Cyclist Arrested For Videotaping Cop During Red Light Stop

Photographing and videotaping anything in public view—including federal buildings and the police—is legal in NYC as long as the documentation does not impede any law enforcement activity. Nevertheless, plenty of people—including journalists—continue to be arrested and harassed by camera-shy NYPD officers. Will Paybarah, a 24-year-old Brooklyn resident, says this is exactly what happened to him in late March, when he was stopped for running a red light on his bike and then arrested for trying to videotape the officer with his cellphone. "When I tried to record my interaction with the officer I was arrested... in 10 seconds flat," he told us. You can see that interaction quickly play out in the video below. Paybarah, a designer specializing in lettering and typography, told us he was stopped on the morning of March 20th while biking west on Houston past Broadway. He says he was stopped by "Officer Rich" of the 10th Precinct, who was in an undercover cop car, after he (admittedly) ran a red light. Paybarah took out his ID and immediately started taking video as the cop approached him: "After those 10 seconds I was pulled off my bike, pushed up against the metal fence, placed in handcuffs and put into the back seat of the car. Other officers came. They joked saying they were going to 'handcuff my bike to the tree.'"

The NYPD Patrol Guide Section 212-49 states that “Members of the service will not interfere with the videotaping or the photographing of incidents in public places. Intentional interference such as blocking or obstructing cameras or harassing the photographer constitutes censorship.”

While in the back of the car, Paybarah says he asked the officers why he was arrested for taking video. One officer responded memorably:

I was told by another officer while in the car that recording a police officer was illegal because people are using iPhones as guns and shooting cops through the camera lens...I told him that I have the right to be recording a cop and he said that there were incidents, specifically in uptown Manhattan where a kid shot a cop with his iPhone. Straight face. Very serious.

There are iPhone cases that double as stun guns, and there have been calls for the "iPhone of guns," but this is the first we've heard of an NYPD office being shot with an iPhone gun.

Paybarah was jailed at Central Booking for 13 hours that day, and though he was originally pulled over for running a red light, he was also charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, and criminal mischief. He had his court date this week, and was sentenced to one day community service (and he'll have the arrest purged from his record if he isn't arrested again in the next six months).

Asked about Paybarah's experience, NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman says, “New Yorkers have a constitutional right to film police activity in public. Cell phone cameras empower people to expose police abuse and hold law enforcement accountable when it violates people’s rights." Last year the NYCLU released a free smartphone app that lets users record police interactions and submit them to the organization in real time.

Paybarah adds that he's an avid biker (and used to be a bike messenger), but this is only the second time he's had a run-in with the law: "The only other time I was pulled over on my bike was for...get ready for it...Speeding. I was speeding on my bike. When I went to court for the summons, a clerk looked at the summons and dismissed my case."

Man Arrested For Filming NYC Cop Ticketing Him

By Edwin Kee on 05/04/2014

Will Paybarah, a 24-year old who has made New York City his home, was riding his bicycle last March 20th when he was asked to stop by a policeman who was about to give him a ticket for running a red light. In this day and age when social media is extremely pervasive, Paybarah took out his iPhone to record a video of the police officer’s approach only to find out that he was arrested instead for filming what was about to happen.

One ought to take note that there is no such law that forbids the filming of giving out a ticket, and the arrest was made by a certain undercover officer who goes by the name of Rich from the 10th Precinct. There were other policemen afterwards who showed up and made jokes that included how they were going to cuff Paybarah’ bicycle to a tree.

The NYPD Patrol Guide Section 212-49 does mention that the are not supposed to do anything should someone want to snap a photo, since that could be seen as a form of censorship. Paybarah, in a handcuff and seated within a patrol car, asked for the reason of his arrest only to be told that recording a police officer with an iPhone was illegal because criminals in the city do use iPhone handsets as a gun to fire bullets via the camera lens, while citing an example that a kid recently fired at an officer in the very same manner.

What do you think of the police’s reaction? After all, there are tasers that have been disguised to look like iPhones…

Green Bay police investigate arrest shown in viral video

Green Bay police said Tuesday they are investigating an arrest outside a downtown bar over the weekend captured on video and posted online.

The video, posted to Facebook and YouTube, shows an exchange between a man outside a bar and Green Bay Police Officer Derek Wicklund. The profanity-laced video appears to show an officer aggressively subduing an individual outside the tavern.

All officers involved in the incident remain on the job and continue to work on patrol.

The department’s Professional Standards Division is initiating an investigation and is seeking the public’s cooperation, police said Tuesday.

“We haven’t had, per se, a formal complaint filed, but based on the information we received (Monday) we have decided to start our own investigation,” Capt. Bill Galvin of the Green Bay Police Department said during a press conference Tuesday morning. “We’re going to be looking at everything that took place before, during, and after that incident.”

