By Carlos Miller
Andrew Cichowski was taking a picture of a barbed wire fence in a San Jose, California train station when police came up from behind him and issued the following order.
“TURN AROUND SLOWY!”
Armed with nothing but a Canon 5D Mark II, Cichowski did as he was told and encountered two police officers glaring at him, according to his blog post.
Before it was over, a third and fourth officer pulled up to the scene.
They demanded his driver license, student identification, social security number and license plate number (even though his car was nowhere around).
Then they took two photographs of him for their files even though they had already acknowledged he was not breaking the law.
And they also copied the entire contents of his compact flash card on their laptop as well as two flash drives.
In an email interview with Photography is Not a Crime, Cichowski said he agreed to allow them to copy his memory card because he wanted it to go on the record that his photographs were not criminally incriminating.
However, police had already violated his rights by detaining him for more than an hour when there was no probable cause to do so.
Allowing them to copy the contents of his memory card is the equivalent of allowing them to search your home without a warrant.
We must remember that in this country, we are supposedly innocent until proven guilty.
Not the other way around.
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Fernandez, as I mentioned in a 
And now he is on government shitlist for the rest of his life.
He’ll be on their shitlist either way, so might as well go on there with a big fuck you by refusing to hand over his memory cards.
Yeah I’m with you on that. However many people are afraid to stand up to abuse which is sad. Once they got your name it can cause trouble decades later.
I would have respectfully told them to shove it up their asses. Seriously, when the fuck are people going to stop bending over for bullshit? And when will LE realize that a camera doesn’t make you a criminal or a terrorist?
What Andrew might not realize here is that when they became all chummy with him, they weren’t. They were trying to socially engineer him into incriminating himself in something.
Social security number? Fuck you, officer. And California does NOT have a stop and ID law.
Andrew, if you’re reading this, I strongly urge you to file a formal complaint with SJPD. They intimidated you into giving up your rights — possibly illegally.
Just because a state has a Stop and ID law does not mean you have to produce papers. It simply means you must tell your name, possibly your geographical info.
Some states such as New York have Stop and ID laws the officer can demand you give ID (name, not papers), but does not require that the information be given.
I assuming he is a young student so he gets a pass, if he files a complaint. This is a good lesson for him to learn from. However his actions just emboldened those officers to continuing their bullying.
Never ever ever let them search you without a warrant. Those are your rights you give away. They are not your friends. This is getting stupid.
This seems more like an exercise in cops seeing how much they can get away with than doing anything about any possible or imaginary crime.
According to the blog post, the cops couldn’t even copy the memory card to their laptop without help. Clearly they’re highly trained in this form of “evidence gathering.”
Pretty nasty looking fence, I wouldn’t want it photographed either……
Mark H
“Before it was over, a third and fourth officer pulled up to the scene.”
I like this whole Wolf Pack method.
As if two idiot cops can’t annoy or harass
one student, innocently taking a picture, effectively. If it goes to court they can
distort the truth better with 4 goons.
San Jose police are notorious for harassing photographers. I’m the one responsible for this, as I have been arrested several times for taking pictures of SJPD vehicles illegally parked – especially at the police station. It started when I noticed a SJPD car in a handicapped spot – right in front of the chief’s window. Since then, all I have to do is show up and take a few pictures – wham, I’m arrested.
I moved away 6 years ago, but the problem persists. I am interested in doing a “sting” if someone in San Jose area wants to video me while I take pictures and get arrested, post the video before the cops release me, it would make it all worthwhile!
BTW – the San Jose City Council (I call them the “Shitty Council”) knows all about this, but refuses to order the cops to obey the law.
I’d be with you on that sting but I’m on the other side of the globe. You could split the settlement money 50/50
Doesn’t their (un)patriot act make it terrorism to coerce or intimidate a civilian populace? Just sayin’…
Normally it would but these days laws don’t apply to law enforcers.
I see the same thing that is happening in the UK is now slowly working their way over here, just one more thing that 911 took from us..
It’s a shame he gave consent.
