Pay close attention to the video. The woman is already past the cop when he has to turn around and push her.

You can read more about this incident here and here. The officer in question and the police department have apologized to the woman.

“When I was a “police officer” back in the early ’70s the transformation was just starting to take place from a mentality of a public servant working for the citizens to “law enforcement”. The first I noticed of it was when the police departments started preferential hiring of ex-military people returning from Viet Nam. They started introducing military tactics into the department, including the first S.W.A.T. team. They quit referring to people on the street as citizens and started calling them “civilians”, or more commonly “assholes”.

“They looked for opportunities to use their new toys provided from “federal assistance” monies in the war on drugs. They changed the uniforms from the blue-suited cop with an 8-sided hat with a shield on front to a set of black or navy fatigues and a ball cap. They started shaving their heads and pumping iron. They gave up on the idea that they put themselves in the line of fire to protect and serve the public and took on a combat marine attitude of protect their own above all else. I’ve known them to murder cop-killers in the street, but have a could-care-less attitude when a civilian is killed.”

You can watch Part 2 here.

Dan Dicks and Charlie Veitch, G-20 protesters just back from Toronto, give their on-the-ground view of the battles between police and those opposed to the New World Order

Jules Mattson was detained by UK police for doing nothing other than taking a photograph. When he repeatedly asked what law he was being detained under, the police’s story kept changing, from being a nuisance to a threat under the terrorism act.

According an audio recording of the incident, the police officer argued, at first, that it was illegal to take photographs of children, before adding that it was illegal to take images of army members, and, finally, of police officers. When asked under what legislation powers he was being stopped, the police officer said that Mattsson presented a threat under anti-terrorism laws. The photographer was pushed down on stairs and detained until the end of the parade and after the intervention of three other photographers.

Apparently, these police still haven’t gotten the memo that members of the public can take photographs in public places. It’s especially distasteful, given the fact that the Met just had to pay damages to two photographers for a similar incident.

Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.

Found via Mother Jones:

Drew Wheelan, the conservation coordinator for the American Birding Association, was filming himself across the street from the BP building/Deepwater Horizon response command in Houma, Louisiana. As he explained to me, he was standing in a field that did not belong to the oil company when a police officer approached him and asked him for ID and “strongly suggest[ed]” that he get lost since “BP doesn’t want people filming”:

Wheelan: “Am I violating any laws or anything like that?”

Officer: “Um…not particularly. BP doesn’t want people filming.”

Wheelan: “Well, I’m not on their property so BP doesn’t have anything to say about what I do right now.”

Officer: “Let me explain: BP doesn’t want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense.”

Shortly after, Wheelan got in his vehicle and drove away. He was stopped a short distance later by the same police officer and a BP security guard. BP security questioned Wheelan for twenty minutes while the police officer stood by.

“Then two unmarked security cars followed me,” Wheelan told me. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I was specifically trying to figure out if they were following me, and every time I pulled over, they pulled over.” This went on for 20 miles. Which does little to mitigate my own developing paranoia about reporting from what can feel like a corporate-police state.

Wheelan never should have answered any questions from a BP security guard. I don’t care if he’s the security chief or not. He wasn’t violating any laws and BP security had no right to interrogate him. The police officer also did not have any cause to take Wheelan’s information and then call on his radio to find out who Wheelan was.

The police are public servants. They are abusing their position by acting as agents of a private company. They are violating Wheelan’s civil rights as well as parts of the Constitution by acting in this manner. The police had no right to stop Wheelan. They did not have any probable cause.

Never speak to the police and, especially, don’t speak to some lackey security guard. The least you can do is write to your representatives in Washington and explain that this type of behavior must stop.

Minnie Carey dared to ask the police why she had to move when the police ordered her to. She ended up spending ten hours in jail and, now, the city of Atlanta is expected to pay her a $20,000 settlement.

Carey’s suit was filed Feb. 17, claiming Dolson violated her civil rights and falsely imprisoned her. The suit also said the city had not given Dolson training that might have led him to respond differently in his encounter with Carey and her friends on a sidewalk outside a convenience store.

Dolson has been suspended without pay for most of this year, but not for the Carey case. APD said it was other, unrelated infractions that led to the disciplinary action.

The suit said APD had received more than 10 complaints against Dolson but had “failed to adequately investigate the claims and deter him from further misconduct.”

In another federal lawsuit against the Atlanta police department, a $425,000 settlement is expected for cabbies.

The suit says officers confiscated permits and insurance stickers and then immediately cited or arrested the drivers for not having those stickers on their cars. The drivers were targeted because their checks to APD’s Division of Taxicabs and Vehicles for Hire were returned; some of those checks were written as long as two years before they were deposited.

It seems the Altanta police department needs to get its act together and stop acting like a bunch of thugs.

For the past few years, incidents of innocent citizens being arrested for taking photos of the police has been increasing. The police, apparently fear this more than being shot at or stabbed and believe that they can’t do their job if someone is watching them. Now, they want the right not to be photographed while in the course of doing their jobs.

Carlos Miller at the Photography Is Not A Crime website offers an explanation: “For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man.”

When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop.

It is highly hypocritical that the police have no problem filming ordinary citizens at their whim, however, they do not want the reverse to be done to them. Normal citizens are told every day that they should have no expectation of privacy in public, so why should to police be exempt from this policy as well?

The police are civil servants. If we do not watch them, who will? They get to carry a badge and a gun and get to tell people what they can and can’t do, the people get to film you. It’s that simple. If you do not like it, do not become a police officer. We are too far past the point of automatic trust. Until the police stop lying and become trustworthy, we should never take their word for what occurred.

The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

If this is the case, how are cctv in stores exempt from this police? If you go in and rob a store, you have not given consent to be video taped. Is any video of you captured then inadmissible in court? I would be surprised if it wasn’t.

Happily, even as the practice of arresting “shooters” expands, there are signs of effective backlash. At least one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed the right to video in public places. As part of a settlement with ACLU attorneys who represented an arrested “shooter,” the police in Spring City and East Vincent Township adopted a written policy allowing the recording of on-duty policemen.

This should be happening in every state. If you are placed in a position of authority over people, there should be checks on your behavior and actions to ensure everyone is treated equally. It’s a start, but more people need to involved to change this nationwide.

You can start by writing to your senators and congressmen and ask them to draft a bill and pass it into law that would create a federal law allowing the recording of police officers.

In Hazelwood, Missouri, on February 13, 2008, jurors in federal court decided that the Hazelwood police officer who arrested a fire captain at the scene of a 2003 car wreck was wrong to the tune of $17,500.

Officer Todd Greeves arrested Capt. David Wilson because they had a disagreement about where Wilson had parked the fire truck. Wilson testified at the trial that the Robertson Fire Protection District fire truck had been parked in such a way so that it would protect the rescue workers as they attempted to free a victim from a car that was involved in the crash on the Interstate.

When Greeves ordered that the fire truck be moved so that traffic could pass through the area, Wilson ignored him and continued working. Greeves then arrested Wilson, who was never charged. He was held for 23 minutes.

Some things to remember when watching this video. The cyclist wasn’t giving any real warning. He doesn’t appear to know that the police officer has a gun drawn on him. You can’t immediately put your hands up when your trying to balance a motorcycle.