Man Arrested For Shooting Photo Of Police Activity

Paul J Gans writes:

While that is laudable, I want my rights back.

Where were you while they were being taken away?

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Mxsmanic schrieb:
HEMI - Powered writes:

But, I do know this: If you are accosted for doing something with
a camera of /any/ sort, cell phone, P & S, or sophisticated DSLR
where a legitimate law enforcment officer takes issue or even if
a private security guard take issue, your best course of action
is to immediately park your ego, stand down, get polite and very
contrite, and try to calm down the person accosting you. Absent
so really sincere humility, some amount of hassle will definitely
come your way, all the way to a police arrest for anything as
small as disturbing the peace, misdemeanor photography of a
police investigation, to felony obstruction of justice or a
believed attempt to contribute to the crime being investigated,
planning of a future crime, or the worst of all, the planning or
execution of a real or perceived terrorist attack.

In other words, throw all your rights out the window.
Er, not really. He didn't say that you should agree with the police
about the accusation, only that you are better off doing your part
in deescalating a nasty situation, particular in calming down a nervous,
possibly frightened and definitely tense police guy. They are people too,
even if they are uniformed.

Sorry, but
that's not how the United States was founded.
I think common sense was part of it. Trying to be a bully with the
law as a club is not common sense.

Lots of Greetings!
Volker


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Volker Hetzer writes:

Er, not really. He didn't say that you should agree with the police
about the accusation, only that you are better off doing your part
in deescalating a nasty situation, particular in calming down a nervous,
possibly frightened and definitely tense police guy. They are people too,
even if they are uniformed.

Is that how the United States won its independence?

I think common sense was part of it. Trying to be a bully with the
law as a club is not common sense.

All the more reason to object to it.

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Today, Mxsmanic made these interesting comments ...

HEMI - Powered writes:

But, I do know this: If you are accosted for doing something
with a camera of /any/ sort, cell phone, P & S, or
sophisticated DSLR where a legitimate law enforcment officer
takes issue or even if a private security guard take issue,
your best course of action is to immediately park your ego,
stand down, get polite and very contrite, and try to calm
down the person accosting you. Absent so really sincere
humility, some amount of hassle will definitely come your
way, all the way to a police arrest for anything as small as
disturbing the peace, misdemeanor photography of a police
investigation, to felony obstruction of justice or a believed
attempt to contribute to the crime being investigated,
planning of a future crime, or the worst of all, the planning
or execution of a real or perceived terrorist attack.

In other words, throw all your rights out the window. Sorry,
but that's not how the United States was founded.

Maybe not, but it is exactly how it works today. Best bone up on
the Patriot Act, among other things.

The latter is so ill-defined that it is difficult right now
to even talk about what does or does not constitute an
"attack" by a common citizen taking a picture with their cell
phone camera or saying something seemingly innocuos like
"gee, here's a good example of police brutality in
progress!". And, I wouldn't advise ya to yell "Big Brother!"
if you are in a similar situation.

What would you advise? Cowering under the bed?

So, as to whether it is or is not against the law to take
pictures of anything, including a police action, only a
qualified attorney can answer that, but likely, it will
become a matter for state or federal courts to decide and may
wind its way through the appellate court system all the way
to the Supreme Court, which really makes me wonder where the
Hell the ACLU has been during all of this over the last 4-5
years ...

The ACLU is trying very hard to protect civil liberties. But
with most of the population rolling over and throwing away its
freedoms just as you suggest above, it's an uphill battle.

The ACLU is a group of nutbags who want 12-year-old girls to be
able to have consentual sex and women to have an abortion in the
delivery room. Look, for example, at what Ruth Bader Ginsberg did
as Appellate Director, and thank God that hers is not the
majority view on today's Supreme Court.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Member, Chrysler Employee Motorsport Association (CEMA)
http://www.cemaclub.org/default.html

Mxsmanic wrote:
Bill Funk writes:

I don't see how there can be a law forbidding a person from taking a
picture of police activity in plain sight.

There is no such law.

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Which doesn't really mean much if the cops decide to beat you up, take
your camera and charge you with something if they want. They have a lot
of discretion, and are rarely held accountable unless it's a high
profile case or the victim is wealthy enough to afford to pursue it
through the courts.

Those who defend them and say they are usually "nice" are going based
on experience of seeing them on the street and saying "hi" or asking
directions, to which they usually reply politely and nicely. But I've
seen some of those seemingly polite ones get vicious over nothing at
all too many times. And I don't mean against me, if some of you are
thinking, "O yea, this guy gets smart with a cop and then complains
about how he was treated". The vast majority of my bad experiences with
the cops were as a third party, either present to see it, or based on a
accound of someone I knew to be reliable.

As far as taking pictures goes, I can relate an incident that happened
to my oldest son, Eric, a professional photographer, in 1997. He left
my house just before the Bronco's won the Superbowl, going into Lodo
near downtown Denver, to get some pix of the inevitable celebration
that would ensue when the Bronco's won. When the drunks hit the
streets, the cops were waiting. My son started taking pix from a safe
distance away, and was quickly surrounded by several cops, telling him
he couldn't take pictures there. Before he could even react, he was
knocked to the ground, his camera taken away. When he agreed to let
them expose the film he'd taken, they told him to get out and not come
back or he'd end up in jail for the night. He wisely left. He and I are
absolutely sure that if he had argued at all, he'd have been billy
clubbed and thrown in a police car, taken to jail and charged with
obstructing the police. Fortunately, now, he is a photographer for a
local paper and has some backing if they tried this again. But as a
free-lance photographer/citizen, his rights were meaningless if he
wasn't willing to end up in jail or the hospital and then hire an
expensive attorney to fight the case. And in the end, it would have
been his word against at least 3 cops!

