According to Nolo, “Almost every court to consider the issue has determined that the First Amendment gives you the right to record (pictures, video, and audio) police officers in public while they are performing their duties.”
This is General Questions. “Is this moral?” is not a factual question. “Is this a good idea?” is not a factual question. “Are the police corrupt?” is not a factual question. “Is this legal?”, however, is. If we can’t keep within the bounds of this forum, Warnings will be issued.
The short answer is “yes” you are legally within your rights to do it. But as a practical matter you will have to be very correct in your actions and as you saved the guy’s life and he didn’t die, be prepared for police experts to testify that what you did was wholly unnecessary, the police were following proper procedure, that the thing you stopped was wholly unlike the George Floyd situation, and that you interfered with a lawful arrest. Also be prepared for an ass kicking once you do it.
I would go to jail, it is the morally correct thing to do. Sorry, I haven’t watched the footage, but was he not actually handcuffed as the cop was on his neck? If he is already handcuffed. there is no reason to be kneeling on his neck. Anything other than exactly as long as it takes to cuff him/her, it is too much force.
As this wouldn’t be a sexual crime, the requirements for California and Florida are not relevant. For Rhode Island, there isn’t a duty to intervene. For Minnesota and Wisconsin, you have to call the police or provide other reasonable assistance, and I seriously doubt that it could be construed to mean you had to actively interfere with the police action.
(emphasis added) That does seem to be the long (Little Nemo) and the short (UltraVires) of it with these kinds of situations. Legally you may assist someone being abused and assaulted, ***but ***out in Reality Street the presumption is against any form of interference with the actions of police.
Chronos’s response is regarding a new policy of the Dallas Police. It has nothing to do with anything Earl Gray said.
Maybe, but it seems to me that his comment is being taken out of context.
“All these people say why didn’t my client intercede… well, if the public is there and they’re so in an uproar about this, they didn’t intercede either.”
That’s being spun and CNN, Newsweek, etc. are claiming that Gray said that members of the public should have rushed in to save Floyd. I don’t see it that way at all and that suggestion would really screw his client. If he claimed the public should have stepped in, it would be obvious to a jury that the other police officers should have stepped in first.
A more likely interpretation is that Gray is suggesting that just as it’s okay and/or reasonable that the public didn’t intervene, it’s okay that his client didn’t also. That falls more in line with other comments by Gray, such as this one:
“If three cops are trying to restrain somebody and one doesn’t agree, well that one cop should go beat up the other two cops and let the guy go? That’s absurd,” Gray said.”
Agreed. And this is why defense attorneys should not talk to the press. Just a plain, “The evidence that will be shown at a fair trial will require a jury to conclude my client is not guilty of the offense charged. I do not want to make any further statements that might harm the prospect of a fair trial as the State is recklessly doing” and then shut the fuck up.
What he is clumsily trying to say is that as my client was facing the crowd, he did not see the distress that George Floyd was under. If the bystanders saw a man choking to death, they would have rushed to intervene. As they did not, how can my client with a much poorer view of the situation, be expected to intervene when the bystanders did not?
The YouTuber LegalEagle has posted his analysis of this question. His opinion is no, a person can not interfere with the police even if the police are doing something wrong (well, you could but you would get in trouble for it).