Last month a federal judge awarded $35,000 in compensatory and $6000 in punitive damages to a man state troopers arrested for video taping them. The ruling finds violations of the plaintiff's first and fourth amendment rights.
cops have to pay $41k for stopping man from videoing them
A rare instance of good news!
Tags: big brother
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5 Responses:
So maybe these guys have a case:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/oaklandca/52539.html
(or would, if they'd gotten busted for taking the pictures)
I've seen a lot of videos of cops saying "turn off that video camera - by taping us you are interfering with a police investigation". I've always wondered how anyone off to the side, passively observing, could be "interfering". I guess they're not.
You've obviously not been reading up on your Heisenberg
That is so wrong, don't they know this is the USA? You can't go around filming cops here. That judge should be hanged.
It is fundamental that persons such as Robinson may not be deprived of their
constitutional rights simply because they are unpopular or disliked or are resented by the police. The defendants must be punished and deterred from similar misconduct in the future.
The problem there is that in the judge's mind, "persons such as Robinson," is limited to god-fearing gainfully-employed wife-protecting state-representative-calling property-permission-gaining types, and not just anyone with a videocamera. I'd bet that most of the people who have a genuine gripe about the police won't usually meet the "persons such as Robinson" standard with the average judge.
However, this is a great case and the country would be a better place if just a few police see it. I hope the police union magazines run it.