cop’s, as video can be interpreted in many ways. Dashcam recordings with audio can always be “lost”.

Jeff: You could just say the audio is turned off.

You might want to be careful about that. If you lie to a cop, then you’ve given him an excuse to screw with you. In most places, lying to the police is a crime (even though they can lie to you). Jeff is better off by tracking down that app. And, of course, we’re all better off by getting a clear rendering from the courts saying it’s legal to record anyone acting (or claiming to act) under authority of law.

On the other hand, I will at least say that I am pleasantly surprised the officer didn’t lose his temper and try to be more of a bully. He was calm and unagressive throughout. Maybe he would not have been if the camera hadn’t been rolling or if he hadn’t been dealing with someone obviously versed in the law.

However, the main issue he was dealing with was the property owner’s claim that the two animal rights activists were trespassing on private property. I couldn’t tell from the video exactly what the property layout was, but it may well have taken place on a private drive (the entrance to the gun club?). If that’s the case, then I can’t completely blame the cop for taking the property owner’s complaint seriously. I know if I were a property owner and people were using my property to protest against me, I would expect the police to be able to get them to leave the property. The wiretapping issue was nonsense, but the trespassing issue might not have been.

I guess I am saying this video is a good example of police misrepresenting the law to intimidate someone (even if he is fairly polite about it), but it’s not as terrible as those cases we have seen where some cop goes bonkers; starts yelling, cussing, and grabbing cameras; then roughs up and arrests the videographer for wiretapping, resisting arrest, obstruction, etc.

I’d buy it for my android phone.

The voice over makes it very clear that the protests were what was being showcased. If they were on private property they should have been cited. You can bet damn sure if one of them had slipped and twisted their ankle, they would be suing the gun club.