More Police outrages

Ian Grant · Mar 6, 2008

Photographer forced to scrap images

At a recent demonstration in Birmingham, UK a photographer was forced to delete photographs he made which contained images of Police Officers.

Back in the early 70's I had a similar thing happen twice, in the same city, in one incident the camera back was opened and the film destroyed after I photographed a policeman kicking a demonstrator.

It seems the British Police are now a law unto themselves.

Ian

eclarke · Mar 6, 2008

How are British Police doing on REAL crimes? Here in the U.S. it seems that they are doing a crackerjack job of pursuing "terrorism" but can't quite seem to get a handle on open firearm shootouts. We have had 3 of these between groups of police and criminals in Milwaukee this year, MILWAUKEE!!! ..Evan Clarke

MP_Wayne · Mar 6, 2008

I read the article at the link you provided. The reason give "compromise officers in future undercover operations" is, in a word, lame. If there are intentions to use officers later in undercover ops, a responsible police force will not put them in an event (protest) that is to be covered by media! If the police force needs those resources, they would (and should) use those officers undercover NOW to infiltrate the protest groups.

The milque-toast excuse was just a smoke screen to trample on the photographer's ability to cover what was going on at the protest.

Early Riser · Mar 6, 2008

In the US police officers are considered public property when it comes to photographing them while on duty and in the course of their work. The excuse that someday they may go undercover is totally bogus as that excuse could be used with every single law enforcement officer in the country, whether or not they will ever go undercover. We'll see how long this right lasts.

Being able to photograph or document police officers while on duty is one of the few ways that the public has to keep law enforcement officers honest and professional. How many more police abuses would we have out there if the police did not think twice now, due to Rodney King type videos, before beating someone?

lns · Mar 6, 2008

That's outrageous. If no one can monitor the police, then you risk a police state. My American perspective is the same as Early Riser's. Think of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Pictures of the police attacking peaceful civil rights marchers changed history. -Laura

Ian Leake · Mar 6, 2008

I'm amazed the photographer was able to find any police on the streets to take photos of!

david b · Mar 6, 2008

well luckily for the digital shooter, the images are never really gone until the card is formatted.

Ian Grant · Mar 6, 2008

david b said:
well luckily for the digital shooter, the images are never really gone until the card is formatted.

What an irresponsible post, what if the UK Police read this forum

Ian

snegron · Mar 12, 2008

Early Riser said:
In the US police officers are considered public property when it comes to photographing them while on duty and in the course of their work. The excuse that someday they may go undercover is totally bogus as that excuse could be used with every single law enforcement officer in the country, whether or not they will ever go undercover. We'll see how long this right lasts.

Being able to photograph or document police officers while on duty is one of the few ways that the public has to keep law enforcement officers honest and professional. How many more police abuses would we have out there if the police did not think twice now, due to Rodney King type videos, before beating someone?

Agreed! We all know how officers have absolutely no control over their impulses and need to be "kept honest" by having us photograph them in public! We all know how their training is an absolute sham and that in reality they never risk their lives for anyone.

I propose we send a letter to all of our government representatives and request that all police forces be disbanded immediately! We don't need these primitive ruffians in polyester outfits running around with fast cars and weapons, preying on us poor, innocent photographers! We can run our society much better without any type of law enforcement officers. We can do a much better job at capturing child molesters, rapists, thieves, drunken drivers who kill innocent families, and dealers who push drugs on our children and loved ones than police! All we have to do is hug the bad guys and tell them that we love them. I'm sure that they won't do anything bad to us once we show them how much we love them. After all, we know that there is no such thing as a bad human being; only victims of uncaring societies.

I really wish that we could see how far our society would survive without any law enforcement officers. It would be interesting to have all officers quit their jobs all at once. I'm sure that we would all get along splendidly. After all, don't we all idolize criminals as seen with all the fantastic Hollywood movies glorifying the thug way of life?

