By Carlos Miller
Albuquerque police officer Daniel Guzman “overstepped his boundaries” when arresting KOB videographer Rick Foley in May, stated KOB-TV in paraphrasing the judge.
Therefore, Judge Benjamin Chavez had no choice but to drop all charges against Foley.
Foley, a veteran videographer, was charged with disobeying a police officer after an arrest that was caught on video and viewed around the world on the Internet.
Now Guzman, who has been on paid administrative leave, will face a disciplinary hearing next week, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
Check out the video here.
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Fernandez, as I mentioned in a 
Guzman was out of line. He needs to calm down, maybe take some anger management courses. If nothing else, maybe the APD needs to have more senior officers baby sit the rookies like Guzman to make sure they know what they are doing.
i don’t understand why law breaking officers get paid vacations whenever they do something like this. if i beat the hell out of someone at my job I would be fired…IMMEDIATELY!
What can you say? The PO appears to have acted in a rash manner by arresting the photographer. However, the camerman did not get beat up, as far as we can tell from the video.
One question, though, is it so hard to put the sarcasm aside and simply follow what a PO says? The guy here felt compelled to respond sardonically to the officer with a: “Was that so hard?” Come on, you’re in the middle of a tense situation, the POs’ adrenaline is running, they’re covering a perimeter looking for a gunman and this guy feels the need to throw a couple of verbal jabs in and then follow it up with the classic atom bomb in the antagonization of a PO, “Can I have your badge number?”
Granted, the officer should have taken the high road and continue to walk away, but POs are human beings too. And just like the cameraman, the PO got angry and reacted.
Come on, there’s a big difference between fighting for basic rights and fighting for the right to antagonize POs.
I’d compare this to going up to a PO, giving him or her the finger, telling the PO to go f- him or herself, then getting mad when the PO walks over and cites you for spitting on the sidewalk or any other mundane, technical violation of the law.
A little common sense in these situations would go a long way.
mh,
I do agree that the videographer did not do himself any favors by pushing the cop’s buttons, but we do not know what occurred prior to that incident.
I’m thinking there was some type of verbal confrontation beforehand which caused Foley to ask for his badge number. Something deeper than the cop simply not telling him where to go because cops stonewalling reporters is an everyday occurrence and hardly grounds to demand a cop’s badge number.
It takes a lot of patience to be a good cop. People are always going to be testing you.
In this case, the cop should have simply given his name and badge number – even if he was fully aware that the reporter was trying to push his buttons.
And especially knowing that the reporter is filming him.
The cop was not only overly aggressive – for all he had to do was order him to put his hands behind his back – he was also stupid for acting that way in front of a news camera.
I remember photographing the Bush protest at Miami-Dade College and a group of youngsters marched by a Miami-Dade cop chanting “fuck the police!”.
Although that is protected speech, the cop could have probably arrested them for disorderly conduct or obscenity or whatever, but would that proved anything? Would that have even been worth the time?
No. And the cop knew that so he just ignored them.
Guzman should have done the same, if for anything, his own career.
Carlos,
I can’t say that I disagree with you. Better judgment should have been exercised on both sides.
Yeah, the photographer was definitely acting like a jerk. That doesn’t excuse what the cop did but it’s hard to believe that any of this would have happened if the photog had shown a little more “common courtesy”.