TheAgitator.com
I’m Pretty Sure There Isn’t an Ap for That
Friday, July 30th, 2010Another arrest for shooting video of an on-duty cop, this time in Ohio.
When a deputy sheriff began questioning Melissa Greenfield’s boyfriend at a Delaware County truck stop, she began recording video with her cell phone.
She never thought that she, or her phone, could be viewed as a danger as she documented the activities of public employees in a public place.
“I’m a 115-pound, 20-year-old girl wearing a cervical collar with nothing but a cell phone. I was not going to harm any officer,” Greenfield said yesterday.
However, a sheriff’s sergeant saw the situation differently after Greenfield announced that she was recording video “for legal purposes and our own safety.”
Sgt. Jonathan Burke wrote that he repeatedly ordered Greenfield to place the “unknown” object in her pocket and keep her hands free. When Greenfield refused, she was arrested and charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
Burke wrote in his report that he feared that Greenfield could have been holding a dangerous object such as a “cell-phone gun”…
“Not knowing what the item in her hand was and having prior knowledge of all types of hidden weapons, including a cell-phone gun, I asked her several times to place it in her pocket and to keep her hands free,” Burke wrote.
Greenfield said that, while driving her to the jail, Burke said that it was “unacceptable for me to be filming his activities.”
“I wish I could be surprised,” she said, “but I’ve heard so many stories of incidents like this happening before. … There’s no law against videotaping police encounters.”
Emphasis mine, to draw attention to the utter inanity of Dep. Burke’s report.
Greenfield is right. There’s no law in Ohio against videotaping police encounters. Unfortunately, there’s also no punishment for cops who violate the rights of Ohioans who try to do it.Delaware County Sheriff Walter L. Davis III is defending Dep. Burke and his cell-phone gun fears.
Greenfield says when she got the phone back, the video had been erased. Davis denies any of his deputies erased the video. Must have been a glitch.
Greenfield spent three days in jail. She pled no contest to the obstructing official business charge and was fined $20.
Thank goodness she’s smart enough not the contest the charges. But shame on the justice system for giving such a perverse incentive to the innocent.
Why oh why do I ever read the comments on the links Radley posts? Am I that much of a masochist?
Andrew, it’s tough isn’t it?
Officers, I know they call it a photo shoot but they aren’t really gunning down the models, it’s just a term.
Shit like this makes me want to strap on a button cam with audio and wear it at all times.
Cops wonder why the public doesn’t respect them anymore.
I don’t.
Didn’t Maxwell Smart have a cellphone gun?
Do they have those cell phone guns at Cabela’s, because I want one!
“Must have been a glitch”–that is almost a Sopranos line.
Wow. That is one paranoid son of a bitch.
A million years ago, I worked as a security guard. One of the other guards always insisted whoever else was on duty ‘guard’ the bathroom (from the outside, of course.) if he needed to use it. He would insist that you wear his leather glove and carry his night stick while you did this.
You know, in case anyone tried to attack him.
I think I’ll just not leave the house at all today.
Ah yes. The comments. Here’s a gem:
See what this person is doing? Compartmentalizing and justifying the cop’s egregious behavior by ‘criminalizing’ the victim.
If I were a cop, I’d make every attractive woman I encounter take off her shirt and bra. After all, it could be one of those bra-guns like the FemBots in Austin Powers, right?
actually there is an app for that; it’s called Qik, and which does a live upload to their website/server, so this makes it counter-productive for an officer to erase the video off the phone, and then have the victim’s lawyer show the cop-tampered video evidence of the encounter from the website
I hope nobody ever invents an exploding drivers license.
Didn’t you guys hear? The CIA had a firesale and sold a bunch of cell phone guns on the black market (Amazon.com), now everyone has them! Don’t forget your rubber band edge protector to make sure you don’t lose reception or block the infrared targeting sensor. If you hold the phone the wrong way, it shoots wild and drops calls.
Alternatively, perhaps the deputy had watched a 007 movie the night before and was having flashbacks. Did he check her for explosive toothpaste?
Oh wait, that is the TSA. Wrong cops, my bad.
[...] us from not-yet-invented weapons of mass destruction like the cell-phone gun. Of course some, foolish skeptics who probably also believe that the flat earth was created 6,000 years ago, might say that Sergeant [...]
Cell phone gun? OMFG! Does the girl go to Q for her accessories? Shouldn’t that cop be in therapy somewhere?
