The police chief in Wilmington, North Carolina, has publicly lambasted one of his officers. The officer recently pulled over a local attorney moonlighting as an Uber driver and told the driver that he could not film the traffic stop.
"Taking photographs and videos of people that are in plain sight, including the police, is your legal right," Chief Ralph Evangelous said in a Wednesday statement published on the department's Facebook page. "As a matter of fact, we invite citizens to do so when they believe it is necessary. We believe that public videos help to protect the police as well as our citizens and provide critical information during police and citizen interaction."
The statement concluded: "A copy of this statement will be disseminated to every officer within the Wilmington Police Department."
During the February 26 traffic stop, Jesse Bright began filming Sgt. Kenneth Becker when he and other law enforcement officers approached his car. Sgt. Becker, who appeared to be wearing a VieVu body-worn camera, told Bright that a "new law" forbids citizens from filming encounters with police.
"Turn it off or I'll take you to jail," Becker said.
"For recording you?" Bright retorted. "What is the law?"
The officers were unable to cite him the "new law," as it does not exist.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday March 14 2017, @09:47PM
Here, cops have much less "qualified immunity" than in US and a lot of cases when they have to tell the truth or at least have a damn good reason not to. They lie anyways. They also have a lot of cases when they DO have a legal obligation to protect you when you are in danger. They sometimes do. That's why modern technology is fun. For now.