A copyright infringement suit might have put some interesting spin on the seizure of his intellectual property
East Germany
“No officer, I do not consent to any searches.”
Which is worse, refusing to be searched and having your frickin’ memory cards copied by cops, and risk going to jail because of your refusal? Or to cave in and give them whatever they want?
Worse is caving in and confirming the police’s belief that we do not have a Constitution and Bill of Rights
Besides a 6 to 7 figure payday after a false arrest sounds pretty good to me.
Some of you are being too hard on this kid because you’re more versed in pig behavior and would’ve seen this coming a mile away. Don’t underestimate the mind fuck of being surrounded, falsely accused and treated like a criminal, all with only a seconds notice. This kid responded like any honest person with nothing to hide would. He cooperated, thus proving to them (and now to himself) that he’s a good person.
With the only other option being thrown in jail, stripped searched, and having false charges lobbed against him, I can’t say he made the wrong choice. He does needs to contact a lawyer though, the fact that he wasn’t arrested can only help his case.
In theory, it might have been better had Mr. Cichowski stood his ground. He could have asked, “Am I free to go?”; assuming the answer was no, he might have followed with, “What sort of crime do you think I might be involved in?” The answer to the second question would have been interesting, though it probably would have been something evasive like, “We’re investigating a report of someone photographing the train station.” The cops probably would have soon followed with a request for ID, to which Mr. Cichowski could have responded with “Why?” or simply declined to comply. Even if there were grounds for detention, California doesn’t require a person detained to identify himself, though the SJPD might rely on a couple of aberrant court decisions (one in San Jose) as justifying such a demand. So it’s hard to say what might have resulted had Mr. Cichowski not cooperated.
So I agree with Florida that it’s unfair to be to harsh on someone who had no reason to be familiar with laws he wasn’t breaking, and had only seconds to make a decision while being stared down by People with Guns, right after an implied threat to use them. I’m not sure what I would have done myself.
It can’t hurt to speak with a lawyer, but I doubt there is much of a case. The police would almost certainly claim that Mr. Cichowski’s responses were voluntary, and a court would probably agree, so there would be no cause of action. It’s not right, but it is as it is.
Here’s a useful link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes#States_with_.E2.80.9Cstop_and_identify.E2.80.9D_statutes
Thanks goldfish. I’m thinking it wouldn’t hurt to carry a printout of that if your state’s not on the list.
Jeff~ It sounds like he voluntarily cooperated during his illegal detainment. Do we have any lawyers on board who can offer an opinion as to whether or not he has a case? Also why did the cops ask for his social? I thought they already had access to that once you give them your name. Does anyone know if police databases list our s.s. numbers?
Sara, because Mr. Cichowski’s responses were “voluntary,” he wasn’t detained. Usually, the only way to really find out is to ask, “Am I free to go?” One of the sad facts about claiming one’s rights is the need to stick one’s neck out, sometimes risking arrest for perfectly legal behavior.
Mr. Cichowski should be the one to see an attorney; many will offer a 30-minute consultation for free. Getting one’s name in a database from which it may never be removed, all for perfectly legal behavior, is one of the problems with identifying oneself to police, as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals mentioned in Lawson v. Kolender (the Supremes did not address the Fourth Amendment issue when they upheld this decision in Kolender v. Lawson). As Carlos mentioned, Mr. Cichowski was probably screwed in either event, but it might have been interesting to see if the cops would actually have arrested him (at least for those of us on the sidelines …).
Be assured that I fully support legitimate law enforcement; unfortunately, “stop and identify” laws lend themselves to abuse, much like laws for “resisting or obstructing an officer.” The San Jose Mercury News have written a series of articles about arrests for the latter by the SJPD.
I would caution anyone looking at the Wikipedia article to carefully read the entire article, because it’s more complicated than just a list of states with “stop and identify” laws. The situation in California is a good example, and it’s discussed in some detail. Even though the consensus is that a person other than the driver of a vehicle is not required to identify herself to a cop, there are some (such as the Alameda County DA’s office, linked in the article) who disagree.