By Carlos Miller
When are police going to learn that they have absolutely no right to confiscate cameras as evidence just because someone filmed them making an arrest?
In this particular case, the camera was used as evidence. Check out the video here.
Against one of the cops who was caught violently shaking a teenage girl as she sat on the street. He has now been placed on paid administrative leave.
The incident occurred February 16 in Lafayette, Louisiana during a Mardi Gras celebration. Police began arresting a large group of teenagers for what appears to have been fighting.
One girl, who had been plopped down on the street, began mouthing off to another girl, prompting one of the officers to shake her violently at 1:26 in the video. The rest of the cops, of course, just looked on non-chalantly.
The man with the iPhone kept filming as the cops made more arrests. At one point, a teen who had not been arrested starts talking trash to the officers, prompting the videographer to tell the teen to shut his mouth.
“Don’t say that to them,” the videographer says at 3:07, sounding older and wiser than the teens.
But the man continued following the cops as they lead the teens away, never taking the camera off them.
At 4:30 into the video, one of the cops threatens to take his camera as evidence of the arrest, but the man tells him he did not film the fight, only the arrests, which seemed to satisfy the cop, who then walked away.
“I got a video of someone tackling a little girl,” the man then told the cops.
And that prompted one cop to walk up to him and threaten him with creating a disturbance. And another cop walked up and demanded the phone.
But the man held his ground.
“You can’t take my phone,” he would repeatedly say before the video cuts out.
Apparently they never did take his phone because the man uploaded the video to CNN’s ireport.
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14 responses so far ↓
1 genewitch // Feb 23, 2010 at 5:20 AM
Wow, I don’t remember the cops being that bad in Louisiana.
The cop at the end that tried to grab the camera, that was hilarious. He needs a court order because the device wasn’t used during the commission of a crime. we have LAWS for that. Thank god the guy filming knew enough to say “no”… i just hope he wasn’t arrested.
2 genewitch // Feb 23, 2010 at 5:20 AM
carlos, also, is there a way to turn of auto-play? It’s probably the most annoying thing ever :-/
3 mike // Feb 23, 2010 at 5:43 AM
I don’t have an iphone, so this might already exist, but if a (the) youtube app would let you instantly upload to your youtube account (like recording through a webcam) it would create an instant backup online in case a rather contempted cop decided to delete the footage. good thing the camera man here knew his rights ahead of time.
4 torgeaux // Feb 23, 2010 at 8:21 AM
Interesting. There were some instances of over-reaction by police (the idiot who is currently on PAID administrative leave shaking and shouting at the girl). But, no one tried to stop the taping, the one cop who asked if he had video of the fight didn’t demand to see the video, and was appropriately unconcerned that the video was of the arrests.
Even the bald guy threatening was calm and professional until the videographer was pretty deliberately provocative. Why shout that he has video of someone “tackling that girl?”
I’m curious about how the subsequent attempted seizure went down. Did they seize it and give it back? Just not take it? Supervisor get involved. There’s more to this story.
But, this was one cop saying he was going to confiscate (illegal), one cop shouting (ok) and shaking (probably not) a suspect who was continuing to incite violence, and maybe a different cop who tries to confiscate the video at the end. I expected much worse police behavior regarding the photography…but the fact that no one attempted to interfere is a step in the right direction. I’d really, really like to know what happens when the video cuts off.
5 torgeaux // Feb 23, 2010 at 8:44 AM
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20100223/NEWS01/2230319/Arrest-video-leads-to-probe
Not much additional info there. But, it makes sense why he’s on paid leave…they’re just now investigating. Given the incident, I suspect he’ll get a note in his file, if he hasn’t gotten a lot of other such notes. I’m real curious about what they’ll say about the attempt to seize the video.
6 KBCraig // Feb 23, 2010 at 9:50 AM
Mike, the technology you’re looking for (live streaming and instant uploads to a server) is found at qik.com
It’s strongly suggested for video activists, because it makes it impossible for footage to be deleated — they can take it off your phone, but it will still be on the server.
Also, I’m no fan of “diversity” for its own sake, but I find it curious that in a city that is 29% black, we see 100% white officers in this video.
7 Carlos Miller // Feb 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Genewitch,
I agree that it is very annoying but I haven’t figured out how to turn it off.
Maybe somebody has an idea.
8 nick // Feb 23, 2010 at 11:44 AM
gentewich-NoScript extension for your browser(FireFox or Chrome) won’t let anything do anything without your say so.
9 xdamousex // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:41 PM
A reader claiming to be the guy who took the original video provides some additional context in the comment section:
“Greetings,
I am the person who took the video… I live in Houston. the incident was what appeared to be a fight but more of a yelling match…. I witnessed a police officer, the shaker, sprint a block and aggressively tackle this little girl in the middle of the street…. this is what prompted me to start my video…. the part that shocked me was the Lafayette Police attempt to arrest me. I was assaulted by Lafayette police who struggled to take my phone ( 32 gig ) in video the real struggle starts when I lock my grip on phone and it deactivated … I was threatened repeatedly with arrest. Strangely, the police asked me what I was doing in Lafayette… I told then I was a tourist and desperately needed my phone and refused to give it up…. i was then told by these cops to leave Lafayette…. this has destroyed my perception of Lafayette as a safe city to have fun… and I will continue to discourage people from going there for any reason.”
10 Bentor Tazenda // Feb 24, 2010 at 12:36 AM
I think a good workaround would be to demand some sort of payment from the cops. If they just want to see the video, demand they give you cash, say $150.oo, or what ever they can muster. If they won’t pay your price… well, then… ya’ know…
11 Jody // Feb 24, 2010 at 1:40 AM
I don’t remember the cops being that nice in Louisiana, hahaha! Seriously, if the camera guy had just kept his mouth shut and not said the comment about how he has video of them tackling a girl that would have been it. I was shocked when the one cop asked if he had video of the fight, he said no, then the cop left, why the hell he kept beaking off puzzles me. I’m not trying to apology for the cops lack of constitutional knowledge. I am still in shock they were that nice and didn’t taze him, it was in Louisiana after all, not exactly known as a hotbed of white cop/black citizen harmony.
Jody´s last blog ..The Snitch in Your Pocket
12 Anon // Feb 24, 2010 at 4:02 AM
The man taking the video obviously felt the cops were wrong in the way they handled the alleged fight and that was his way of letting them know. He didn’t break a law nor was he “creating a disturbance.” Funny how the cop was going to walk away (and had walked away) until the man commented on the arrest… then it was time to play the cops favorite game of “cover your ass”. I’m sure if the man had just handed over the phone and picked it up later at the department, all footage would have been deleted. How many times has that happened? Especially when it shows police acting in a questionable manner.
13 Rob Molecule // Feb 24, 2010 at 9:55 AM
That’s what I use. It just shows a blank square that only plays if I click on it. It’s a good idea to have anyway to avoid sites using malicious script.
14 Benjazen // Jun 28, 2010 at 2:57 PM
don’t know if you saw this:
http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns
I didn’t comb your site but didn’t see this article and thought you would want to see it if you hadn’t
Do you know about Witness.org ?
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