Joshua Wenzel, 29, of Caledonia, said he is the man on the video being grabbed by an officer, pushed against a car and taken to the ground. Wenzel said he and other people had been drinking at Stir-Ups Parlor & Saloon on South Washington Street, and were outside the bar shortly after it closed.

“I’m standing in front of this other kid, who is saying things and he is walking toward a cop,” Wenzel told Press-Gazette Media. “I don’t know the kid. I say, ‘you don’t want to go after a cop.’ Then the cop starts arresting him, and I say ‘what are you arresting him for?’”

On the video, a voice says “why is he getting arrested too now? Why is he getting arrested too?” An officer walks toward Wenzel, grabs him and pushes him against a parked car. The pair then fall to the ground and scuffle.

“He pushes me back ... he punched me in the face,” said Wenzel, who has been ticketed on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Wenzel said he doesn’t have any bruises or other injuries. He said Tuesday he had not lodged a complaint with police, and had not decided if he will consult an attorney.

Wenzel said he was “kind of drunk” at the time of the incident, but “not stupid, falling-down drunk.”

The incident came to light Monday afternoon through a Facebook post.

Galvin said the early investigation indicates the beginnings of the incident started around an individual who left one of the bars with an open intoxicant. Police ticketed a 24-year-old Green Bay man on that charge.

At least several days of work lie ahead in the investigation, but its duration can vary depending on information that comes forward, Galvin said.

“What we look at is, did officers follow policies and procedures?” Galvin said. “If they didn’t, what happened, and why did it happen. We put that all together into report form and forward it to the chief.”

He said officers dealing with a person who is resisting arrest can “go one level up” to subdue that person. If the person is wrestling with an officer, the officer could be justified in throwing a punch, striking with his elbow or using his baton, Galvin said.

“Every complaint against an officer is investigated as fully as possible,” Galvin said. “In an incident like this we didn’t wait for someone to come forward and file a complaint, we felt something like this is something that should be looked at.

“There were quite a few comments on Facebook, we were receiving emails from people that were concerned about the actions that took place,” he said.

“We’re reviewing details, video from officer’s squad cars, videos submitted to us by citizens and we’ll be trying to formulate a list of possible witnesses we can interview,” Galvin said. “We’ll be doing a thorough and transparent investigation.”

Momentum Grows for Police Body Cameras

By James Poulos.

For critics of police misconduct looking for an easy fix, one solution towers above the rest: affix video cameras to cops. The idea is picking up steam in California, where top officials are showing increased interest.

Yet this also is a time when concerns about data harvesting and government surveillance are also increasing. So questions remain as to whether augmenting oversight with “foolproof” technology contributes to a frame of mind that doesn’t serve civil liberties as much as advocates might hope.

California’s on-body camera experiment is already underway in Los Angeles. As the Los Angeles Times reports, Police commissioner Steve Soboroff led the push, raising $1 million for an effort expected to culminate in some 600 body cams to be used across the LAPD. But with Police Chief Charlie Beck describing the cameras as “the future of policing,” future growth seems assured, barring some unexpected mishap.

Who, indeed, wants to be seen taking a stand against the future — especially the future of public safety? In San Diego, the Times points out, politicians are lining up to endorse the rosy view. There, the city council has allocated twice Los Angeles’ planned spend, with city officials joining the incoming and outgoing chief of police in embracing cop cams.

Southern California’s swell of institutional support is a strong indication of one powerful trend — government enthusiasm toward enlisting technology in pursuit of public safety perfection. The case for videocams on police pitches a dual rationale that seems to benefit both those who govern and those who are governed. Citizens get a body of evidence in the event of officer misconduct. And officers — and departments — get protection from adverse verdicts and costly settlements in litigation surrounding alleged abuse.

What’s missing from that balanced equation, however, is a reckoning with the broader implications of perpetual police surveillance. The logic behind ubiquitous officer-mounted video does not stop with miniature automated camcorders.

Wired

The degree to which cops are “wired” is limited only by the state of the technological art. The New York City Police Department predictably now is testing Google Glass for use on the streets. The “future of policing” permitted by technology is a future where police operations work more and more like military ones — with officers back at headquarters closely monitoring and directing cops in the field, using real-time, first-person video and information.

For civil liberties advocates concerned about what The Washington Post’s Radley Balko calls “the rise of the warrior cop,” that’s not exactly a reason for optimism. So long as no-knock raids, aggressive SWAT techniques, and unreasonable or warrantless searches flourish under judicial protection, invasive and violent policing can become the norm, no matter how well-documented.

It’s a process that can be accelerated by Americans’ frequent sense that a muscular, active police force is a sign of social and political progress, and by the pipeline that so often leads prosecuting attorneys “who get results” to seek and gain higher political office.

