US Police raids home; sues homeowner over CCTV footage of raid | Hacker News Reader

US Police raids home; sues homeowner over CCTV footage of raid

fox19.com

126 pointss530053 comments

If there's one thing police can't stand it's being held accountable for their own actions.

If the cops break into your house based on completely fabricated charges, destroy a bunch of your property and traumatize your family, at least from where I'm sitting, it kind of feels like it should be your right to record and disseminate footage of the illegal home invasion however you like.

I wonder if this is (at least in part) just process-is-the-punishment.

End qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, and the all-too-frequent killings.

This is the third HN thread on this I’ve come across today. Someone else mentioned that a good deterrent for this form of abuse of power is to take away their pensions if they take part in this kind of fuckery.

Defund fascism. Demilitarize the police. Mutual respect will bring you peace.

Since the issue looks to be the consent of the footage being released, would it be the same situation if the footage came from their body cams requested by FOIA? Provided all of their cams didn't simultaneously and mysteriously malfunction of course. Either way I hope things go Afroman's way on this. The raid itself was complete clown shoes.

They have no claim. Irizarry vs Yehia[0], among others, have concluded that filming a public servant in the execution of their duties have no right to privacy. There was another case that came to the same conclusion because a woman recorded cops wrecking her house during a search and then tried deleting the footage from her laptop, unfortunately I cannot find that case again.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2022/07/24/first-am... (includes a link to the ruling directly from the 10th circuit website)

So police make up “justification” for a warrant, the violent armed invasion of his home turns up nothing because they made it up the reason for the warrant.

Now they’re saying his making a video with their faces in it is making their jobs harder. Like dude you made your jobs harder when you commit perjury to get a warrant. You make your jobs harder when you smash down the victims door and swarm his home with guns.

If the cops didn’t want to be famous for violating other people’s rights maybe they should stop violating people’s rights?

The raid cost this guy real money, breaking in his door and damaging who knows what. I hope he makes a ton of money from this ordeal.

The sheriffs also came up short on the money they seized.

This is the part that blew my mind... As I heard things, they left an evidence collection receipt that said, for instance "We confiscated $4800 from your house".

But then when they returned his belonging, there was only $4400 (or whatever amount), and they're claim is "oh we miscounted. The receipt is wrong."

That's not how receipts work Cletus.

Better yet, US courts have found that the government or agencies involved in searches are explicitly not liable for any damage as long as the warrant is "valid". "cool".

At the same accord, cops protecting the rights of the people ought to be championed as the paragons.

Cops don't protect the rights of the people, lawyers and judges do. Police have no duty to protect the public, their job is to enforce compliance with the law and protect the state's monopoly on violence.

And even if they did, they shouldn't get special kudos just for just doing their job. They get their paycheck and pension and all the free donuts and coffee they want, that's enough.

In fact courts have repeatedly found that cops have no legal requirement to intervene, even if they see someone being stabbed by a fugitive they’re ostensibly searching for.

Reason I’m posting this is because the raid itself earlier got attention on HN in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34293904

Insert “we are not a police state” <here>

Potential suggested discussion: what are best practices in law-enforcement-proofing (think local/state police, not feds) our home security recording setups? Somewhere towards the beginning of our video police can be seen physically covering an outside camera, & towards the end they’re seen physically disconnecting the entire setup (to the best of my knowledge)

So, at this point the best thing is cameras hiding in plain sight? Stealthily integrated into furniture? Idk.

p.s. - this happened extremely close to my childhood home & where I spent most of my life.

From this situation, I would conclude that you have nothing to hide unless you are guilty or a law enforcement officer, so I would suggest covering the property with camera's pointed at other cameras. Also, lots of dummy cameras, so that you forget which cameras are real and just go on about your non-private business (which is all of it).

I'm not sure what is the worst?

1. Our rights being violated by cops that role play for Seal Team Six USN

2. The music in the Youtube video

3. This headline

I'm voting for #1

Honeslty? I had to check out the music in the youtube Video, and "Will You Help Me Repair My Door" is freaking hilarious. I just archived it, just in case.

I'm now a fan.

Don’t miss his breakout single “Lemon Poundcake”.

"US police" ???

Contrary to weird headline, this was Adams County Sheriff's Office, and I know that fact because the Afroman video is still on Heavy Rotation for me.

Indeed, just saw his remoxed video for the first time yesterday!

Love that he's asking them via rap lyrics if they are going to help fix his gate etc since they found nothing, and the first response by them was to sue because it showed them being what we all know that are?

I'm more depressed about this planet daily, my cup feels full.

Adams County is in the US, and I don't see much wrong with referring to a sheriff's office as "police". Of course, I don't know what audience the headline writer had in mind. "Ohio" might suggest a state agency, and "Adams County" would lead to confusion, since there are several.

