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Comment by draugadrotten | Hacker News Reader

This sounds very much like one side of the story.

"I was essentially arrested for filming a police checkpoint in Manchester, New Hampshire"

I don't want to defend the police, but that sounds like there is a lot of information missing here. Why was he filming the police? What did other people do at/to/near the checkpoint? Was he alone or part of a group or even a mob?

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> Why was he filming the police?

Why would this be relevant?

> What did other people do at/to/near the checkpoint?

Same as above: Why would this be relevant?

> Was he alone or part of a group or even a mob?

Could be relevant.

> Why would this be relevant?

Read other posts here about this person being a "cop chaser".

His reasons for filming the police are still irrelevant. His methods of doing so are relevant.

Some New England states do random police checkpoints to try to curb drunk driving. Many people think this is illegal (stopping without cause) and try to fight against it, film their interactions at the checkpoints, etc.

Don't forget US Border Patrol has the authority to setup checkpoints or pull over anyone within 100 miles of the border, without cause. A lot of people might be aware of this with respect to the border with Mexico, but it applies to Canada as well. In the northeast that covers about half of the states of Vermont and New Hampshire, basically all of Maine, and a lot of New York north of the Thruway (Syracuse/Albany).

I dont understand all the downvotes. Just a few comments up someone talked about a cop firing on someone filming, which sounds awful, but when added with context (there had been 100's of rounds shot from a machine gun earlier), seems understandable. I agree this is only one side of the story, and more info would be great.

Except that was a lie - it was rounds fired from a rifle, not a 'machine gun', and that's STILL a pretty flimsy excuse.

Tell me you've been in a gunfight before and I'll accept you as a subject matter expert in quantifying what is "flimsy" or is not a "flimsy" excuse is when it comes to shooting or not shooting.

Same goes for you I guess! Showing up in milspec combat armor because of someone popping off a .22 or something and then killing a dude with a camera seems pretty unprofessional of a paramilitary org like modern US police. I don't know what actually went down, but there are a lot of ways to respond to that kind of call without killing some random citizen, and that's what makes it flimsy - there was no gunfight. There was a guy with a camera.

There should be a police report filed. I'm not sure the date of the incident.

http://www.manchesternh.gov/Departments/Police/Police-Log

When someone includes "essentially" in their statement, it means they're giving you their opinionated distillation of the facts.

A commenter in the post suggests the CEO was verbally instigating in one of the linked videos. I didn't watch it so I don't have an opinion.

Yet you'll happily repeat a bit of hearsay that is contradicted by in fact watching the video.

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