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 |  Subject: LOL, South Bay man who records police officers on video goes high-tech with drone  Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:22 am | |
| Daniel Saulmon’s name evokes groans, sighs and even some chuckles when South Bay police officers hear it.
He’s been a thorn in their sides for years, showing up on his bicycle at traffic stops and crime scenes at all hours of the day and night.
Armed with a video camera, the unemployed 42-year-old Lennox man considers himself a crusader for justice, protecting people’s rights as they encounter the police. Sometimes, however, he draws the ire of patrol officers, provoking them into angry responses during confrontations when they demand to know why he is recording them.
Declaring his First Amendment rights, Saulmon posts his hostile encounters on YouTube and his own website, mistakenbacon.com, garnering hundreds of thousands of views.
“My relationship with the local police is surprisingly good,” Saulmon said Tuesday. “Most all of them treat me with respect. But occasionally there will be unexpected surprises. I just want to be able to record them so I can document what they are doing. There are some things going on that I feel are inappropriate. I intend to catch them if they break the law.”
Saulmon’s recording devices have evolved over the years. When he first started more than a decade ago, he would use a stationary camera in his car. He then progressed to a small camera attached to his bicycle helmet. (He rides a bike because his driver’s license was suspended.)
And now he has moved high-tech. Saulmon purchased a $1,400 DJI Phantom drone about two months ago and has begun flying it over crime scenes, at traffic stops, near oil refineries and the Hermosa Beach Pier. The camera attached to the drone is equipped with a wide-angle lens.
“Mostly it takes pretty pictures,” Saulmon said. “I’m going to hopefully use it for things other than recording the police.”
Last week, Saulmon showed up with his drone at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, where officials were searching for a possible man with a gun. Saulmon was immediately confronted by officers from the U.S. Air Force base’s Office of Special Investigations.
“That’s going to be an issue once it goes over the base,” one officer told him in a video posted on Saulmon’s website. “It’s an Air Force base and once you cross that line, then we have issues with what you are taping. We just want to protect you from that. Once you go over that, it becomes a federal issue.”
Saulmon argued he had no plans to fly the drone across the base’s outer wall. He exchanged words with the OSI officer, demanding his name and to speak with his supervisor.
“I stayed on the outside. I complied with their request,” Saulmon said in an interview. “They were actually polite to me. I feel like I might have overreacted in my response to them. ... I wasn’t going to challenge them and lose my drone.”
Saulmon is well-known among South Bay police departments. He has lived in several cities and made his presence felt since the early 2000s, showing up with his video camera at traffic stops and crime scenes.
“Sometimes he appears to listen to our police scanner and follows the officers around,” Gardena police Lt. Steve Prendergast said. “It’s his perfect legal right to videotape us and we have nothing to hide. .., The problem that occurs is when Daniel interferes with what the officers are doing. ... Sometimes he comes too close to them and they ask him to step away.”
In some of his videos, the conversations between officers and Saulmon become heated and Saulmon finds himself in handcuffs. He has spent time in jails in Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Torrance and other cities.
“There is a distinction between exercising one’s First Amendment rights and interfering with police officers attempting to safely and tactically do their jobs,” Torrance police Sgt. Robert Watt said. “We don’t want Mr Saulmon, or anyone for that matter, putting themselves in harm’s way during what may be a tactical incident.
“Mr. Saulman has a right to videotape anything he sees fit; he just cannot interfere with law enforcement or put officers’ safety in jeopardy while doing so.”
Saulmon said he bought his recording equipment because officers used to pull him over “for absolutely no reason” as he drove his 1995 Cadillac Coupe de Ville about the South Bay. His girlfriend also was arrested in Hawthorne while riding her bike, and he did not like the way officers treated her.
Since then, he’s had hundreds of recorded contacts with the police. Although he said he is not recording the police for money, and not trying to provoke officers into confrontations, the unemployed former apartment manager said he has settled two lawsuits filed against the Hawthorne Police Department, one for $25,000, the other for $75,000. A third case is pending.
Hawthorne police Lt. Amy Yoshida said she could not comment on the cases.
The city of Gardena attempted to obtain a temporary restraining order to keep Saulmon away from its police officers in August 2013, but was unsuccessful.
“We were trying to get him to stop interfering with arrests,” said attorney Robert Wadden Jr., who represented the city. “He was actually stepping forward and getting involved with the officers and folks being apprehended. They didn’t care about the filming. It was where he got himself in between the person being arrested and the officer.”
Sometimes Saulmon records other encounters, such as filing public records requests at Gardena City Hall. In one of his videos, five police officers arrived to shoo him from the building when employees did not want to be recorded.
“He’s just very aggressive sometimes,” Prendergast said. “They don’t like the disruption.”
Saulmon said he and officers have had a “very good relationship” since they now recognize him. Some patrol officers are on a first-name basis with him at crime scenes.
“I know people try to say I provoke the police and there may be rare exceptions where I was angry with the police and I acted out,” he said. “I am just trying to keep an eye on them and to protect the citizens. If you watch my newer videos, I keep plenty of distance. And if there’s any interaction, I am polite.”
Saulmon said police officers have no reason to fear his new drone, especially if they respect the rights of citizens. Besides the Air Force base episode, Saulmon has flown the drone near oil refineries and the Hermosa Beach Pier, drawing police concern.
“At this point, this is all new technology police departments are facing across the nation,” Yoshida said. “It raises new issues and concerns like rights to privacy and such.”
http://www.dailybreeze.com/government-and-politics/20140624/south-bay-man-who-records-police-officers-on-video-goes-high-tech-with-drone
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“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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