Yet the main argument against the trend set by on-body police cameras fails to think very far ahead. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, which generally accepts the move toward cop cams, focuses almost entirely on ensuring that cameras cannot be edited or turned off by the cops who wear them.

Yet many Americans are very uncomfortable with the idea of “always-on” webcams embedded in their video game consoles. Isn’t the always-on issue even more salient when it’s an entire police force equipped in that way?

Not only is the bodycam trend apt to feed — and increase — the huge federal and other government appetite for monitoring and databasing. It’s also likely to atrophy our shared standards of individual responsibility, neighborhood trust and civic freedom.

In a world where every interaction with an officer is monitored, recorded, overseen and archived, our relationship to power is fundamentally changed — even if the kind of extralegal abuse associated with high-profile litigation against police departments disappears.

Now at the forefront of the tech revolution in policing, California’s often anti-establishmentarian citizens have a unique opportunity to question whether “the system” should forever be put between every private person and every law enforcement official.

NYPD Twitter Campaign Backfires – #myNYPD Goes Viral With Photos Of Police Brutality

On Tuesday, the New York Police Department asked its Twitter followers to tweet pictures of them interacting with the city’s policemen with the hashtag #myNYPD. This attempt of promoting a positive image for the department instead backfired into a public-shaming stint by their followers.

The #myNYPD Twitter campaign became an outlet for people to erupt the Twittersphere with pictures of the department’s excessive brutality, particularly during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Instead of happy pictures of cops in uniform posing with locals and helping people out, the #myNYPD hashtag was flooded with barbaric images of policemen kneeing civilians, bashing people with sticks and the bloody results.

After more than 10,000 tweets in an hour with the hashtag #myNYPD Tuesday evening, NYPD did not have much to say in defense. All NYPD spokeswoman Kim Royster publically had to say was, “The NYPD is creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community. Twitter provides and open forum for an uncensored exchange and this is an open dialogue good for our city.”

This revealing #myNYPD Twitter campaign sparked similar hashtag trends directed toward various police departments around the country, such as LAPD. Twitter user @amusem tweeted a picture of an NYPD officer pulling at a woman in handcuffs’ hair, with the caption, “Is that the one your public relations people requested? #mynypd.” Well, probably not.

Although this was most likely not the social media activity that NYPD intended with this hashtag, a conversation around police brutality is one that needed to be brought to light. Since police are a vital part to keeping any community safe, their shortcomings and excessive violence often go overlooked.

Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report scrutinizing the Albuquerque Police Department in New Mexico for their unacceptable “pattern of excessive force.” Last month the APD shot and killed James Boyd, a homeless Albuquerque man, during an outburst of mental instability. According to a Tuesday USA Today article, Boyd was the 37th person shot by APD and the 23rd one killed since January 2010.

And just two days ago, an APD policeman shot and killed 19-year-old Mary Hawkes who was suspected of truck theft — “suspected” being the operative word. Similar to Boyd, even though Hawkes never pulled out a gun on the police, she is the third person in five weeks to be shot dead by the Albuquerque police.

As the brutality of the APD and NYPD have re-entered the spotlight via social media week, it is vital that our justice department revisits the conversation around conventional police training. The fact that Tuesday evening’s Twittersphere was dominated with more pictures of police brutality than compassion speaks to a fundamental problem within this country’s police force, in which they are trained to act based on reaction rather than rationale.

Attila Denes, a Colorado County Police Captain, said the incessant issue of police brutality around the United States lies in the way policemen are trained. According to a 2013 report by the National Sheriff’s Association, at least half of the people who are violently killed by police in the U.S. every year have some sort of mental health problem — such as one of APD’s victims, James Boyd. If police were taught how to better identify the psychological rather than physical state of the suspected criminal, than fatal encounters between the police and mentally ill wouldn’t be so frequent.

“Traditional law enforcement tactics are rooted in logic, in reasoning — and in issuing commands for someone to comply so that we can make the situation safe right now by taking a person into custody,” Denes said. “But barking orders at a person with serious mental illness doesn’t work.”

This is not meant to undermine the importance and vital role police forces play in a community, however. Just look at the positive role both the Boston Police Department and Boston University Police Department play in our daily lives. Both of these departments act with good intentions, and, for the most part, succeed in making BU and Boston feel safe. Their excessive presence at Monday’s Marathon was not only warranted, but comforting as well.

But, at the same time, it would do our country a disservice to overlook how frequently the police use excessive force to quiet at rowdy crowd. Police should be inherently emphathetic, not just toward the mentally ill, but also toward normal, everyday civilians. If the police were trained with more of an emphasis on psychology and empathy, maybe Tuesday evenings Twittersphere would have been filled with fewer pictures of NYPD police officers with their knees on people’s necks, and more pictures of Hallmark moments like their social media managers probably intended.