Those of you who believe that most police are doing their jobs and
honor the rights of citizens are deceiving yourselves. The few that are
that way are often run out of the force by the more militant ones who
believe they are above the law and can do no wrong. They seldom, if
ever, see anything in shades of gray. They see "bad guys", the people
they are after, and "good guys", themselves. And believe that the end
justifies the means in the pursuit of the law. And many of them like to
get physical whenever they get the chance.

I hope those of you who claim they're mostly good guys never find
yourselves on the wrong side of the cops. You'll get an eye-opening
experience!

HEMI-Powered writes:

The ACLU is a group of nutbags who want 12-year-old girls to be
able to have consentual sex and women to have an abortion in the
delivery room.

The ACLU has an extremely consistent record of protecting personal
liberties in every form, even when that makes them unpopular. Very
few people are egalitarian and tolerant enough to do this
individually.

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salgud writes:

Which doesn't really mean much if the cops decide to beat you up, take
your camera and charge you with something if they want. They have a lot
of discretion, and are rarely held accountable unless it's a high
profile case or the victim is wealthy enough to afford to pursue it
through the courts.

If you're a-scared of them, then just be sure to salivate when they
ring the bell. But don't be surprised to discover that you have less
and less discretion to do anything on your own initiative.

As far as taking pictures goes, I can relate an incident that happened
to my oldest son, Eric, a professional photographer, in 1997. He left
my house just before the Bronco's won the Superbowl, going into Lodo
near downtown Denver, to get some pix of the inevitable celebration
that would ensue when the Bronco's won. When the drunks hit the
streets, the cops were waiting. My son started taking pix from a safe
distance away, and was quickly surrounded by several cops, telling him
he couldn't take pictures there. Before he could even react, he was
knocked to the ground, his camera taken away. When he agreed to let
them expose the film he'd taken, they told him to get out and not come
back or he'd end up in jail for the night. He wisely left. He and I are
absolutely sure that if he had argued at all, he'd have been billy
clubbed and thrown in a police car, taken to jail and charged with
obstructing the police. Fortunately, now, he is a photographer for a
local paper and has some backing if they tried this again. But as a
free-lance photographer/citizen, his rights were meaningless if he
wasn't willing to end up in jail or the hospital and then hire an
expensive attorney to fight the case. And in the end, it would have
been his word against at least 3 cops!

I guess he won't be winning any prizes for bravery. Fortunately,
there are photojournalists who are made of stronger stuff.

I hope those of you who claim they're mostly good guys never find
yourselves on the wrong side of the cops. You'll get an eye-opening
experience!

Especially if it's in a town filled with wimps who are afraid of their
own cops.

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Today, Mxsmanic made these interesting comments ...

HEMI-Powered writes:

The ACLU is a group of nutbags who want 12-year-old girls to
be able to have consentual sex and women to have an abortion
in the delivery room.

The ACLU has an extremely consistent record of protecting
personal liberties in every form, even when that makes them
unpopular. Very few people are egalitarian and tolerant
enough to do this individually.

That depends highly on your definition of "protecting personal
liberties in every form."

I pay almost zero attention to what they do because my reading of
the Bill of Rights and the other Amendments is quite a bit
different with how they spin it. You are obviously free - 1st
Amendment - to believe otherwise.

The easiest example I can think of, BTW, is that the 2nd
Amendment does /NOT/ guarantee anyone the right to strap a Dirty
Harry to their hip, or to buy an assault weapon - no matter what
Charlton Heston might like you to believe. To understand why this
is so, you have to read the /entire/ text, in 4 clauses, as well
as understand what a "militia" meant to the Framers, why they
didn't want the Feds stealing their muskets, and what it means
today - the militia is now known at state National Guards.

Another easy one: the 1st Amendment does /NOT/ allow a reporter
to withhold the identity of the source of a story. Thousands of
men and women go to Federal prison every year for failure to do
so, e.g., some woman who was found in contempt of Congress for
refusing to divulge a source and spent 86 days in the slammer,
only being released on condition she'd talk.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Member, Chrysler Employee Motorsport Association (CEMA)
http://www.cemaclub.org/default.html

Mxsmanic wrote:
Bill Funk writes:

I don't see how there can be a law forbidding a person from taking a
picture of police activity in plain sight.

There is no such law.

Correct. But it makes no difference.

It is hard to imagine being arrested for resisting
arrest when all you've done is complained that you've
done nothing, but it happens.

It is hard to imagine being at a police activity
site and being arrested for impeding an investigation,
but it happens.

And so on.

Of course you don't get convicted. But you lose time,
it costs you money, and it is a giant pain. And you
resolve *not* to get involved next time.

This is called "being a good citizen".

---- Paul J. Gans

Mxsmanic wrote:
HEMI - Powered writes:

And, the quick answer to that is, it doesn't matter. You are right,
it only matters what the law is, but in all likelihood, neither the
person making the search or the searchee knows the complete law as
applied in their particular instance and resisting will cause you
nothing but pain, sometimes literally.

So just throw your rights away?

No. What the individual does is to try to avoid such
situations in the first place.

What is needed is serious jail time for police who violate
your rights. *That* would change things.

Try and get a conviction. Ever sat on a Grand Jury. The
DA's need the cops and vice versa and while the ADA's will
bring the case to the jury, you are basically told by body
language and the choice of actual words that no idictment
is expected.

And if, as sometimes happens, the case actually comes to
trial, forget it. I can not remember a case in which a
cop was convicted of violating somebody's rights. Can any
one here remember such a case?

---- Paul J. Gans