'First Amendment Auditor' Sues NYPD over Right to Record in Police Stations
reason.com
reason.com
I don't have the time, money, or balls to be an auditor, but the ones who know the laws and do it without bothering the general public are good in my book.
You should know what a Terry stop is. You should know you have the right to remain silent, know what the true meaning of "I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one"
Nobody going about their day should have to take a bullshit case to the supreme court (or even district court). These folks help change policy intentionally instead of someone just living their life having their day / week / career / life ruined.
Don't care for his music, the person, but my point still stands that you can't be held up for a drug dog at a traffic stop is a real thing you should know and according to Jay Z himself it's exactly what it's referencing.
Whether he stole the hook or not doesn't really matter in this context, and has nothing to do with #metoo, I don't even know where that fits in as well.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/239513-court-ru...
Ice Cube makes family movies when he use to rap about “F^^^ the police” and “With a white Jew tellin' you what to do“. The entire lyrics of “No Vaseline” was racist and would be considered homophonic today - ie “Mista S%%%packer, bend over for the goddamn c%%#}r”.
He never apologized for anything and no one cares.
Ice T went from “Cop Killer” to playing a cop on TV for two decades. Dr. Dre sold his company for billions.
Hell we elected a President who bragged on tape about forcible “grabbing a woman by the p%%%%” and he is worshipped by the “religious right”.
Considering that Jay-Z himself tells us what those lyrics mean to him in his 2011 book, how would you consider that a "PR accomplishment"? The person who wrote the song ("stolen" line or otherwise) is the best source for what the artist intended, no?
Have you ever heard of someone refer to traffic stops as "girl problems"? This conversation is ridiculous. One verse in the song is about a traffic stop-- that specific lyric is a play on the line, not all the lyrics. Jay-Z got rich on sexism and now he's getting richer on anti-sexism. Anyone who eats it up is a fool.
https://genius.com/2pac-me-and-my-girlfriend-lyrics
But even in his third verse he said
> This is not a ho in the sense of having a p%%%%
What a weird hill to try and die on, especially being 100% wrong about it.
His first verse is about ignorant rap critics, exploitative advertisers, and fickle radio stations, and uses the 99 problems lyric to reference them.
His second verse details a police stop where he was transporting drugs, and the 99 problems lyric is to reference the K-9 that is due to arrive.
His third verse he talks about a physical altercation he had with another man who was performatively aggressive, without anything to back it up. In that verse, he makes another point about how he is using a term often used for women, but he is not using that way "A nigga like myself had to strong-arm a ho/ This is not a ho in the sense of having a pussy/ But a pussy having no goddamn sense try and push me". At the end, the 99 problems lyric is used to reference this senseless man.
No where in the song does he talk about ex-girlfriends, strippers, club hookups or literally anything about women. The song is completely structured around clearly and consistently setting it up and paying it off as wordplay against things that aren’t women.
Again with the hill stuff. Are you really not allowed to disagree with celebrity gossip in your life?
>people think it's actually about a dog is one of the most impressive PR accomplishments in music. Bravo, Jay-Z's PR team in the #metoo era.
>Do you think he had millions of dollars of incentive to lie about this?
You asserted over and over that the song was about women, and that Jay-Z is now lying
You weren't saying whether it was or wasn't misogynistic or sexist. You were asserting that it was about women and Jay-Z is now lying and saying it wasn't about women as some sort of PR push related to #metoo. These are two different things. The lyrics of the song makes it crystal clear what is being talked about. Each verse is talking about a very specific thing and the entire verse is focused on that one thing. That isn't PR or gossip or media narrative. That is simple reading comprehension.
For those unaware, a verse from Jay Z's "99 Problems":
The year's '94 and my trunk is raw
In my rearview mirror is the motherfucking law
I got two choices y'all, pull over the car or
Bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor
Now I ain't trying to see no highway chase with Jake
Plus I got a few dollars I can fight the case
So I, pull over to the side of the road
I heard, "Son, do you know why I'm stopping you for?"
"Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low"
Do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don't know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?
