NH Man Arrested For Videotaping Police.. Again 666
OhPlz writes "Back in 2006, a resident of New Hampshire's second largest city was arrested while at the police station attempting to file a complaint against officers. His crime? He had video tape evidence of the officers' wrongdoings. According to the police, that's wiretapping. After world wide attention, the police dropped the charges. His complaint was found to be valid, but the evidence never saw the light of day. Well, guess what? Round two. There are differing reports, but again the police arrested Mr. Gannon and again, they seized his video camera. This time it's 'falsifying evidence' because he tried to hand off the camera, most likely to protect its contents. If there's the potential of police wrongdoing, how is it that the law permits the police to seize the evidence?"
And people wonder why they want guns protected? (Score:0, Interesting)
If they can try to take your cameras, imagine what they'll do to guns?
I've learned not to yell anything at cops (Score:5, Interesting)
National Record The Police in Public Day (Score:5, Interesting)
Google+ (Score:5, Interesting)
The feature I love most about Google+ is that, as soon as I take a picture or a video on my Android phone, it is immediately uploaded to my Google+ account, without any further action on my part. Suddenly, having control of the device isn't enough to guarantee that you have control of the data.
Douchebags (Score:4, Interesting)
NASHUA – Maybe Michael Gannon shouldn’t have given lip to two police detectives that afternoon.
But Gannon claims he wouldn’t have said a word on July 1 if a detective – unprovoked, Gannon said – hadn’t shouted something at him as their unmarked police car passed by on Canal Street.
Sounds like a couple of douche bags yelling at each other. The police should not be yelling anything at anyone unless it is part of their job and Mr. Gannon should just learn to ignore stupid comments. If either of these two people had the slightest bit of decorum, it would be a non-issue.
However, Mr. Gannon will win. The police don't seem to have much of a case to stop him in the first place. And while being a douche is dumb, it is not against the law.
Re:What are these words? (Score:3, Interesting)
Jackbooted Rethuglicans at work. Most "police officers", if they hadn't slipped through the academy, would be working as leg-breakers for the local Mafia. Half of them are anyways as a sideline while off duty.
It's about "power", not honor and law enforcement.
Small wonder they don't want to be videotaped. At an intersection by my house, we had a particularly egregious asshole who found a way to fill his quota: he parked his car 45 degrees down an alley to make sure his dashboard camera wasn't covering the neighborhood entrance's stop sign, then would jump out and stop people claiming they "ran the stop sign" and fill out a ticket. He filled out over 120 tickets in a 1-week period that way. Finally, we had a neighbor set up a small hidden camera clipped to the top of a nearby fence and recording to a laptop on the other side of the fence, and recorded 3 hours of him pulling this shit at an angle proving that everyone he had written up that morning HAD stopped at the sign.
He's never shown up again, but the DA "declined to press charges" against Officer Corrupt Dickwad, and the local Dishonorable Judge Briberyfuck ruled that the day's footage was "inadmissible evidence" in the prior cases because it "wasn't footage of the relevant arrest." Go figure.
Re:Falsifying evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes a suprisingly large amount of the populations belives that if a police officer says you are guilty then you must be.
Unfortunately a surprisingly large amount of (all) judges believe the same.
"If you enter a plea of 'guilty' or 'no contest' then I will look over the sworn statements by both you and the arresting officer. In which case, I will assume the written report by the officer is true and you will be found guilty. If you enter a plea of 'not guilty,' then a meeting with the prosecutor will be arranged for a later date. You will then, at another later date, go to trial with a jury of your peers. If you cannot afford legal representation then you may apply for a court appointed attorney by submitting an application along with a $25 charge for processing the application."
Basically, 'guilty' and 'no contest' are synonymous in the eyes of the judge. The only way for police testimony to come into question is for a jury to rule against it or for a lawyer to prove it's tainted in some way. So say you're being charged with something relatively minor and the penalty is like $100 + court costs. Of course, whether you're guilty or not, it would make sense to plea 'no contest' and take the punishment b/c the damn lawyer will suck more than that out of you. Not to mention the time it takes to go through the various processes.
