Tag: filming the police

State Passes Bill That Could Jail People for 30 Days for Filming the Police

Frequent readers of the Free Thought Project know that filming the cops is not a crime. Despite this being a widely known provision — held up with multiple court precedents — cops continue to violate the First Amendment protected right of citizens to film the police. Last month, the Arizona House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would criminalize filming cops on the job, dealing a massive blow to First Amendment rights. And this month, the Senate passed it.

It now moves to Governor Doug Ducey’s desk for signature, where it will become law.

Republican Representative John Kavanaugh, who is a former police officer, is the lead sponsor of the legislation. According to the bill, it is illegal “for a person to knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity, including the handling of an emotionally disturbed person, if the person does not have the permission of the law enforcement officer” and is within 8 feet of the cop.

Kavanaugh originally stipulated a 15 foot radius, however it was later amended after multiple objections. But for many, this is still too far.

As Valera Voce, points out, the law also classifies unlawful video recording of law enforcement activity as a petty offense, unless a person fails to comply with a verbal warning of a violation or has been previously convicted of a violation in which case an offense is a class 3 misdemeanor. A class 3 misdemeanor comes with a minimum of 30 days in jail. Finally, the bill explicitly declares that it “does not establish a right, or authorize any person, to make a video recording of a law enforcement officer.”

“It’s crazy thinking about that for a second. The video that led to the criminal conviction of the police officer who killed George Floyd would itself be a criminal act. And that makes no sense whatsoever,” attorney Dan Barr told FOX 10.

“We believe that this bill stacks the deck against the public check on officer misconduct,” Timothy Sparling, a lawyer and legislative advocate for Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. Sparling argued that the bill leaves too much up to the discretion of the officers. “When officers have such wide discretion to determine, say, what is lawful conduct or what is unlawful conduct on the ground and that is not properly defined … it’s ultimately up to whatever the officer wants it to be,” Sparling said.

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Cops Knock Innocent Mother’s Teeth Out as She Held Toddler, Beat Her for Filming Them

Filming the police is entirely legal, in every state. However, all too often, we will see police officers overstep their authority and arrest, attack, and assault innocent people for the constitutionally protected act of documenting their behavior in public. As the following case out of Trenton, New Jersey illustrates, police officers will go to extreme and often violent lengths to make sure they are not being filmed, up to and including beating and falsely arresting an innocent mother.

In a recently filed lawsuit, Gloria Noemi Ramirez Caal details the night of her abuse by Trenton’s finest. Caal has the video to back up her claims, as well as the horrific injuries.

According to the lawsuit, Caal was filming her son’s arrest at their home in January 2020 when police attacked her for filming. The innocent mother was holding a 3-year-old when police attacked her for filming, leaving her with injuries to her head, neck, back, right leg and knocking out multiple teeth.

Caal weighs only 100 pounds and is just 4′ 11″ tall yet she was treated like a violent felon for practicing her first amendment right to film.

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Woman Tries To Help Suicidal Person So a Cop Smashes Her Face, Knocks Her Teeth Out

A game developer thought she was doing the right thing when she witnessed an arrest at a local gas station and tried to tell police that the person they were arresting needed help, not handcuffs. However, when she attempted to film the arrest, according to the woman and a newly released video, she was attacked, slammed to the ground, her teeth broken, and her skull fractured.

The video was leaked to the Free Thought Project via a Twitter user who knows the victim. This video, according to that person, is just one of the many excessive force cases pending against the Rock Hill police department. After watching it, you’ll know why.

When this incident originally unfolded in August of 2018, police claim the video footage they had backed up their story. Conveniently, however, they refused to release it. Now that it is out, we can see why, it pokes holes in their official narrative.

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Power-Tripping Maskless Cop Rips Man’s Mask Off, Get in His Face for Filming

Filming the police is entirely legal, in every state. However, all too often, we will see police officers overstep their authority and arrest, attack, and assault innocent people for the constitutionally protected act of documenting their behavior in public. As the following case out Nashville illustrates, many cops couldn’t care less about your First Amendment right to film them and will violate their oaths to the constitution to carry out their tyrannical hatred for police accountability.

Andrew Golden, a police accountability activist was practicing his constitutionally protected right to film in public this week when he was assaulted by Tennessee State Trooper Harvey Briggs.

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Innocent Black Man Held at Gunpoint for 5 MINUTES for Legally Filming in Public

Filming the police is entirely legal, in every state. However, all too often, we will see police officers overstep their authority and arrest, attack, and assault innocent people for the constitutionally protected act of documenting their behavior in public. As the following case out of Clinton County, Indiana illustrates, cops will even pull their guns on people for exercising their First Amendment right to film in public.

In the land of the free, there are ostensible checks and balances which are in place to prevent corrupt and power drunk government officials from overstepping their authority and depriving people of their rights. The largest ostensible restraint on this power is the constitution. However, as TFTP has reported for years, despite the fact that police swear an oath to uphold this constitution, they are all too often the ones who ignore it.

In an exclusive interview with the Free Thought Project, activist and First Amendment auditor, Floyd Wallace tells us that this week, he went to Clinton County and was walking around filming in public. He had committed no crime but being black and filming apparently set off a resident who called police to report him — for filming.

Clinton County Sheriff’s deputy B. Knapp shows up to the call and is apparently afraid of his own shadow. Within a few seconds of arriving to Wallace’s location, he pulls his gun out and points it at the innocent man. His gun would not go back in its holster for nearly five minutes.

“I was just walking around filming in public when they pulled guns on me,” Wallace tells the Free Thought Project.

The cop demanded Wallace “drop his phone” and stop filming but this would have ended the documentation of this incident. The officer could have shot him and simply claimed he feared for his life and that, as they say, would’ve been that.

Showing just how scared these deputies are of a black man filming is the fact that deputy Knapp called for backup and another deputy arrived and pointed an AR-15 at Wallace. He was then handcuffed and interrogated — for filming.

Wallace was then handcuffed and detained as a half dozen other cops show up to investigate a black man filming.

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