"Well you was doing fifty-five in a fifty-four" (uh huh)
"License and registration and step out of the car"
"Are you carrying a weapon on you, I know a lot of you are"
I ain't stepping out of shit, all my papers legit
"Well do you mind if I look around the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back
And I know my rights so you goin' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack? You some type of lawyer or something?"
"Somebody important or something?"
Well, I ain't passed the bar, but I know a little bit Enough that you won't illegally search my shit
"Well we'll see how smart you are when the K-9 come"
I got ninety nine problems but a bitch ain't one, hit me
Furthermore, anyone who freaks out and calls 911 because someone is walking around not breaking the law is the problem, not the person exercising their rights.
Too many people treat the police as social tech support, not as law enforcement.
The first step in fixing it is bringing it to the forefront of attention.
Peacefully open carrying long arms has a long and great historical tradition in the US. I have a poster of Huey P Newton on my wall in my office.
There was one where a somewhat post-middle-aged guy is walking on the side of a busy road or highway. He's legally blind and he has a folded cane in hand, which the cops stop him for and threaten to arrest him.
Then there are the more innocuous ones, where a person is on public property just video recording public buildings from the public sidewalk, and cops come to threaten him with arrest.
I remember one where a guy is video recording in a public library and they call the cops, who come and explain that a public library is public.
And it is a him. Always a him.
In all of these the police, who are visibly and egregiously breaking laws themselves, never apologize and even when a superior tells them to screw off and leave the law-abiding private citizen alone.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-officer-released-p...
While I was waiting for the report to be printed, two uniformed officers emerged from the back room and started interrogating me; they obviously were trying to intimidate me and get me to say something that would allow them to arrest me. It was incredibly unnerving and put me off from ever wanting to set foot there again. I felt lucky to not have been arrested and charged for no legitimate reason.
As far as I am concerned, the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted.
You won't be the "good guy with a gun" in an active shooting. You won't be robbed. You won't be attacked.
If you draw your gun at a police station for any reason you will be arrested or killed.
Like, technically in my state I have the right to open-carry a rifle past a school while wearing a ski-mask as long as I'm off-property. Completely legal.
If I did that while picking my child up from school to "assert my rights" surely you'd think I was being insane, confrontational and threatening because I could have no legitimate interest in doing so.
It seems very odd to not just leave your gun in the car. Perhaps you're a principled pedestrian or cyclist? That I could see.
It is legal to do so?
It’s legal to walk around topless in NYC, but don’t be surprised if you don’t like the reaction you get when you do so.
I wonder how many second amendment originalists eat donuts and ice cream for every meal because it’s legal?
The "like your reaction" isn't applicable, because one would reasonable expect those with different senses of modesty, etc. may not agree with someone being topless in public.
The "donut and ice cream for every meal" is equally ridiculous -- yes, it's legal, but (a) suggesting otherwise is farcical, and (b) anybody with common sense knows that it would both be lacking in nutrition, and lead to other health issues.
By contrast, OP engaging in regular business while happening to be enjoying their constitutionally-protected rights, is not "dumb" or something they "shouldn't do" -- the only thing that "shouldn't" be done in this case, is be interrogated for simply open carrying -- they wouldn't have batted an eyelid if GP had a CCW and was concealed-carrying.
If you're going to make an argument that GP was "dumb" for open-carrying in a police station, make that argument -- don't resort to childish and laughable attempts at puerile analogies.
Anyone with common sense knows you don’t need a gun in a police station because the police have already secured the police station.
Everything you said in your comment as a rebuttal to my analogy fit my analogy perfectly.
Let me reiterate: “interrogation” as described in this story is legal. It’s just a forceful word for asking questions. Police are allowed to ask questions in almost any situation, which is why they do it so much. They don’t have to automatically tell you that you’re not obligated to answer or stick around.
Reading this subthread, it seems pretty clear that one wouldn't legally carry in a police station out of fear of needing it, but out of fear of having it stolen from their vehicles.
How many children die from unsecured firearms every year again?
I swear, every pro-gun logic path brings you back to the fact that guns are dangerous to have around.
Also, it is not the case that "having a firearm unsecured and unlocked inside a vehicle is a crime" where I live.
If you're going to troll to push your anti-gun rhetoric, at least try and go for reasoned arguments rather than ridiculous hypotheticals and apparently-serious hyperbole.