Sadly, many police/court systems are nothing but legalized extortion. Justice is an afterthought.
Re:Falsifying evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
that's not the legal definition of arrest by any stretch.. depending on the circumstances it's either consensual contact or if there exists reasonable suspicion of a crime, a detention (aka terry stop, see terry v. ohio.) if there exists probable cause for an arrest, you are taken into custody -- probably physically restrained with handcuffs -- and booked. there is a huge difference.
also, there's no need to get loud or rude when a cop approaches you to ask questions.. ask if you are being detained, the officer is required to tell you... if you're not being detained, you obviously do not have to talk to the officer and may leave. if you are being detained, it's probably an even better idea not to talk to the officer. perhaps ask why you are being detained and then keep your mouth shut.
Re:Falsifying evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also consider the following regarding "traffic stops" and "minor tickets":
If you show up to "just pay it" or "take defensive driving", they give you a "break" and it costs you around $150-200 after court costs.
If you want to plead not guilty, then you have to burn:
- The cost of your lawyer.
- At least one half-day (if not a full one) of leave from work to show up and plead not guilty.
- At least one half-day, if not full day, to "meet with the prosecutor."
- A large amount of time subpoenaing whatever you need to subpoena, taking your own measurements of the area, photographing. And half the time the corrupt police won't deliver the things requested as evidence (like the officer's dashcam record, radar gun calibration records, etc) and you'll have to fight for those, which means you have to show up in court and burn MORE leave time to get the judge to issue the subpoena for discovery.
- At least one half-day, if not full day, to actually be in court and empanel the jury.
- At least one half-day, if not full day or even more, to be in court to actually argue your case.
And at the end of it, you have to be prepared for the possibility that if you're found guilty, the corrupt judge is going to throw the book at you and the Prosecutor is going to tack on a bunch of miscellaneous bullshit charges, whatever they can come up with, to punish you for "wasting our time" by actually asserting your constitutional right to plead innocent and have a trial by jury.
The whole system is rigged. Cops know it; they're the corrupt underpinning of it.
Re:Falsifying evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
The case for "security" cameras (Score:5, Interesting)
I run a youth program. We have HD security cameras covering all of our premises (not the bathrooms). We have caught police misconduct more than once with those cameras.
Back in May we had a police officer from the next town over come in to "talk" with one of our teens about a crime that "they may have witnessed". When I got this call, my next call was to 911 to put on record that this was going to go on (standard policy for us, any time a police officer calls to interview a kid in our program, a staff member calls 911 to put it on the record. We find this stops a lot of police abuses, along with our ready access to lawyers). When the police officers came, the two of them tried to strong arm the kid out the door. We flatly refused to allow the teen to be taken to the police station to be questioned, and told the police officers that they would need to arrest the teen and read them their rights before we would allow them to leave (and that the teen was then invoking the right to a lawyer). They were not happy - they even accused me of not 'playing ball'.
When they started shoving the teen and talking about how the teen had just hit the officer (to be clear, the teen never touched the cop, the cops flatly made it up), and that was grounds for arrest, I physically stepped between the cops and the teen (I am 6'1, 220, a third degree black belt in Tie Kwan Do and like to lift weights) and informed them that the interview was over, and they were to leave. My volunteer assistant (who works part time as a judge at the state Department of Education!) called 911 at that point - calling 911 also activates the audio recording of all of our cameras, as well as an auto backup of our cameras to the law office next door.
Long story short, it was a weird stand off until local police arrived - the two cops having their hands on their guns, my telling them they had to leave or be escorted out. When local police arrived (with whom we have a generally good relationship) we informed them that our security cameras had caught the whole thing and we wanted the two cops arrested for assault. The first thing the local cops wanted to do was take the recording device and arrest the teen. When I said that it was no problem, our system recorded to three redundant devices, one of which is at our lawyers office, suddenly they didn't want to take the teen, and couldn't get out of their fast enough.