"US Police" is vague enough to be inaccurate. As written it implies a Federal force since they are direct arms of the US government, while the actual sheriff in question is a county agent. What organization is it referring to? The FBI is a Federal policing force but it's not commonly called the US Police. Is it the Secret Service? The US Postal Inspection Service? The National Park Police? The Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement?

I'd expect a better written headline to use "Adams County, Ohio Sheriff" since that is the most accurate form that conveys what agency did the thing in question.

Sheriffs are US police to anyone not in the US. All of the others you list, too.

Adam’s county or Ohio mean nothing to me.

If I read someone referring to "US Police" I would immediately consider some sort of federal US Marshals service or Secret Service. When we speak of police, we refer to their jurisdiction. Adams County Sheriff has jurisdiction in a county, obviously, not federal, not across state lines, only in that county.

Now I suppose if you're writing headlines for people in Kenya, you might specify "US law enforcement" but "US Police" is just sloppy writing. I didn't see it in the linked article.

"Police in the US" then.

Which in Newsline shorthand would be "US Police".

Inquiring minds wish to know which video

Qualified immunity is wrong and should be removed.

> The plaintiffs say they’ve been subjected to ridicule by people who saw Foreman’s posts

Working as intended

I wonder if a sign posted clearly on the door that says:

    Surveillance underway.
    Entering this premise
    means you consent
    to public domain
    of its audio/video. 
    No ifs, thens, or buts.

will work.

IANAL.

I'm sympathetic to his situation, but he may be in danger of another lawsuit, this one with some merit.

Unless he licensed it, he seems to have stolen almost the exact melody from the 1977 song "What a Difference You've Made in My Life"[1].

Here's the Ronnie Milsap version of "What a Difference...": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNI0PylgV8

And here's Afroman's "Will You Help Me Repair My Gate": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Difference_You%27ve_Mad...

I believe this would be considered a parody, which doesn't require licensing.

Definitely a good point. I hadn't even considered that it might have been intended that way. Lyrically, it has nothing in common. But I guess on a purely thematic level, he could be sarcastically implying they made a difference in his life.

I'm not sure what is required to qualify as a parody, so maybe that's enough.

...

EDIT: Based on one article I found, this might be satire (which isn't fair use) rather than parody (which is): https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/parody-vs-satire-in-copyr...

>The complaint says Foreman also “created dozens of videos and images of Plaintiffs’ personas and posted them on various social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Snap Chat, TicTok and Instagram.”

HN title is wildly misleading.

I don't think so. The HN title accurately describes two events that occurred.

The most easily misinterpreted part of the headline to me is it says "US police" making it sound federal. It's a county sheriff's office in Ohio.

That is just additional information that didn’t make it to the headline. Other facts not included in the title is that the cops took his money and didn’t give it all back. Instead their review stated that they miscounted the money when it came in…

We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.

System is totally broken.

They're not suing him over the footage. They're suing him for publishing it all over the place in an attempt to monetize it.

You don't have to be on the cops' side to see that the headline is ridiculously misleading.

So? He filmed it in his own home. What rights should he have over footage from his own private space when others invade that space without invitation? Should a store or homeowner have to get permission from criminals who rob them to show that footage publicly?

I'm talking about the headline being misleading, not whether he's in the right or not.

Good thing there’s a whole article there to read and other articles as well, so you can get all of the details from a source more plentiful than a headline.

Thanks for conceding I was correct.

I thought that HN discouraged hyperbolic/clickbaity/deceptive titles.

"Homeowner" is a celeb [Afroman] and the "CCTV footage" was published in social media and in music videos without their consent.

I'm curious to know why you believe these additional details make the headline deceptive or change the story in any way.

Headline is factual on all accounts

HN is exactly as wildly biased as all the other big tech sites.

It pretends to be unbiased but it's not.

You'll be flagged/banned for pointing this out.

What is the alleged bias? Anti-cop? Anti-home invaders?

https://i.imgur.com/Si183zE.jpg

Sure. Big tech is in California. California leans hard left. Ergo employees at big tech lean hard left.

That bias still has nothing to do with this thread. Did you just bring it up on a whim?

The smug sanctimony in this comment reeks of "reality has a liberal bias".

To everyone (the majority) outside of your filter bubble, what you're pretending isn't there is obvious.

You're fooling no one.

Should you expect privacy if you have broken into someones home ?

I'd say you have broken any social contracts about privacy at the moment you break in.

unfortunately the sequela here will probably cops wearing black face masks that cover their entire faces.

Sucks all around. And it’s entirely plausible most the cops were acting in good faith. They’ve got a hard job.

It's real tough conjuring a false warrant, miscounting money, breaking into a home with guns, terrorizing a home, disconnecting a security system, and eyeballing a lemon pound cake.

It's more plausible that they never thought they'd get caught.

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