Here’s my reasoned argument: our government is verifiably deeply intertwined with gun organizations and manufacturers.
Without this influence we would see our nation’s wildly statistically abnormal situation as a cause for urgent action. Instead, we’ve been trained to think of that anything against our “freedom” to own guns as “anti-gun rhetoric.”
Your rhetoric is by your own admission rhetoric, and is demonstrably anti-gun, therefore "anti-gun rhetoric" is an accurate observation to make -- why are you getting triggered about that?
I didn't say the NRA wasn't a steaming pile of trash. I didn't say there weren't issues with big gun manufacturers getting into bed with politicians, just as happens with corporations across the entire capitalist hellscale -- that's the nature of it.
Instead, you just made baseless assumptions (which you're patently wrong about) and lashed out with your spiel.
Don't assume. Quit trolling. Try harder next time.
What did you think of the article I sent?
I’m not triggered by anything. I’m not trolling. I’m just disappointed.
Yes. The government should not harm me for doing legal things, even if those legal things are dumb.
In a past life, I lived somewhere much less civilized. There, I carried (either open or concealed) as a matter of course in my daily life. While I was always cognizant of where I was allowed to carry and where not, I never removed my gun unless legally required to do so. This is both a simple matter of convenience and a practical matter of security, as a gun on my person is inherently more secure than a gun stored in my vehicle, even though it was doubly locked while in the vehicle.
In the event I find myself in such a situation anyway, there's a good chance the other party won't know I'm armed unless I want them to. As for the rest of the time, I think potential aggressors as both dumber and more emotional than you're imagining. I've never come remotely close to shooting anyone, but the times I've had to actively think about it were because I people were acting in a way that telegraph ill intent long before they were in a position to do anything to me.
I’ve lived in small town GA, a few cities around Metro Atlanta and worked in a few others. I can honestly say I have never in 50 years felt unsafe anywhere I’ve been and I can’t imagine me by myself carrying would make me feel safer against a possible ambush.
Not to mention that according to CDC statistics, gun violence is the 50th leading cause of death in the US and most of that is either suicide or being killed by someone you know.
I’m more likely to die from hamburgers and too much salt than anything carrying could prevent.
In that situation, would you feel safer with or without a gun?
Maybe safer because you could quickly immobilize the shooter?
Maybe less safe because you'd feel an obligation to attempt an intervention, but doing so could draw attention (and draw fire)?
But you noticed on the other hand that I am focused on what I believe is the statistical futility of carrying a gun and not focused on having one in your car or home?
If someone came into my home where I’m laying next to my wife - the only other person who should be in my home - and my alarm went off that’s a completely different scenario. While I can suspect someone in public is meant to do my harm, I’m going to assume anyone who breaks into my house is trying to do me harm and I don’t have to worry about either police or the Justice system not believing me.
voakbasta just didn’t like the fact that people reacted to him doing weird but legal stuff outside of social norms.
A major argument that second amendment originalists make for the need for personal firearms is to provide personal protection, but a police station is an area that is already protected by law officers who are armed, so there’s no reason to open carry there. It’s like bringing an air conditioner to a hockey rink.
You don't know that they were free to leave, and the fact that you think it's "weird" for someone to open carry suggests implicit bias demonstrated by your further comments.
It's nothing about "originalists" either -- whether for the exercise of constitutional rights, their own desire, or protection, if GP chose to open carry, and it's legal to do so, they shouldn't be randomly interrogated about it -- especially when making a routine enquiry.
You're also forgetting that plenty officers have both assaulted and used their arms against peaceful citizens, including in police custody and police stations, so "there's no reason to open carry there" doesn't apply -- you don't know if GP was simply walking home and went in to get this report copy on the way -- more ridiculous analogies don't make an actual argument, you know.
Going back to your initial "sound like," if police are using tactics they've learned to coax information out from suspect and display authority and force, it could absolutely be illegal, ranging from harassment to intimidation -- short of wearing a t-shirt saying "kill all cops" or waving their firearm around, there's no reasonable circumstance why they should be challenged like that, purely for open carrying -- as I said to you before, if they CCW'd there wouldn't even be an argument, so passing judgement on GP because of your own clear anti-gun bias is transparent as heck.
