“Step back. I don’t care if you record me.” that’s a lie; they actually care; that’s why they approach you recording their activities.
“You can record all you want; I don’t care.” Yes, they do care”; if they could stop you, they would do so in a heartbeat. In fact, there is a mountain of video evidence that shows that even though citizens have a right to photograph and video record them in the execution of their duties, they have a fundamental problem with it and have abused citizens engaged in that lawful process.
Notice that regardless of the distance a person stands with a cell phone recording their activities (and for the record, I agree they need room to work; no one should be obstructing them), they find their way to that person to bark orders. “Move away, step back, go across the street, go down the block.” It is not about the distance the person recording stands, even though the courts have agreed that a distance of fifteen feet is safe unless other circumstances would render that distance unsafe. It is easy to understand why police and anyone doing anything wrong would oppose someone with a camera or cellphone recording their activities.
What appears to be the majority of police officers in the United States seems to have no regard for the rights of citizens and, in particular Black citizens. In fact, time and again, we see officers going outside their authority to abuse citizens they do not like.
A person recording from far away produces a far less credible video recording. Police officers tell people recording them, “I don’t care if you record me,” generally then walk up to the person recording and stand in front of the camera. This behavior effectively makes it impossible for the camera to record what the cameraperson was initially recording.
This needs to be addressed with legislation. Police should not willfully attempt to stop constitutionally protected activity with impunity.
Rest assured, the rogue cops who engage in those illegal activities do so with the blessings of their higher-ups telling them to do it. Some willfully walk up to people recording their activities, take out their phones and start playing music that gets swept up in the recording.
Because of ownership rules, those video recordings are not allowed on streaming platforms like Youtube; even though the person recording had no intention of recording the music the rogue cop started playing.
In other words, police officers who are supposed to act with decorum and respect for the public act like common gangsters and thugs toward the public that pays their salaries and lavish benefits packages.
Just imagine this, had 17-year-old Darnella Frazier not had the presence to steadfastly record their activities in a manner befitting a professional photographer, Derek Chauvin would still be policing the streets of Minneapolis. His cohorts Thomas Lane, J. Kueng, and Tou Thao would not be facing trial for assisting in murdering mister Floyd.
Take a moment to process that, understanding that the Minneapolis Police department would not have volunteered the bodycam footage so that the quartet could face justice. In fact, they had initially crafted a lie about how mister Floyd lost his life before they realized there was credible video evidence that the four police officers had committed a daylight lynching.
This is the same police department despite the trauma the country endured when it murdered George Floyd, still went ahead and released edited bodycam footage of Amir Locke with a gun in his hand after they murdered him days ago.
As it turned out, the murdered 22-year-old had every right to have a gun, was not wanted by police, was not named in their search warrant, had no criminal record (not that it matters), and the weapon was pointed down toward the floor with his finger running parallel to the barrel.
Jolted from a deep sleep and trying to determine what was happening, he had every right to grab his gun. If legitimate gun owners cannot legally grab a gun in their own home without being gunned down by police who broke in, we are in dangerous territory as the government can choose to execute us using any pretext.
If Wiliam (Roddie) Bryant had not recorded the lynching of Amhaud Arbery, he and the father-son murderer-duo Gregory and Travis McMichaels, would be walking around as free men today.
As societies all across the globe are stitched together more and more daily with CCTV cameras, American police would have you believe filming their illicit activities is unlawful activity.
The chilling message the killing of Amir Locke exposes is the dangers Black legal gun owners still face even when they have committed no crime and are in what should be the safe and sacred sanctum of their own homes.
If this killing is allowed to stand, it will be precedent that the police can break into your home and murder you even though you committed no crime and are not wanted by them. White gun owners are certainly not insulated from this unconstitutional second & fourth amendment abrogation.
As a former cop, I believe in giving the police some leeway in the execution of their duties; the police, however, have a burden to be judicious with the powers they are given. They are heavily armed and supported; they do not get to enter someone’s home and murder them and then say, oops.
They do not get to kill someone emerging from deep sleep without ordering the person to drop the weapon. This is a situation in which police must be held accountable precisely because of the circumstances of the case.
The Washington Post, on Wednesday, February 9th, reported that American police shot and killed a Thousand and Fifty- Five people in 2021, the most since the WP started keeping count. If you thought it was getting better, you are wrong; it is getting worse.
They are on pace to up the ante by killing more people this year, mentally ill, sleeping, unarmed, armed with a box-cutter, and at a distance, none of it matters. If they want to murder you, they will, and they most likely will not even be charged with a crime.
Police forces are armed militias maintained and retained by states and municipalities to maintain order and protect property.
Following Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, some students held that local government officials were at fault for failing to protect students. The students filed suit, naming six defendants, including the Broward school district, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina. In 2018 a Federal Judge ruled the government agencies ” had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody.”
“Neither the Constitution nor state law imposes a general duty upon police officers or other government officials to protect individual persons from harm — even when they know the harm will occur,” said Darren L. Hutchinson, a professor and associate dean at the University of Florida School of Law. “Police can watch someone attack you, refuse to intervene, and not violate the Constitution.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government has only a duty to protect persons who are “in custody,” he pointed out.
So the misguided notion that gets repeated ad nauseam that police are there to serve and protect is fiction. Police are not there for your protection. Worse yet, they certainly aren’t there for the good of African-Americans.
There is no record of the idea of policing ever being intended for the good of Blacks in the United States of America. The cynics of these facts, some melanated, claim that police are in Black neighborhoods to save lives. That misconception is laughable. Police in city after city all across the United States do not care one hoot about dead black people, regardless of their propaganda campaign. The propaganda campaign gin up fears of violent crimes intended to scare gullible taxpayers to pay them more and hire more of them.
What they care about is that Black people do not burn, loot, break glass, or turn a corner without indicating.
In fairness to the Police, the foregone is not just about the police; it is a border societal problem — a society that does not care about all of its citizens because it was not created to.
Since citizens decided to fight back against them planting drugs, physically and verbally assaulting and even murdering the innocent, police have devised a new tact. Listen for it whenever they see someone recording them.
“You are distracting me from what I am doing, so now I have to divide my attention between you and them.” That statement has become a regular stanza for them, but it has little to do with the person holding a cellphone.
Every time it is uttered from the mouth of those liars, that statement is aimed at their cronies in municipal, state, and federal legislatures who bend over backward to please them and their unions for blocks of votes.
They are hoping that new legislation will be advanced, making it even more difficult for the average person to capture their crimes, even with the restrictions already on citizens not to hinder them. This may happen sooner than later, and the courts are all too happy to grant them more leeway to commit atrocities against a certain segment of society.
.
.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.