I’m down with Andrew S. I must be some sort of masochist for reading this blog. You can’t even say, “That’s it. They’ve reached the veritable acme of asininity on this one.” because the very next report will be even more ludicrous.
I imagine the police just deleted the file using the phone’s interface. Very likely the data could be retrieved, if it hasn’t been written over yet.
This is what is wrong with our society these day. No one respects authority. When some in authority tells you to do something, just DO IT!!.
Tells you to move away from a crime scene, DO IT.
Tells you to get on your knees and bark like a dog, DO IT.
Tells you to invade another country on false pretense , DO IT.
Damn kids these days.
Next it will be “police officers shot the 3-old for what appeared to be a teddy bear gun”
“Cell phone gun?”
Pretty soon it will be deemed justifiable for cops to arrest and/or shoot anyone who is holding any object at all. Watch for the following headlines:
Officer in fatal shooting feared ‘pencil gun’
Officer in fatal shooting feared ‘keychain gun’
Officer in fatal shooting feared ‘wedding ring gun’
Maybe we can carry ‘Gun-guns’ and throw them a little bit.
Hiding in plain sight etc etc.
‘cell phone gun’… this is why they need to have ‘internal investigations’- the idiots can’t come up with anything better than ‘cell phone gun’ on the spur of the moment by themselves.
The K.G.B. did have a gun hidden in a camara.It was a .22 with a two inch barrel.Their agents posed as reporters.Eve a gun that smal would not fit in a cell phone.Maybe the cop saw it on C.S.I.
I’m like 3 steps more pissed than the rest of you seem to be. This officer clearly filed a false police report when he claimed that he feared she might have a cell phone gun. That doesn’t even pass the giggle test. That should be a felony right there. Instead, the asshole prosecutor pursues the case against her? And nobody bothers to investigate the destruction of evidence? What the fuck, man!?
I know it is a tiny case and she’ll be able to wipe it all away eventually with the NOLO, but still… what the fuck do we pay these people for if they aren’t going to use their brains at all and aren’t going to uphold the law in even a cursory way. This tiny little irrelevant case is every bit as outrageous as the innocence project cases, except that the consequences for her are relatively trivial.
Ultimately though, we have the same thing – trumped up charges against an innocent person, perjury by officers, destruction of evidence after collection…. both the perjury and the destruction of evidence are felony charges. Heck, this could even be worse for what it reveals about the police. This guy (and possibly with his buddies help) was willing to risk multiple felonies just because he was pissed that someone dared to document his behavior. The fact that he was so confident that he could get away with it is pretty scary. The fact that his confidence was clearly not misplaced is even more scary.
Well said, Cyto.
Yep, as I said earlier, Cyto, until there are actual consequences for bad behavior, the cops will continue as before.
I recommend everyone read the Economist article on US prisons (mentioned by Radley), which also attacks the number of ridiculous laws and how they are open to abuse by prosecutors.
Okay, Radley. I’m putting your email address in my new smartphone’s contacts for just this sort of occasion.
So if you get an email from omgthefuckingpigsarearestingme@gmail.com, don’t delete it mate – I’ll need the help of your agitatortots.
Cheers.
On further consideration, those walking the thin blue line might want to adopt this strategy of claiming “having prior knowledge of all types of hidden weapons, including a cell-phone gun” in all cases.
I realize that Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss were acquitted, but they could have saved themselves so much trouble by claiming “wallet gun”.
(and yes, I had to google the names of the officers in the Amadou Diallo case)
Wait. He claims that she might have had a gun and then told her to put it back in her pocket?
Also, how come the prosecutor’s name isn’t mentioned in the article? He certainly deserves to have his name associated with this bullshit case for the rest of eternity, although I would be satisfied if he merely had the term “dumb shit” tattooed on his forehead and wasn’t allowed to live within a thousand feet of any place where normal people congregate.
Give no Quarter, EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They fer sure won’t give you one!
citizen arrest them, lock their asses up, beat the shit outta them. Tape it. Beat them again, send em back to the streets nakid as well.
Thanks for the Friday nut-punch, RB.
“Burke wrote in his report that he feared that Greenfield could have been holding a dangerous object such as a “cell-phone gun”…”
Me thinks officer Burke should cut down on watching 007 movies and start faimiarizing himself with the laws he’s supposed to enforce.