I can believe that widespread ownership and carrying of guns is dangerous and weird while at the same time acknowledging that police commonly abuse power and need more oversight. The two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive.
Also, I’m just going off of the story. I’m sure if the person in the story was detained or arrested they would have mentioned it.
So realistically, how do you think it’s going to work out if you used a gun in a police station against a police officer for self defense? How do you think it’s going to work anywhere if you used your gun against a police officer?
That’s just like all of the yokels who have guns to protect themselves against the federal government when even a small town SWAT team could take them out let alone the FBI.
location location location. a hockey rink in texas needs a whole heckofalotof AC. otherwise, it's just a really big wading pool
I am saying that a citizen walking into a police station with a gun is obviously in more danger than a person who goes in without a gun. Absolutely that's intimidating.
It's not about rights. I just don't trust the police enough to open-carry into a police station. Why take that risk? What do you gain? Is it just capital-F "Freedom"?
Whether it’s “my right” as a Black guy to legally carry a weapon into my local police station in a county that two decades ago was a famous “sundown town” and is still less than 5% Black, I’m not willing to get shot based on my principals and then the police just lie about it.
When we walked into the community, the builder could care less what color we were as long as our credit was good and we had the down payment to get our house built - in 2016 a 3200 square foot house for $335K.
By the way, it was really a famous sundown town…
https://www.oprah.com/own-oprahshow/oprah-ventures-into-fors...
This[1] young girl would disagree with you, as would this[2] man.
Also committed while in police custody, not necessarily in stations, bur certainly where you could also reasonably try and claim "you won't be attacked": [3], [4]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/01/police-custody... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64435109 [4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230860978_Reported_...
It's incredibly ignorant to make out like someone visiting a police station will magically be fine, because the police are the "good guy with a gun" in your scenario.
As for going into the station, it doesn't matter whether GP is "principled" or not, (a) they're allowed to carry, and (b) a car is not a holster.
If GP had been concealed-carrying you wouldn't have had any argument, you're trying to criticize open-carry as if there are only certain situations where it's acceptable.
If GP is legal to open-carry, they can do so wherever they like, providing particular legislation or bylaws don't prevent it.
Not sure why you're deepthroating the boot, but happening to be (legally) armed while making a regular request, is not a reason to be treated suspiciously by police.
Regardless, I am not saying he should not be allowed to do it. It's not boot-licking. I am wondering, practically, about the motivation.
Drawing a gun in a police station is a death warrant. Even looking like you're going to pull it could get you shot or arrested.
I don't normally go around wearing something on my belt that could get me killed if I move my hand near it. I would only do so for a very good reason.
So I'm looking for a better reason than "because I can". I don't see one in your response.
Never leave an unattended weapon in a car. Especially outside a police station. Either leave it at home, or keep it on your person. There are some products out there for securing weapons in vehicles that could work but if you don't have one don't leave your gun in your car.
Still, if you don't have a gun safe in the car surely you do the same thing as you would when going to court, a school, a church, an amusement park, voting at a polling place, a racetrack, a hospital, a nursing home, or to any other business that prohibits handguns on the premises. You leave it at home, right?
However, I understand there are hundreds of reasons to carry a weapon and everyone's situation is unique. If you want to put up with the trouble to carry one, it is literally your right. I just wish people would be more responsible about their weapons in general...
I'm willing trust an officer as a person, but not as a part of the system.
I think if any officer saw another doing anything illegal or would get them in trouble, 99% of the time they wouldn’t report them. The Blue Wall is real.
There has been substantial evidence of police hiding or deliberately not reporting misconduct from their colleagues, often because of fear of reprisals -- which absolutely is part of the system being objectively wrong.
Would you be as critical if GP's firearm was concealed, or if the camera used was one in their phone, and not on their hat?
Sounds like you're making a lot of baseless and judgemental assumptions about voakbasda -- not everyone is a deliberately antagonistic self-professed "auditor," you know.
> open-carrying my sidearm [into a police station]
> camera on my hat recording the interaction.
> they obviously were trying to intimidate me
Someone involved in a harassment dispute with a civilian shows up at a police station in full Agent Provocateur kit, then complains about harassment by the police when [lawfully] questioned.
