Photography is Not a Crime, Right?

[XLFD]

On July 19, 2009, a traffic stop occurred on Lakeshore Drive just outside of Stearn's Park.  The driver was being field tested for possible drunk driving, when her son got out of the car and began filming the events with his I-Phone.  One of the two officers present allegedly slapped his hand to preclude further filming.  The son later got his I-phone out once again while walking away to record events after two more police arrived at the scene and told him he had to leave. 

When he put his phone in his pockets and turned his back to the assembled policemen, he was summarily tackled by the policemen (current county deputies Davila, Wilson, and Warmuskerken) tasered, and arrested for some crime that was not readily evident.  For fair measure, they did the same at the hospital too when he was handcuffed to the bed and causing no problems.  Sometime during this, the policemen seized his phone and allegedly erased its contents.

After seemingly being maliciously prosecuted for being tackled and tasered without the hint of breaking any laws, one must wonder whether the police officers had thought his taking his I-Phone out to record the events unfolding was a criminal act.  It isn't, as a Jackson citizen described in the story below attests to, and is backed by a Cooley Law School professor.

 

 

On April 28, 2013, a City of Jackson cop ripped a camera out of a man’s hands, threw it on the ground and handcuffed him after the man refused to hand the camera over as “evidence.”

 

But Brandon Vreeland was under no obligation to hand his camera over because all he was doing was video recording a traffic stop from about 100 feet away. After he handcuffed him, Jackson City Police Sergeant Timothy Hibbard forced Vreeland to remain standing for an hour before he issued him a citation for obstructing, resisting and opposing.

He then took the memory card out of the camera and pocketed it before handing the camera back to Vreeland. But by then, the Canon Sureshot was damaged.

The following day, Vreeland drove down to the Jackson City Police Department and met with the police chief and a lieutenant who both watched the video.

“When they saw the video, their faces went stone-cold and they apologized and said the charges would be rescinded,” Vreeland said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Tuesday night.

They not only returned his memory card, but they gave him money to purchase a new camera and assured him the incident would be investigated by internal affairs, which is practically unheard of in other departments.

But Vreeland wants more than that, which is why today he plans to file a complaint against Hibbard with the Michigan State Police.

"Badges don't grant extra rights, police are not afforded extra rights just because of the badges they wear,"

“If I had done that to him on the street, I would still be in jail,” he said.

Did  Vreeland break the law when he refused to show the footage? Cooley Law  School Professor Charles Palmer says the police officer does have a  right to seize the video if it contains evidence of a crime. "It's hard to see how he was seizing evidence because you can't see any crime in the video," said Prof. Palmer.

Read more at:  http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2013/05/01/michigan-cop-rips-came... and http://www.fox47news.com/news/topstories/206095321.html

Policemen doing their job according to their oath of office should welcome the presence of citizens filming their actions as long as they do it at a safe distance.  But many don't, many take the same route that this last rogue cop who took someone's camera and destroyed it, took his property, detained and arrested him for bogus charges of obstructing the officer.   If the Jackson Chief of Police was looking out for the people first instead of his lawbreaking officers, Sergeant Hibbard would be out of a job and facing criminal charges. 

 

But this isn't the first time or the first officer that Vreeland has vexed by his shutterbuggery, as the video below sees him being threatened with loitering if he persists in filming:

[easymoney]

It's really a shame that along with a badge, comes an ego and god complex.

If you really want to protect yourself, become very familiar with your rights as a citizen. People don't seem to realize that not standing up for your constitusional rights, you'll very quickly lose them.

When I was a kid, police were some one you respected, not feared.

[XLFD]

Back when you were a kid, I bet most police officers understood those rights better than many do now.  You can stand up for them now, but many police officers just don't get it.  They do things to you that you wouldn't even think of doing to them (or any other person for that matter). 

But there are a whole heck of a lot more laws nowadays so maybe they just have a harder time figuring out what the most important ones are.  Which don't happen to be laws at all, but well established rights guaranteed everyone, even police officers, over 220 years ago.  One of the police officer's primary duties is to preserve those rights, but they get sidetracked by secondary issues sometimes.  

[Willy]

I've always heard stories about how mean cops were. They would almost torture suspects in order to get a confession prior to the Miranda warning case of 1966. Minorities certainly have a different point of view than whites when it comes to police action in the Cities.

[XLFD]

In any population of employees/officials, you'll have a portion that are bad representatives of that group, and that is just as true today than yesterday.  The ideal method of limiting the percentages is to get rid of the bad ones by firing them when they screw up.  A major thing that unions, particularly public service unions, have done is to make the mechanism for getting rid of bad ones almost impossible. 

This is why incredibly inept teachers are allowed to continue "teaching", why bureaucrats that do nothing other than create meaningless paperwork continue on, and why police officers that have been sued successfully three times for police brutality/excessive force on seven innocent individuals to the expense of all, thrive and continue their destructive ways to the detriment of society. 

Yet our fellow citizens can make a civil, true on-line reference to a local official, and find themselves without a job and a target of unconstitutional legislation.  We are all minorities now when it comes to our treatment.

[Willy]

Well stated X