As a news photog I say “Thank you, you got it right.”
99%+ of officers & their deeds are above question, the few who are in error make it impossible for everyone involved.
You have a right to take video or still pictures provided you do not hinder the investigation. ‘Because I say so’ does not count as hindering.
Really anything a public official of any sort does should pass the test of public scrutiny. If it doesn’t, there’s a good change they are in the wrong. And I say that knowing full well a suspect who runs or fights is going to get the crap kicked out of him / her. That is to be expected.
It’s the other stuff, the abuse of authority behavior that needs to be curbed.
ICE was on our property once; they were arresting and deporting our tenant who had claimed political asylum, but not followed thru on the necessary paperwork. Men in brown jackets that said ICE on them all around the perimeter. They told us to go back in the house. There were a lot of them, we did.
Im really not getting the whole obnoxious defiant posturing of “you can’t make me”. If you truly dont have other important things in your life to do besides gawking at others, go inside and gawk from your window.
Why make their job more stressful or risky than it is. If you want to assist so badly, go join the police academy.
Some of my neighbors and I (we lived in a big apartment building) watched a riot from outside the entrance door to our building. Some cops came along and saw pretty much immediately that we weren’t involved, and tried to convince us to go inside, but it was all WAYYY too interesting. I was drinking out of a soda bottle and one of the cops snatched it out of my hand and sniffed it, presumably to find out whether I’d mixed in some alcohol, but I hadn’t. Anyway, they moved on after giving us nothing more than strong suggestions for our own safety.
There was a point where a couple of guys broke into a drug store directly across the street from us, and we could see they were trying to start a fire inside. That’s when one guy suggested we should all go over there and defend the place. Everyone else started laughing at that one. Then the same guy suggested we go find a cop who would stop it, and we had a good laugh about that one too. There were hundreds of people out smashing storefront windows and looting, and they burned a couple of cop cars, and none of us wanted to mix into the mob looking for a cop.
I think the cops we encountered were unusually well trained, or were on a very tight leash that night, under orders not to make unnecessary arrests or use excessive force. I think they didn’t order us inside because they knew they couldn’t order us inside.
I think it’s more a matter of defining what and what isn’t legal for cops to do to a person who’s not breaking the law. I’m not going to get pushed around by cops just because they have a badge- if they want to search my vehicle, they’d better have a warrant, and if they want me to stop doing whatever it is that I’m doing that’s not breaking the law, they’d better have a damn good reason that doesn’t encompass “We don’t want you watching what we do to this guy.”
If they’re on the up-and-up, they have nothing to worry about me not interfering, but watching, taking pictures, etc… If not, then I’m doing a good thing by not intervering, and observing and taking pictures, etc…
Ultimately there’s no good reason that I should have to go inside except in the case of shooting or other projectile violence.
Somewhat similarly, I was in a pizza place in LA two years ago when there was a riot and the police told us if we left we’d be arrested. After about an hour most people escaped through the back door, but we waited till everything had calmed down - still a couple hundred cops around - and left by the front door. Could we really have been arrested?
He has no right to order you back in your house, that does not mean he would not though, but a complaint against him is all you could do, unless force or such were used.
No, you are not obligated. The 1st AM protects freedom of movement, and the 4th prohibits him from taking action against you if you do not go back in.
You have a right to watch, period, any such charge, as an example, Ohio, would not stand, and it would be false arrest if arrested for failure to comply.
2921.31 Obstructing official business.
(A) No person, without privilege to do so and with purpose to prevent, obstruct, or delay the performance by a public official of any authorized act within the public official’s official capacity, shall do any act that hampers or impedes a public official in the performance of the public official’s lawful duties.
There is a supreme court decision, forget it now, but have it in my notes, that a criminal defendant who is charged with a law that is so vague that a “reasonably prudent person” (or words of similar import) would not know he is breaking the law, can not be covicted, of course, that needs court testimony from the DF
I knew it had something to do with loitering, and found it, quoting from Chicago v. Morales (1999);
..Lack of clarity in the description of the loiterer’s duty to obey a dispersal order might not render the ordinance unconstitutionally vague if the definition of the forbidden conduct were clear, but it does buttress our conclusion that the entire ordinance fails to give the ordinary citizen adequate notice of what is forbidden and what is permitted. …
I checked my notes and, I cited the wrong case I had in mind, this is it;
…We reverse the judgment against Palmer because the ordinance is so vague and lacking in ascertainable standards of guilt that, as applied to Palmer, it failed to give “a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden. . . .” United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 347 U. S. 617 (1954)…
“SciFiSam - - Somewhat similarly, I was in a pizza place in LA two years ago when there was a riot and the police told us if we left we’d be arrested. After about an hour most people escaped through the back door, but we waited till everything had calmed down - still a couple hundred cops around - and left by the front door. Could we really have been arrested?”
Are you sure the cops didn’t want you to stay there in case they got hungry while riot fighting and wanted to duck in for a quick slice?
The police can order you to do anything they want.
You can refuse to obey their orders.
They can arrest you and take you to jail.
You can hire a lawyer to have the charges dropped and your arrest record expunged.
Personally, I’d probably just take the easy way out and watch from my front room.
A few years ago, before 9/11, I returned from work to see a swat team sneaking around the house two doors down from my house. There was a police car blocking my driveway. A cop gestured at me to get the hell out of there.
I rolled down my window, waved the cop toward me, and when he got close enough to speak with without raising my voice said: “You’re blocking my driveway.” He rolled his eyes, gestured me to back up a little and moved his car. I parked in my driveway and went into the house.
After changing out of my work clothes, I went out the back door and watched for awhile and then went back inside.
It turned out my neighbor was gone for the weekend and his teenage son Joe had a drinking, coke snorting, and poker party. Joe lost a lot of money at poker. He also freaked out because his girlfriend, finding out that he had a party and didn’t tell her about it, threatened to break up with him. He had grabbed a shotgun, loaded it, and was threatening to shoot himself if she broke up with him.
Idiot.
Oh - the cops talked Joe into giving up the gun and noone was hurt.
It’s true. I’m a local anchor now but used to be a reporter. There were plenty of times where my photog and I were on public property, very far from a scene and police for whatever reason walked 1/2 a mile up the road to push us back.
I watched a video today in which a photog and reporter got the permission of a private landowner to be in their yard to do a live shot near a crime scene. The cop, on live television, put her hand over the lens and was screaming at them both to leave. Is she allowed to do ANY of that?