You sure seem to invite harassment. You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale. Yet you want people to internalize that "the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted."
Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Your story stinks. I call shenanigans. You're either a foreign agent or a professional victim.
> You sure seem to invite harassment.
Serious question: What does this statement mean? Do you believe there to be conduct that is non-criminal and still validates police intimidation? What would that be? It's not like OP walked into the police station and hinted that he was a murderer.
> You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale.
Do you believe that as long as someone isn't illegally detained or assaulted for behaving in a "provocative" yet totally legal way, they have no basis for complaint?
> Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Is there literally anything on that video that could convince you the police mishandled OP's situation? The police know how to intimidate people -- doing so is literally their job when it comes to getting people to comply with orders or to answer questions in interrogation. The notion that the police officers in this situation acted to intimidate OP is not at all farfetched.
The fact that OP wasn't illegally arrested or worse makes the situation described that much more plausible. The cops know how far they can push things without risking accountability for their misconduct.
> the police should be able to resist the temptation to intimidate them
Both of you are throwing around the word "intimidation" to describe the police questioning why some idiot walked into a police station strapped and wearing a camera. Is he allowed to do it? Sure. The implication here is that the police aren't allowed to even question him though without it automatically becoming intimidation or interrogation (you're doing it too now), because that crosses a line somehow.
OP appears to be the frequent victim of "harassment," provides no evidence to substantiate his anecdote, and uses loaded verbiage like "obviously intimidating" to reframe perceptions of the alleged encounter and end it with defamatory accusations.
Ticks all the boxes in the performative outrage playbook.
> Is there literally anything on that video that could convince you the police mishandled OP's situation? The police know how to intimidate people -- doing so is literally their job when it comes to getting people to comply with orders or to answer questions in interrogation.
Not really. I'm surrounded by women and have a stepdaughter with terminal Munchausen syndrome so I'm used to histrionics and abuse of the courtroom Kuleshov effect. That one throws around sexual harassment allegations, trying to show individual text messages as evidence. Then you ask to see the full conversation and she gets cagey. You dig deeper and you learn she solicited the other party.
So here we have a guy who seems to get harassed everywhere he goes. We learn he is presenting himself in a conspicuously-threatening way, and are told that the very act of asking an armed man questions in the lobby by the police should obviously be interpreted as "intimidation."
Let's recap:
> Man threatens police, on their own turf.
> Police ask questions.
> Man cries police intimidation.
> Everyone is told to ignore the fact that man tried to antagonize police and nothing happened. Police are bad!
It's bullshit. Desperate attorneys do this florid dubbed-over visualization crap too-- "let me explain to you what you're actually seeing in this amateur video of a man--possibly woman, who knows (gender is a social construct after all!)--who looks like my client (but may or may not actually be), appearing to gently tap the victim with a roll of what could be soft paper towels, but it's possible if you look at it from a weird angle, it's possible it might look a little like a baseball bat."
1) I always carry. Everywhere. I live in a very rural area. Police response time is 15 minutes or more. But so what? They have zero obligation to protect you, even if they could show up in 30 seconds. I will never willingly abdicate my right to self-defense to anyone.
2) I do not have a place to secure my gun in my car, so that was not an option. Leaving guns in your car is not a good idea, so I usually avoid going into places that require me to disarm.
3) The camera was a result of the harassment by my neighbor. I did not mention that one of them is a cop. They filed a false report against me and then tried to have me arrested under those false pretenses. I started recording everything that I did, to provide an affirmative defense against accusations in situations without objective witnesses. Basically, everywhere and always.
4) I went there as a routine errand, going about my daily business. I never expected a confrontation to ensue. I never expected to be treated like a criminal from the start of the conversation. I was friendly and open in my interaction and sure as hell was not trying to provoke this kind of encounter.
5) I don’t have video because the first thing that they did was intimidate me into stopping the recording. They insinuated that my recording there was illegal and that was why they they approached me. My gun then became another lever for them to attack me.
6) I believe that the main thing that saved me was thinking quickly, knowing my rights, and articulating that understanding and resulting position in a way that made it clear that I was not going to be an easy mark. I use big words and seem intelligent, which I think intimidated them a little bit. That, and I luckily happened to have a friend with me who watched it all go down, and that could have been inconvenient when they went to tell lies on an arrest report.
Like, you're clearly not a felon, and in many cases the feds already have a full set of your fingerprints.
Sure, and I’m much more statistically likely to be hurt by a dog than mauled by a lion. But I’m not going to give up my dogs and start wandering into lion cages at the zoo.
With travel, we often talk about deaths per x miles traveled. I think in this case a reasonable metric would be deaths or injuries per x minutes of interaction.
If you have a cop as a family member, you are at an elevated risk of each of those, and much of that is the special risk of getting both simultaneously.
(You interact with your own family members many orders of magnitude more often than with the police; as such, raw numbers here would be wildly misleading.)
What do you think the chance magnitude is of being killed for filming a police lobby? 1 in 10? 1 in 10 billion?
What would your proposed policing system look like?
Maybe in vague theory but in the past several years, every time a cop shoots someone without just cause there are a lot of people defending them. Hell, they get donated millions to defend themselves in court! Strangers send money to a random cop so he can afford expensive legal council to keep him from being guilty of a crime. Surely that can't be read as everyone wants accountability right?
I think pretty much everyone wants police accountability, but the cases where the police are most unambiguously & egregiously wrong on every level aren't divisive enough to stay in the news as long as divisive ones. (Not necessarily always true! Please do not take any of this as a strong personal opinion any any particular case(s)!)
[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
However, as a side effect, I think a lot of police would leave their jobs (or less people would join the police force in the future) without qualified immunity. In some cases this is good as it removes or prevents bad apples in the force, but in other cases I imagine perfectly good potential-cops are not going to put up with a dangerous, low-paid job that they can also be sued for doing at any time.
Sort of like aggressive medical malpractice lawsuits discouraging actually good/useful medical treatment as bycatch. Maybe there's some free-market equivalent of malpractice insurance for police (where the shadier they've acted, the more they'd have to pay for insurance)? Not sure the market is the right approach here, but I'm not familiar with any specific alternatives.
Or, to make everything a lot easier, just give every cop a bodycam and ~80% of the ambiguity disappears.
I'd rather have fewer police, even if that makes them dangerously understaffed, than the current situation where cops have very little accountability, and are unlikely to be punished when they break the law when interacting with non-cops.
Qualified immunity needs to go. Not just because it's a bad doctrine, but also because there's no basis for it in law; courts have just made it up with little legal justification.
> Or, to make everything a lot easier, just give every cop a bodycam and ~80% of the ambiguity disappears.
Body cameras are much less useful than we'd all like to believe. I think 80% is too optimistic. Cops can turn off the camera (or, "weird, it wasn't working"), and regular physical motion can easily blur the scene and make it impossible to know what's truly going on. I think cops should be required to wear them (and be auto-punished for turning them off), but I don't think they're the panacea many people think they are.
Given other societal forces (i.e. decreasing mental health care for those with the greatest need, since about the Reagan era), in my understanding we rely on cops to hold together denser areas. If policing were to substantially decrease, I'd want to be as suburban/rural as possible (whereas currently I'd like to be more urban). I might be in favor of less policing if it came after we had better services for the homeless & mentally ill.
Not claiming my viewpoint is morally or practically correct, only trying to give a better view of my perspective. I'm sure views on the police differ greatly by group membership (I am likely biased by police having low suspicion of me by default; I am also ~never going to "win" a physical interaction without backup.)
Could you expand on where & why we differ?
Miranda rights are a good example. Police don't get qualified immunity for violating Miranda Rights because they are codified.
Separating it Internal Affairs and police investigations under a different organization seems like a no-brainer. This would remove conflicts of interest.
No other job in the US, including ones that can cause negligent death and send you to prison, has qualified immunity. If a cop can't do their job without breaking the law, something is very wrong with the law or their job description.
>dangerous, low-paid job
It is not even remotely either of these. Cops die less on the job than sanitation workers. Most cop deaths (excluding when covid was the primary cause) are caused by car accidents. Is the police union attempting to stop car chases which have shown to be dangerous and ineffective?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Police and sheriff's patrol officers and transit and railroad police have some of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses of all occupations."[0] It's certainly not the deadliest job, but I'm guessing it is vastly overrepresented in deaths & injuries compared to most jobs (and many potential officers' next best option).