Photographer sues Caltrans, CHP over Willits arrest

By GLENDA ANDERSON

A freelance photographer who was arrested while covering protests against the controversial Willits highway bypass last summer is suing Caltrans and the CHP, alleging they violated his constitutional rights.

“I want to protect the First Amendment. That's my main incentive,” said Steve Eberhard, 65, a retired welder-fabricator who moved to Willits from Santa Rosa 11 years ago.

The lawsuit includes allegations of false arrest, false imprisonment, civil rights violations, unnecessary delay in processing the arrest and intentional infliction of emotional harm.

CHP and Caltrans officials said they cannot comment on the case.

San Francisco attorney Duffy Carolan, a media law specialist and counsel to dozens of California newspapers, is representing Eberhard at no charge to him.

“It's very important for the press to have access to the area and the ability to monitor the CHP's response to the ongoing protest,” Carolan said, explaining why she took the case pro bono.

Protests began early last year as Caltrans started work on the $210 million, 5.9-mile Highway 101 bypass project. Demonstrators have been arrested after venturing into the construction zone, occupying trees on the site and chaining themselves to heavy equipment.

Opponents say the project is unnecessary and damaging to the environment. Supporters and Caltrans say the project is critical to alleviating traffic congestion in downtown Willits, through which Highway 101 currently runs.

The project also has generated lawsuits from environmental groups and citations from government agencies, which have slowed, but not stopped progress on the bypass.

Work on the project resumed last week, Caltrans spokesman Phil Frisbie said.

Eberhard, who has had two photos published in The Press Democrat, was arrested in July after walking onto a construction site at the north end of the bypass project. He said he was handcuffed, booked and detained for several hours before being released. No criminal charges were filed against him.

Eberhard said he would have left on his own, but a CHP officer abruptly arrested him while another was looking up the wording of a standard order to disperse.

At the time of Eberhard's arrest, Caltrans officials defended what happened.

They said they did not prevent Eberhard from covering the months-long protests, but that he and other media representatives were required to wait for an escort because there was construction underway.

“It's not safe to have people wandering around a construction site, even when there's no construction” in progress, Frisbie said at the time.

First Amendment experts say the press must be accommodated when covering legitimate news stories, but that it doesn't give them a right to go wherever they wish.

Eberhard had been warned several times before his arrest that he could not enter the construction zone without a press escort, Eberhard and Caltrans have said.

Eberhard said he always contacted Caltrans before going out but that an escort was not always available and that he would have missed the protest activities had he waited.

Carolan, the attorney, said the arresting officers knew Eberhard and why he was there. She said they arrested him to prevent him from covering newsworthy events and, “in their minds, to teach him a lesson.”

“Now we are going to teach them one,” she said.

Ex Cop: Everyone Behaves Better When They're on Video

Paul Detrick & Will Neff|

"Ex Cop: Everyone Behaves Better When They're on Video," produced by Paul Detrick and Will Neff. About 5:45 minutes.

Original release date was March 25, 2014. and the original text is below.

Civilians shoot and upload police encounters to the Internet everyday using tiny cameras on their cell phones and other mobile devices. In fact it may be easier than ever to keep the police accountable with the technology we all carry around in our pockets. But police are looking to keep civilians accountable too by wearing cameras of their own. Reason TV sat down with former Seattle Police officer Steve Ward, who left the force to start Vievu, a company that makes body cameras for police officers.

“Everyone behaves better when they’re on video,” says Ward. “I realized that dash cams only capture about five percent of what a cop does. And I wanted to catch 100 percent of what a cop does.”

The cameras are small, light, and clip to the clothing of a police officer’s uniform. They turn on with a large switch on the front of the camera and have a green circle that surrounds the lens so that civilians know that the camera is recording.

But once the data is recorded, what stops an officer from editing or manipulating the video? Ward says his cameras contain software that stops officers from doing anything nefarious with it, “Our software platform stops officers from altering, deleting, copying, editing, uploading to YouTube, any of the videos that the cops take.”

While body cameras present the strong benefit of keeping police accountable, they also present a risk of invading civilians’ privacy. But in a policy brief from October 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that depending on how the body cameras were implemented, the privacy concerns could be dealt with.

Although we generally take a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras in American life, police on-body cameras are different because of their potential to serve as a check against the abuse of power by police officers. Historically, there was no documentary evidence of most encounters between police officers and the public, and due to the volatile nature of those encounters, this often resulted in radically divergent accounts of incidents. Cameras have the potential to be a win-win, helping protect the public against police misconduct, and at the same time helping protect police against false accusations of abuse.

In 2013, The New York Times reported that the city of Rialto, Calif., was able to cut down on complaints against officers by 88 percent over the previous year when it gave its officers body cameras.  Use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent.