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In a US federal civil rights lawsuit, a Connecticut man has shared footage to bolster his claims that police illegally confronted the pedestrian because he was filming one of them. Authorities seized Michael Picard's camera and his permitted pistol, and the officers involved then accidentally recorded themselves allegedly fabricating charges against the man.
Picard's police encounter began as he was protesting a sobriety checkpoint while lawfully carrying a handgun in a holster. The plaintiff often protests near sobriety checkpoints in the Hartford region and is known by locals and police in the area, according to court documents. "Cops Ahead: Keep Calm and Remain Silent," read the 3-foot-by-2-foot sign Picard held up to motorists ahead of the checkpoint in West Hartford last year.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Informative) by JNCF on Thursday September 22 2016, @09:09PM
[If you act like a d***] around law enforcement, don't be surprised to get your butt slammed to the ground.
Not that it would excuse their behavior, but do you even know that he was acting like a dick? He was taking pictures of them, and they illegally took his camera. From the video, it looks like the conversation starts with the cop saying "it's illegal to take my picture" while grabbing his camera. Then they had to justify that action, so they made up fake charges. The citizen was being polite the whole time, and they didn't slam his butt into ground. As others have pointed out, you clearly haven't even examined the evidence. Allow me to spoon-feed it to you. Excerpts from video (emphasis added to draw tl;dr eyes to blatant evidence of copspiracy):
Trooper First Class John Barone: It's illegal to take my picture.
Michael Picard: No it isn't.
Trooper First Class John Barone: It's illegal to take my picture.
Michael Picard: It's public property.
Trooper First Class John Barone: It's illegal to take my picture. Personally, it is illegal.
Michael Picard: No it isn't.
Trooper First Class John Barone: Did you get any documentation I'm allowing you to take my picture?
Michael Picard: No, but you're on public property. Therefore, you have no reasonable ex-
Trooper First Class John Barone: No I'm not, I'm on state property. I'm on state property.
Michael Picard: You have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Trooper First Class John Barone: Stay there and be quiet.
Michael Picard: Can I have my phone back?
Trooper First Class John Barone: Not yet.
[Cop illegally seizes phone and walks away with it, not understanding that it is still recording video and audio. Phone sits on top of cop car while cops discuss what to do. Cops run background checks and make sure the citizen has a permit for his firearm.]
[...]
Trooper First Class John Barone [to other cop]: You want me to punch a number on this either way? Gotta cover our ass.
Sergeant John Jacobi: He was on- he was on the highway portion?
Trooper First Class John Barone: Yeah.
Sergeant John Jacobi: So, we can hit him with reckless use of the highway by a pedestrian and creating a public disturbance, and whatever he said.
Trooper First Class John Barone: That's a ticket?
Sergeant John Jacobi: Two tickets.
Trooper First Class John Barone: Yeah.
[Cops talk about ticket numbers and talk to another citizen, who they let go.]
Sergeant John Jacobi: Crap! I mean, we can hit him with creating a public disturbance.
[I believe that this section is broken up because Torneo is on the phone, and the breaks indicate a silence while the other party is speaking.]
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: The problem is-
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: The problem is-
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: (inaudible)
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Right, right, but if he's squatting in the middle of the highway...
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Right.
[...]
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Um, yeah, he showed up on the first day of school, with a buddy, and did an armed open carry walk around Hartford.
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Uh, let's give him something.
Sergeant John Jacobi: What are they going to do? Are they going to do anything?
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Didn't say, didn't say.
Sergeant John Jacobi: It's legal to do it.
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Um, this is state property. If you want to get over here, you have to come on the ramp. Make sure your guy gives him something.
Sergeant John Jacobi: He's going to get his truck, he's going to come down and give him a ticket.
Sergeant John Jacobi: He's gonna do something, he's gotta do a ticket.
[Cops talk to another motorist and tell him he can go.]
Sergeant John Jacobi: I think we can do a simple trespass, we do reckless use of the highway and creating a public disturbance.
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Yep. Yep.
Sergeant John Jacobi: All three are tickets-
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Yep.
Sergeant John Jacobi: We'll throw all three on the ticket.
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: And then we claim that, um, in backup, we had multiple people, um, they didn't want to stay and give us a statement, so we took our own course of action.
Sergeant John Jacobi: Ok.
Sergeant John Jacobi: The permit is good. The gun is good.
Master Sergeant Patrick Torneo: Alright.
So there you have it. They illegally take the camera, bring up the fact that they have to give him charges to cover their asses, discuss what charges to give him, and then conspire to give false testimony that will back up their claims. None of the cops seem to do a double take during any of this, contrary to what the "few bad apples" crowd should expect. This is everyday business for cops. The only thing novel about this incident is that they didn't intitally realize that they were recording themselves, and surprisingly gave back the camera once they did realize. I'm guessing they would have played the situation differently if they had known how much audio was captured, and at least deleted the video before handing the phone back. I don't know how much more evidence people want that the cops are crooked on an institutional level.
I even interpret the question "He was on- he was on the highway portion?" and response "Yeah." to be a read-between-the-lines moment between the two officers. Note that one of them later says "Crap! I mean, we can hit him with creating a public disturbance" as if they don't have other charges to throw at him, and a third cop later says (presumably on the phone, and after explaining that there was a "problem") "Right, right, but if he's squatting in the middle of the highway..." This is a conditional statement. Not "since he's squatting in the middle of the highway," but "if."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lcklspckl on Thursday September 22 2016, @09:55PM
The entire and proper phrase is 'one bad apple spoils the barrel'. We're past applesauce cider.
Using that phrase as a shrugarific, "Oh, pooh, it's just one bad apple," suggests that we tolerate it rather than pluck out the rotten apple. "Don't pluck me out, sir, I promise not to rot the rest. I'm am but only one." Fools that don't keep an eye on their food, eat rotten food. True since we've been barrelling apples.
I agree with your sentiment though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday September 22 2016, @10:08PM
In another report about this, "punch a number on this guy" has been interpreted as meaning "find a statute he violated."
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a5e_1474465813&comments=1 [liveleak.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @01:31PM
Also a further explanation is necessary:
Finding a reason to stop someone AFTER you have stopped them is a violation of their constitutional rights. There exists no reasonable suspicion if you have to make up a reason to stop them AFTER you stopped them. If they had a reason to harass him, they would have already known what law he was allegedly violating. This is 100% illegal activity, but of course not as heinous as shooting an unarmed person and then deciding "he was reaching for a weapon."
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday September 23 2016, @04:56PM