We sent a copy of the video to the DA's office, asking for an investigation, another copy went to the lawyer we set the family up with to represent this kid, and a third to the police department of the next town, with a letter from our lawyer stating that we would not allow any officer from their department to enter our premises or interview any of our kids without the programs lawyer present.
Re:What are these words? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know I shouldn't respond to trolls, but it's late... As a liberal who doesn't like Republicans, I can guarantee you that every right I've ever had to worry about in my life was in danger from Republicans and not Democrats. You seem to think that as a liberal I have faith in the beneficence of the state. What I want is the state to protect me from others, without taking away my rights. In other words, I'd like to have gay sex and smoke pot as long as I don't fuck over anyone else, and I don't want assholes to tell me I can't do these things because I'm not hurting anyone.
As far as Democrats spending too much money and "obsession with taxes" (the latest Republican catch phrase), meh. It doesn't affect me the way Republicans claim it affects people like me. I'm a upper middle class (~115K/year) so I do pay my fair share of taxes, but the extra 3% or whatever everyone is bitching about is nothing compared to a cop pulling me over to take money from me when I haven't hurt anyone, or the government telling me I can't visit my partner in the hospital, nor catching my friends with pot and treating them as if they were bank robbers or some other high profile criminals. This is not hyperbole, this is experience. And once it really bit me in the ass... I had to pay an extra $1500 in the ONE month between jobs because the way COBRA* works, my partner had to go to the emergency room in that ONE month and the federal government would let heterosexuals keep the same benefits at the same rate as the company gives them, but NOT the same rate to domestic partnerships. Yes, an extra $1500 when it would have been an extra $0 if I were straight. I hate you motherfuckers like I hate Hitler and Stalin... you and your ilk are constantly trying to take away the freedom of others.
So fuck you, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I love freedom and I hate Republicans for trying to take away my rights and freedoms and for God's sake not letting me live alone in peace. Don't kid yourself, asshole cops are not progressives and they are not liberal.
*COBRA is basically the law in America that allows employees who have been laid off to continue to have insurance at the same group rate as they had with the company. The company does not have to pay any money towards the monthly premiums if they paid a portion of it. In other words, the employees have to pay the full premium themselves. However, a family plan still applies even though the employee would have to pay whatever extra the company was paying. Unfortunately, domestic partnerships aren't considered families and therefore don't get to benefit from COBRA so they have to be paid as if they were individuals and not family plans.
Re:What are these words? (Score:2, Interesting)
And what made you defender of all fetuses, Fetus Man?
Go educate yourself. A fetus isn't conscious. It has no feelings. It can't care about an abortion. That's been scientifically proven. If you believe otherwise, fine, keep your fetuses, but stop trying to force other people to keep theirs.
I'm going to start a campaign to pass laws that make abortions mandatory under some circumstances, such as if the pregnancy is the result of a rape, the child will have a disability or the mother will be raising the child alone. Maybe then, the anti-choice people will start to realize how good it is to be able to choose.
That is exactly the problem. Many pro-choice people believe it's morally wrong not to abort under some special circumstances, yet we respect that other parents may see it differently and therefore we would never even think of making abortions mandatory. What do anti-choice people do? You'd think they'd say "Gee, you're right, we disagree so strongly, it's great to let everyone make the choice they want about their own fetus/baby. Everyone can be happy this way, even if disagreement remains" but no, instead they think since we're already in a situation where everyone gets to choose, they should fight to force their choice on others.
You have your own babies, do what you want with them and leave us alone. Trade them with another family from your church if you want, or sell them or collect them if that's what you want! Just stop trying to convince everyone else that a fetus is conscious by using idiotic 'knowledge' such as "It haz hearts!!! Iz person!!11111" and "God said so". That won't convince us, and we don't feel you have any business telling us what to do with a fetus we don't see as a person. If you had to fight for the right to refuse abortion, maybe you'd appreciate the ability to choose a little more. Too bad we're too respectful to ever force anyone to abort what they consider as their baby.
Again, do what you want with your fetus and fuck off.