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: 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