In 2021 police & detectives in the U.S. had a median wage of ~$66k[1], lower than the national median of ~$71k[2]. Again, not the worst paid by far, but below median.
Obviously a lot of this depends on location; different areas have vastly different crime rates, and police in a wealthy suburb probably are very well-off compared to the night shift in inner cities.
Police work is far from the worst job you can get, but it still seems harder than a lot of (most?) other work. Though I don't feel qualified to make a subjective comparison to other jobs of similar pay & starting requirements.
I'm not sure what you mean by police unions trying to stop car chases. Presumably chasing criminals through sometimes-dangerous situations so they don't get away is a core part of the job description?
[0] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/police-and-detect... [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/police-and-detect... [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...
Fear is often not a rational experience, though. Interacting with American cops has become scary, and thus we don't have a ton of people doing what this guy is doing.
What I can say is that I haven't seen the footage of police raping someone shown by the news (with the exception of Daniel Wilkey - https://youtu.be/90UuIJkeZYg), and I imagine that many victims would object to that footage going public. I think it's reasonable to conclude that rape is less likely to be filmed (by police, victims, or bystanders) in the first place and more likely to go unreported entirely than the beatings and murders we usually see footage of.
Still, we know that police do rape people.
Personally, even things like this are terrifyingly dystopian:
https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/justice/new-mexico-search-law...
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2020/09/2...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/19/syracuse-...
But there's at least some thin excuse for why that should be allowed. We've also seen cops caught who ended up with a long list of victims and/or a history of complaints.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-cop-arrested-custody-koh...
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2019/may/13/desmond-loga...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/tennessee-deputy-danie...
https://www.wdrb.com/news/fourth-woman-files-lawsuit-accusin...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/23/roger-...
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/hempstead-village...
I'd like to think that today things are slowly getting better and that if a video was released which clearly showed police raping someone at least something would be done about it, but I really don't have any reason to think that police would get away with rape any less often than they do murder.
Ordinary people, even ones who might hurt you, are aware that doing so comes with the threat of the law. The police are the law, and as such are emboldened towards violence when antagonized in ways that the ordinary public is not.
[1]: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/police-c...
Police may walk away from just about any interaction with the public, even if they know that death or serious injury will happen unless they intervene (though there may be states that have legislated exceptions to this).
Most working people may be fired for not engaging a potential customer, client, vendor or someone else they’d normally interact with as part of their job. They can even be fired for simply not being friendly enough in one of these interactions.
Community policing should be about community policing and needs to be de-escalated. Warrant enforcement should be warrant enforcement. This would make police less fearful and less justified in their hostility.
And I'm someone who respects the police and believes in the rule of law. But reality is reality.
There are many more people who would kill you because they don't care or think they will be caught or forgot it all in the moment. You would be surprised how little your life means when someone needs a fix or a lot of money is available.
What we have here is the tv effect. Every cop show features a bad cop. Cop murdering black guy results in huge protests where 10 times more people get murdered by other protestors.
Your chances of getting killed at the protest is much greater than being murdered by the cops who everyone is protesting against
This is a misleading fixation: the police can beat, brutalize, and kill people without ever firing a gun. In fact, mistreatment at the hands of the police is probably overwhelmingly physical in nature. The fact that your community has sporty cops does not meaningfully change this truth.
By and large, the police in the US are subject to extremely positive media portrayals. I, like millions of other Americans, grew up watching Law and Order (the good one, not SVU); the police in these shows are shown, with sparingly few exceptions, to be virtuous public servants. Such positive fictionalized portrayals have been instrumental in the public's overall opinion of policing[1], even through real-world evidence to the contrary.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230609092852/https://www.ojp.g...
Crazy how dishonest this response from the police is. Public buildings have restricted zones that the public cannot enter, they are clearly defined by the law, such as a public lobby vs someone's office.
Plus, if police keep their emotions in check the auditor will likely have to look for a day job and have no more time to bother them!
