NY Federal Court: There's a Right to Record Police, Also Inside Station Lobbies

No, the people have freedom to use the press, just like the same Amendment protects the freedom to use speech.

The kind of BS that these "auditors" do that results in them being arrested doesn't come close to the BS I personally experienced on a daily basis working in retail, and somehow I was able to not assault them.

The problem is police believe that using force is acceptable, and so they use force by default, typically after escalating an interaction rather than doing their job which is to de-escalate. The reason for that is that police unions keep trying to train cops to be thugs (the myriad "training" courses that are geared to "every day could be your last, be ready to shoot" instead of "your goal is to arrest criminals, not execute them, so learn to calm down situations instead of making them worse")

But baiting is when you entice a person to do something wrong by offering them some kind of incentive. And it has to be something they wouldn't otherwise do unless incentivized. Thus, you can't "bait" a law enforcement officer by simply engaging in constitutionally protected conduct, unless the argument from police is that officers just can't restrain themselves from violating people's civil rights when those rights are exercised.

In fact, in one of Reyes's encounters with the NYPD that led to an unlawful arrest, one of the officers told him afterward, "You wanted this to happen," and Reyes responded, incredulously, "I wanted you to violate my rights and take away my freedom?" No, he wanted to be able to go about his business without being arrested -- which he was later able to do after this court ruling went into effect.

You're victim blaming big-time. They're on the receiving end of bullshit and cannot opt out of it, but we'll condemn them for fucking up their response?

I'm the most cool-headed person I know and I had to talk a neighbor down from kicking my ass on camera (and in front of my own child) just yesterday. It took a superhuman amount of restraint to not even raise my voice because the adrenaline factory was in overdrive on both sides, gearing up for a fight.

The provocateur has an unfair advantage-- the element of uncertainty. Only they know they're not they're going to escalate. Defense is a losing game; it only takes one failure to anticipate a threat before you're dead or unconscious. In order to stay so calm, I had to embrace the possibility that I might actually -die- in that encounter if the guy pulled out a knife. I was armed myself, but didn't draw so as not to escalate. It's a position of vulnerability I should never have had to put myself in.

Once the adrenaline rush subsided, I had to go take a fucking nap. Cops don't get that option; they're immediately dispatched to deal with the next asshole.

The First Amendment doesn't have an "unless they're a pain in the ass" exemption.

> Getting someone to leave private property

These folks tend to be on public property. That's the whole schtick.

Of course they don't leave, they have the constitutional right to stay! The very act of asking them to leave is already an overstep.

> The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, instead going straight from polite request to handcuffs, with trespass notices coming afterwards.

That is absolutely disgusting. Is that how you want people to treat you?

Rightfully so; tasers and pepper spray were meant to incapacitate violent suspects. They were never supposed to be used to enforce compliance with orders.

Pulling out tasers to deal with "auditors" is the very behavior they seek to document.

Everyone has to remember, not all departments are bad, but all departments can have bad cops; some WAY more than others to put it lightly. It's the unwillingness to remove or even punish the bad cops, that is the issue.

A peaceful protest on a public sidewalk outside a public official's home falls pretty squarely within those protections.

But preventing a person like Reyes from recording does nothing to resolve the privacy issue. Anyone who is willing to go through the trouble can request security camera footage.

I think we also need to recognize that in a public place like a police precinct lobby, there are going to be some people who desire not to be recorded as a way of protecting their privacy, but other people who desire to record as a way of protecting themselves from police misconduct. Both have legitimate but competing interests. But the law explicitly protects the latter.

But there is also the restriction that he doesn’t have a right to be in restricted areas.

So the solution is still the same, and still very simple. Allow people to make police reports in restricted areas, away from people filming, if they wish.

It's pretty rare that we see the cops being recorded breaking the law on their own body cameras, despite those body cameras supposedly being "always on", even after we know they broke the law some other way(like being recorded by third-parties, etc).

It would be really interesting to know how often body cams are catching these things, the best I could find is via the LAPD:

"Of 37 police shootings that have gone before the civilian commission over the last year, 25 cases had some type of body camera violation by officers who were considered to be substantially involved, the Times review found." -https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-21/internal...

So terribly, which isn't surprising, but is very sad for humanity.

The right to film in public is a first amendment thing. This law just codifies it and specifies that public areas of public buildings are areas where filming is allowed.

Hence why I suggested sending an officer, or allowing reporting remotely via phone and web. Which, of course, are all ways that the NYPD accepts reports.

A frequency argument is useless here. It happens that people get shot by police when it is uncalled for, with no consequences for the murder other than some paid vacation time. It is documented. This is not a discussion of what is most deadly or if it is common.

Plus, I don't like this implication that anyone armed deserves to die. Being armed is a constitutional right, not a murder justification.