The next time a cop stops me, I’m going to immediately shove my hands in my pocket, since that is apparently the best way to disarm a subject. Since I don’t want to be harmed by the officer, I’ll go ahead and disarm myself, to avoid any possible perception of me as a threat. With my hands safe and secure in my pocket, I’m sure the cop will calmly lower his gun.
…famous last words…
I’m pretty sure I saw a cop the other day who was talking on what I’m pretty sure might have been a cell phone gun. He also had what might have been a donut grenade, and possibly a laser shooting mustache. In any case, I was fearful of him because of all the spy gadget he might have had.
That and his taser and real gun.
I guess that transit cop in Oakland shot the kid with his gun camera.
‘donut grenade’ is just fun to say!
Cell-phone gun…that’s a new one..adorable really..
Good to know that when/if a revolutionary, SHTF type situation arises we’re going to be up against complete fucking pussies.
The other travesty this incident highlights is how the justice system is so completely broken. First, the prosecutor pursues charges. But then Melissa pretty much had to plead guilty (yeah, it was a nolo, but in this case the effect is the same). Her alternative was to spend thousands in attorney fees to get a proper defense in a case that any jury would probably toss. Yet, the system is stacked. Even to have a jury trial, one has to pay for the jury (unless acquitted).
Sure, the indigent can get public defenders (all to often too busy to do anything useful, and certainly not in this sort of “minor” case), but most of us are stuck with the choice between a misdemeanor conviction (and fines and possible jail) or outlaying a big chunk of money.
And the only other alternative is going pro se, but it takes a special sort of person to do that. I have a friend who has beaten a DUI and 3 criminal trespass charges simply because he fought back pro se. Once the cases got to trial, the prosecutor would try to plea bargain them down to disorderly conduct, anything to get a conviction and a notch in their gun. But my friend knew the charges lacked the proper elements of the crime. In one case, the charges were dropped before even getting to the courtroom. In another, they were dropped in the courtroom seconds before the trial was to begin (the prosecutor suddenly realized she could not prove her case). And in the third, after the prosecutor presented her case, my friend filed a motion for acquittal that was accepted by the judge.
I myself highlighted an illegal sentence that was imposed on my son (brake failure resulting in a low speed rear-ender). I had to pursue it to an appeals court before the judge realized he had no authority to impose traffic school (and the costs thereof) for that sort of traffic accident. They’d been doing this for years before somebody finally challenged them on it.
If these few cases are any indication, most low-level convictions (or nolos) would not survive trial. The whole “justice” system is just a big meat grinder, and as soon as you get into it, all you have are bad alternatives.
SJE has it right. So long as there are no consequences to the police when they tamper with evidence, harass/threaten people legally recording their actions, etc., some fraction of cops will keep doing those things. Technical fixes to make the tampering harder are of some value, but only some, because producing evidence that contradicts the official version of the story, while it may get your case dismissed or win you a lawsuit, won’t actually lead to the policemen who tampered with evidence or unlawfully arrested photographers going to jail or ending their law-enforcement careers.
This works the same way as any other law against hard-to-detect crime. If getting caught cooking the books and embezzling money from your employer almost never resulted in any serious consequences other than maybe having to find a different bookkeeper’s job, there would be a hell of a lot more embezzlement happening. Deterrence really matters for that kind of crime.
When this will change is when policemen who are caught tampering with evidence or threatening witnesses or lying on the witness stand overwhelmingly suffer some serious consequence–something on the order of never again being able to work in law enforcement and maybe doing some time in prison.
If that doesn’t happen, the way information is now able to spread, we’ll see something different. Lots of solid citizens now have it in our minds that the police sometimes lie on the witness stand, coerce confessions, plant or tamper with evidence, and smack around or arrest people who annoy them. If I ever get called for jury duty, that will all be in my mind, and it will be somewhat harder for me to be convinced by evidence I know may have been planted or tampered with, by people who can do so with little risk of serious consequences. One consequence of that is that I’m less likely to vote to convict someone who really is guilty, because I don’t trust the police testimony or evidence.
Aren’t these people the same ones who ask ‘if you’re not hiding anything you shouldn’t mind giving consent to search?
Yes there is such a thing as a cell phone gun. However if the officer thought it was one he should be fired for telling her to put in into her pocket. If someone had a gun pointed at an officer do you think they would have told them to place it in their pocket or on the ground? Assuming they just wouldn’t have shot them of course.
So yes he was lying.
No contest? She should have pleaded not guilty and demanded a jury trial. That’s why so much of this crap continues, the victims won’t take it to trial and get a real judgement.