Unfortunately, it is reality.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
Reno 911 or reality?
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Tag Archives: police
Ferrari driver in trouble
What happens when a cop is writing you a ticket and you hop in your Ferrari and drive over his foot? Its not pretty, but at least they didn’t Taser the guy.
The right to photograph
Over and over again, photographers on public property are told that it is illegal to take photographs. It is not illegal, in this country or in the UK, to take photographs on public space. Here is a good summary of US law from the ACLU.
For more information, you can check out this release from the Department of Homeland Security. Click the left-most button below to view full-screen.
(via Nothing To Do With Abroath)
Related articles
Call the Internet police
Outrage of the day
Read this. (Via John C. Dvorak)
Film a cop, go to jail
A motorcyclist in Maryland, who happened to be wearing a helmut camera, was stopped by a police officer. The motorcyclist recorded the video of what happened next, including the cop drawing a gun. He posted the video on YouTube, and now faces a wiretap charge under Maryland law his efforts. Ridiculous. And the ACLU is defending him. The idea that citizens cannot record the activities of police officers in public is outlandish and offensive.
Much more from Digby.
Oh, and here is the video.
Bulldog attacks cop car
This is pretty amazing.
More information here.
Another arrest for speaking one’s mind
According to this story in the Huffington Post, a gay man was arrested by DC police for saying that he hated the police within earshot of several officers. The charge: “disorderly conduct” aka bad manners directed toward cops.
One officer reacted strongly to Tuma’s song. “Hey! Hey! Who do you think you’re talking to?” Tuma recalled the officer shouting as he strode across an intersection to where Tuma was standing. “Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?” the police officer said, according to Luke Platzer, 30, one of Tuma’s companions.
Tuma said he responded, “It is not illegal to say I hate the police. It’s not illegal to express my opinion walking down the street.”
According to Tuma and Platzer, the officer pushed Tuma against an electric utility box, continuing to ask who he thought he was and to say he couldn’t talk to police like that.
“I didn’t curse,” Tuma said. “I asked, am I being arrested? Why am I being arrested?”
Oh, and to add insult to injury, the arrested man was called a “faggot” by the arresting officer.
The arrested man happens to be a lawyer, a former associate at Milbank, and has himself retained a lawyer.
Another shrewd arrest by police
In Mobile, AL, police used pepper spray AND a taser on a mentally disabled and deaf man who would not leave a bathroom in a store. Then, they attempted to charge him with “disorderly conduct” which the magistrate refused to allow. The victim’s family says that police officers dropped the victim off in the parking lot of their apartment building without saying what happened or why he had been missing for six hours. More hideous details at Reason. And if you are not overly sensitive, you should check out this taser incident.
Refusing an order by a police officer, especially where the order was likely to be misunderstood if it was heard at all, is not a crime. While the police say the use of the taser was justified under their policies, this is yet another situation that should call for a national review on the use of tasers for law enforcement purposes.
Jonathan Turley describes yet another recent case of taser abuse by police here.