LAPD cop tells photog not to photograph him because he is a "citizen
of this country"
Los Angeles photo activist Shawn Nee has once again demonstrates the importance of wearing a video camera around your neck when photographing police.
Last year, Nee made national headlines when he videotaped a Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy who had detained him for taking pictures inside the city’s subway system.
The deputy accused him of taking photos of the subway system in order to sell them to Al Qaeda. The deputy never noticed the Vievu camera hanging in full view around Nee’s neck.
Nee posted the video on his site, Discarted, and CNN’s Rick Sanchez picked up to the story, only to side with the deputy.
Now Nee has posted another video of an incident involving a Los Angeles police officer who did not want to be photographed making a traffic stop on a public road in broad daylight.
The cop tells Nee that he did not have the right to photograph him because he is a “citizen of this country.”
He also informed Nee that he was in the Marine Corps for a few years “getting shot at for you.”
So in other words, he’s willing to take a bullet for Nee but not willing to allow Nee to express his First Amendment rights.
The more the cop talks, the more he appears to be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because he keeps repeating that he is a citizen of this country and makes references to living in the desert.
“I spent my goddamn ass two years in the desert and I have to hear from your fruitcake ass,” the cop tells him.
You have to wonder if the cop would have come across more professional had he known he was being videotaped at the time.
The irony of this story is that Nee wear a Vievu camera around his neck, which is a company that targets law enforcement officers with their products.
A while back, my pal Eddie North-Hager contacted them to see if they wanted to advertise on this site. But they took one look at my site and decided it was “too controversial” for them.
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Photographer Suing L.A. Sheriff's Dept. Detained Again For Photographing
Deputies
A pair of bullying Los Angeles
sheriff’s deputies detained a photographer who snapped their picture on
Hollywood Blvd, accusing him of all kinds of false crimes before handcuffing
him, then searching through his camera bag without consent.
Shawn Nee – who already has a pending
lawsuit against the sheriff’s department for violating his rights as a
photographer – once again captured the incident on his Vievu camera, exposing a
disgusting show of brute intimidation.
The deputies first told him it was
against the law to take their photo.
Then they told him it was against the
law to photograph a couple of underage girls they were chatting up.
And then they told him it was against
the law to walk down the street without identification.
Obviously the dumb asses didn’t realize
they were being recorded the entire time.
The Vievu was attached to his camera
bag, which was left strewn on the sidewalk for several minutes after they
walked him handcuffed to their patrol car.
One of deputes calls Nee a “retard”
seconds before the other deputy discovers the Vievu attached to the camera bag.
They end up turning the camera off,
then releasing him about 15 minutes later with no citation or charges.
It is Nee’s second run-in with the
sheriff’s department since the lawsuit was filed in October, setting the stage
for what could be a significant payout once it reaches trial by August of next
year.
This incident took place in February,
but Nee’s attorney advised him against posting it until now.
"There was a lot said to me during
the detainment that was not captured by the camera," said in an email
Sunday morning.
"But one thing the second officer
said to me right after he took the cuffs off was, 'You know why we did this?
You know why we did this, right.'"
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I was detained again recently (actually handcuffed and
placed in the patrol unit) in Hollywood while photographing some people I’ve
been following for a couple of weeks. My account of what happened, along with
my footage (which is securely online already and stored on multiple hard drives
that are not at my residence), will be released in the near future, but the
experience has motivated me to finally comment on some letters I received in
November 2010 from LAPD’s Chief of Police Charlie Beck and Paul Espinoza—the
Northeast Patrol Division officer who unlawfully detained me because I photographed him and
his partner performing a traffic stop on Hollywood Boulevard in February 2010.
The first paragraph of Chief Beck’s letter states the
following:
An investigation
into your complaint that was reported on February 21, 2010, regarding the
conduct of an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department has been completed.
The investigation has gone through several levels of review, including myself
and the command staff of Internal Affairs Group. Your allegations that an
officer was discourteous and unlawfully detained you were classified as
Sustained. This means the investigation determined that the act alleged
occurred and constitutes misconduct. An appropriate penalty will be imposed;
however, Penal Code Section 832. 5 precludes me from disclosing the specific
penalty.
And Paul Espinoza’s apology letter says:
I am the officer
with whom you had contact on February 21, 2010. You should know there was a
complaint lodged against me and I am sure you will be informed by the
Department that complaint has been sustained. I wanted to write you a personal
letter to apologize for my actions on that day. The Department has provided me
training and I assure you I will handle similar situations in the future much
differently. I am very proud to be a Los Angeles Police Officer and will do my
best to serve you and the community to the best of my abilities in the future.
I hope the next time we meet it is under better
circumstances. Again, please accept my apologies.
When I first received the letters I was initially pleased
and certainly felt vindicated—especially towards my harshest online critics who
inaccurately claimed that I was never detained and should have waited for the
supervisor to arrive to say whatever it is that they thought I should have said
to him.
Well, as all will know now, as some of us already knew
then—I was unlawfully detained and treated disrespectfully. It’s that simple,
and for full-brained people it really isn’t all that hard of a reality to grasp
once you see the video.
As for the people who criticized me for not sticking
around to speak to the supervisor, what they may not realize is the fact that
speaking to a supervisor might well not resolve anything. More important, I
don’t need to complain to Espinoza’s superior at the time; I can complain by
filing a complaint with LAPD later. The two do not go hand in hand. Which, are
both very good reasons why I left.
This was not my first time being detained, and I
understand how the detainment and complaint process works. Plus, I have a
lawyer friend who I can contact when I need advice or a legal question
answered.
So once all the Monday-morning shutterbugs decide to stop
taking family portraits, studio shots of fruit and martini glasses, and
macro-shots of flowers and bugs and get their detainment cherry popped for
taking legal pictures in public (which are decent enough to share with the rest
of the world), then I’ll listen to what they have to say.
Sorry to digress, but all things must be addressed.
Then I read the letters again and thought about the
outcome a little more. What did they do to make sure Espinoza wouldn’t do something
like this again? And why does California Penal Code Section 832.5 (as
well 832.7) prevent me and the public from
knowing Espinoza’s “appropriate penalty”? For all I know, Espinoza’s
appropriate penalty was to write a forced apology letter because he was caught
on video screaming about his First Amendment rights, while at the same exact
moment derailing my constitutional rights.
I should have the right to know Espinoza’s penalty, and
so should you. We have the right to know the complaint history against all law
enforcement officers in this country. This should be easily accessible
information, rather than locked up and hidden from public scrutiny.
Penal codes such as 832.5 and 832.7 (which prevent LAPD
from releasing information even about complaints that were determined valid),
should not exist because all they do is raise credibility issues within the
confines of law enforcement and stir contempt throughout the public.
We need to change this.