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Olga Khazan writes in The Atlantic that police in Ferguson, Missouri, arrested two reporters Wednesday night as protests over the police shooting of an unarmed teenager continued for the fifth day. The journalists, the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery and the Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly, were only detained for about 15 minutes before being released, but the incident provoked widespread outrage over the Ferguson police's increasingly brutal tactics.
Lowery wrote that armed officers stormed a McDonald's in which he and Reilly were working and demanded to see ID. They then told Lowery to stop video recording them, and finally they ordered the reporters to leave and claimed they weren't leaving fast enough. According to other reports, the Ferguson police also demanded that an MSNBC camera man and a local Fox News crew take down their cameras. Police hit the crew of Al Jazeera America with tear gas and dismantled their gear.
"The arrest and intimidation of journalists for documenting the events in Ferguson is particularly disturbing because it interferes with the ability of the press to hold the government accountable. But actually, anyone journalist or otherwise can take a photo of a police officer," writes Khazan. "Citizens have the right to take pictures of anything in plain view in a public space, including police officers and federal buildings. Police can not confiscate, demand to view, or delete digital photos."
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday August 16 2014, @05:53PM
The police force in an institution to serve the public from harm in social communities. When the police force starts to serve itself then you have lost more than you can imagine and every single person should stand up and ensure that any form of self-serving behaviour can not and will not be tolerated.
The people in "power" easily forget who they serve. The only way to ensure they stay on track is to create public accountability. That also means that a police force cannot police itself and a third party, completely independent and without affiliations, must take that role. You can only trust the police force if, and only if you stop secrecy in the operation and make it transparent to all those who they serve.
(Score: 1) by Mr. Slippery on Sunday August 17 2014, @02:53PM
The police force -- like every other aspect of government -- is an institution to serve the powerful and protect the privilege of the ruling classes. Any protection of ordinary citizens that occurs is a side-effect of their mission to protect the aristocrats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 17 2014, @07:44PM
> Any protection of ordinary citizens that occurs is a side-effect of their mission to protect the aristocrats.
That does not mean we can't push to make the reality more in line with the rhetoric.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:56AM
there are 2 kinds of law 'malum in se' and 'malum prohibitum'
cops enforcing the first kind of law are peace officers, they are to be respected
cops enforcing the second kind of law are enforcement officers, these are nothing more then the proxy for (special interest) mob rule, they are to be despised and feared
the fact that 2 kind of officers are embodied in the same person is the reason abuse of force is allowed,
we need to separate those 2 out