CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: Lying poLICE falsely told a man he couldn’t film them. ‘I’m an attorney,’ he said. ‘I know what the law is.’  Sat Mar 11, 2017 11:44 pm | |
| One of the first things Jesse Bright did after being pulled over by police on a recent Sunday afternoon was turn on his phone and begin filming.
Bright was driving for Uber to make some extra cash, but he works full-time as criminal defense attorney in North Carolina. As a lawyer, he said, he believes strongly that when people record their interactions with police, it helps reduce confusion if their cases end up in court.
As he aimed his phone in the direction of officers and recorded, Bright was surprised to hear Wilmington police Sgt. Kenneth Becker tell him that there was a new state law that prohibited him from recording police.
Bright told The Washington Post that he knew better — no such law exists in North Carolina.
“Hey, bud, turn that off, okay?” Becker said.
“No, I’ll keep recording, thank you,” Bright responded. “It’s my right.”
“Don’t record me,” the police sergeant said. “You got me?”
“Look,” Bright said, “you’re a police officer on duty. I can record you.”
“Be careful because there is a new law,” Becker said. “Turn it off or I’ll take you to jail.”
“For recording you?” the video shows Bright asking Becker. “What is the law?”
A tense exchange followed, with Becker telling Bright to step out of his car, calling him “a jerk,” then warning him that he “better hope” officers didn’t find something in his vehicle.
Bright continued to record, saying, “I know my rights.”
“I hope so,” said Becker, the police sergeant. “I know what the law is.”
“I know the law,” Bright said. “I’m an attorney, so I would hope I know what the law is.”
“And an Uber driver?” Becker asked.
Bright told The Post that he is working for Uber to help pay off his law-school loans. He said he had been hired to take his passenger on a round trip from the man’s home to a location several miles away where, the man said, he was picking up a paycheck on the final Sunday in February.
After the passenger returned to the car holding a piece of paper, Bright said he was pulled over moments later.
Officers searched the passenger and told Bright that he’d brought the man to a drug house that was under surveillance.
“They said I should have known it was a drug house, and I tried to tell them I was an Uber driver,” Bright said. “They thought it was some sort of cover.”
Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous said in a statement this week that his department has “launched an internal investigation” into the Feb. 26 incident.
“Taking photographs and videos of people that are in plain sight including the police is your legal right,” the statement said. “As a matter of fact we invite citizens to do so when they believe it is necessary. We believe that public videos help to protect the police as well as our citizens and provide critical information during police and citizen interaction.”
The chief added that “a copy of this statement will be disseminated to every officer within the Wilmington Police Department.”
More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/10/video-shows-police-telling-an-uber-driver-its-against-the-law-to-record-police-its-not/?tid=pm_national_pop
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Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband
“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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