I am certainly no auditor, but last week I felt uncomfortable with how a stop-and-search of a person of colour was being conducted in England last week, so I filmed it from a reasonable distance. There was no provocation from me, and the police didn't react - which is the right thing, and makes a boring video (which I had no intention of uploading anyway).
Despite this, when one of persons friends got close (~15 feet away) to talk to him (which is entirely lawful with a stop-and search), one of the police pushed (with force) him away. I interjected and told the constable he "could use words, rather than force", and his response was "I could have pushed harder if I wanted". If the constable was willing to have this type of interaction on camera, imagine what it could have been like if it wasn't filmed.
I think that's a fine reason to do it. If we can get to the point where cops acknowledge that they can and may be filmed anywhere when they're on duty, that's a good thing.
Heckling and riling them up is crossing the line, though.
This is what most of the auditors are working towards.
The police don't want auditors bugging them, and auditors don't want police bugging innocent people.
Once these two groups understand the positions of each other, they'll invariably align incentives.
The officers were willing to make an arrest to retaliate against First Amendment protected activity because they knew they could do so with impunity. Would it have been less hassle to ignore him and let him do his thing? Yes indeed. But they assaulted and then arrested him anyway because it's a power thing.
It's worse than that, NY has an ordinance explicitly allowing people to film police. This is a case of the police enforcing laws that simply don't exist and prosecutors supporting them. It's by definition lawlessness inside the police force.
That will align some incentives.
Hell, for two decades we have taught our cops that the world is a warzone and all citizens should be considered threats. They're itching for a "war", for a chance to play with all their toys. There's a significant amount of literal right wing militias in the american police.
The scenario I'm talking about involves extremely difficult to detect and prevent vigilante action against corrupt individuals.
The kind of law enforcement that you're talking about who are itching for a 'war' will fold as soon as they face a threat like that. They're not actually there for a war. they're there to bully.
As for RR, the ATF solicited the crime, and it took them a lot of effort to get what's-his-name to actually commit that crime. That is just not OK!
In the NYPD raw footage, you can see an officer tell Mr. Reyes, post-arrest, "You wanted this." And Reyes responds, "I wanted my freedom to be taken away from me?" It's preposterous on its face. And if merely asserting a constitutionally protected right is synonymous with baiting or provoking law enforcement, what crazy world do we live in?
In other videos on his channel, it has become routine for police officers to pull public employees aside and say, "Look, he's just doing it for the views or to start a lawsuit." Essentially, they imply that he's trying to exploit some loophole of the law for personal gain.
In reality, though, like any other journalist, he's entitled to a source of income from the content he produces, and that doesn't mean he's doing anything dirty or sensational. And he's certainly not exploiting a loophole of the law. The right to do what he's doing is enshrined in the Constitution.
This conflates constitutional rights violations by police with merely being an annoying "bad actor" civilian, which is intellectually dishonest and completely reprehensible.
"Stirring shit up" doesn't mean doing anything illegal. If they also get views WHILE calling out the bad stuff, why is that bad? They aren't violating the law. They aren't forcing anyone to do anything. I really don't see why not breaking the law is suddenly frowned upon.
"You reap what you sow" even predates the current issues with police.
If you exercise your legal rights and the police beat you with a baton, or cuff you and kneel on your neck for several minutes, or just detain you for the maximum number of hours without charging you, that's still a meaningful problem.
These public servants might be wrong when they say you can't film in a particular area, but that is an opportunity for education and not an opportunity to treat them like crap, and it happens constantly with these people. The 'frauditors' love to remind public servants that they work for them and then use that as an argument to talk to them like they are the lowest forms of life on the planet. It's disgusting and I hope the auditors out there that are doing this work respectfully and honestly are the ones that get the attention in the future.
Funny how the absolute bare minimum requirement that one would expect for police would make most of this simply disappear (obviously some of these are about actual laws which are unconstitutional, which may need to be handled in court post-arrest)
But having watched his videos for more than a year, I can understand his frustration. Public servants routinely mistreat him. They bark orders at him that they have no authority to demand, they treat him as hostile for not immediately deferring to them, and at times they even physically lash out at him. After having that happen repeatedly, I'm sure he's fed up with it, and so I can overlook some verbal expressions of frustration.