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posted by on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-never-happened-on-the-silk-road dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:24AM (#479251)

    Why is it that the English always want to blame bad habits on "imported Americanisms," when 90% of the time the practices originated in England?

    No-one's doing that.

    The Brits just got round to moving to a better system before the Yanks did. Sound familiar? ;)

    Nope. We got Donald Trump large and in charge and Nigel Farage isn't running things yet.

    'murikkka! Fuck yeah!