It seems that all this "cop bashing" I have seen on APUG recently has inspired me to come up with this great new concept of a "cop-less" society.

p.s., I don't know about you, but if some perverted maniac breaks into my home and threatens at gunpoint to rape my family and kill me, I sure wouldn't mind having one of those polyester-wearing ruffian officers show up and stop him from doing this. Even if that officer is a tad bit rude to the intruder, I still wouldn't mind. Or maybe some of you might think that the officer should say to the gun weilding maniac, "kind sir, would it be possible for you to stop hurting these people? Thank you kind sir. Please turn around, at your conveniance, and place these metal restraints on your wrists so we can safely transport you to our clean holding facility. I apologize if it causes any discomfort on your tender wrists. Thank you kind sir for complying."

I can't blame law enforcement officers for seeming a bit unfriendly sometimes. After all, they deal with human garbage every day just to keep our cities safe for us and our loved ones.

nc5p · Mar 12, 2008

This happened in Albuquerque last summer. Someone was taking pictures in or near a bar when "alcohol beverage" cops went in (to get free booze or payoffs no doubt). They arrested the guy and took his pictures. Same excuse, they were "undercover" (in other words they didn't want photos of their "business deals"). I'm not sure how the court case went, the district attorney probably dropped charges. That was downtown, the site of the more recent incident. It isn't safe to be caught with a camera down there.

rkmiec · Mar 12, 2008

"p.s., I don't know about you, but if some perverted maniac breaks into my home and threatens at gunpoint to rape my family and kill me, I sure wouldn't mind having one of those polyester-wearing ruffian officers show up and stop him from doing this. Even if that officer is a tad bit rude to the intruder, I still wouldn't mind. Or maybe some of you might think that the officer should say to the gun weilding maniac, "kind sir, would it be possible for you to stop hurting these people? Thank you kind sir. Please turn around, at your conveniance, and place these metal restraints on your wrists so we can safely transport you to our clean holding facility. I apologize if it causes any discomfort on your tender wrists. Thank you kind sir for complying."

yes we need police but i beg you for the sake of your family to be a protector and not a waiter,if this happens to me i will be able to call the police to clean up the garbage i left on the floor.as for people complaining about what is happening ,here in america our civil rights are supposed to be first and foremost in the minds of law enforcement that is why they are here.so if they abuse that right we have the ability to complain about it.and i think that everyone here is asking for more tolerence and education of police and there superiors to stop this now typical behavior.

snegron · Mar 12, 2008

rkmiec said:
"p.s., I don't know about you, but if some perverted maniac breaks into my home and threatens at gunpoint to rape my family and kill me, I sure wouldn't mind having one of those polyester-wearing ruffian officers show up and stop him from doing this. Even if that officer is a tad bit rude to the intruder, I still wouldn't mind. Or maybe some of you might think that the officer should say to the gun weilding maniac, "kind sir, would it be possible for you to stop hurting these people? Thank you kind sir. Please turn around, at your conveniance, and place these metal restraints on your wrists so we can safely transport you to our clean holding facility. I apologize if it causes any discomfort on your tender wrists. Thank you kind sir for complying."

yes we need police but i beg you for the sake of your family to be a protector and not a waiter,if this happens to me i will be able to call the police to clean up the garbage i left on the floor.as for people complaining about what is happening ,here in america our civil rights are supposed to be first and foremost in the minds of law enforcement that is why they are here.so if they abuse that right we have the ability to complain about it.and i think that everyone here is asking for more tolerence and education of police and there superiors to stop this now typical behavior.

As citizens we too need to respect the civil rights of everyone, even the "perverted maniac". No matter what unspeakably horrible things he does to our family, even our young innocent children. He is innocent until proven guilty and must be treated with all the dignity and respect until he is afforded due process in the court of law. We must not act violently toward him just because we observed him doing some unthinkable act upon our wife or children.

Sounds rather difficult doesn't it? Think about how these men and women in blue feel when they apprehend a "perverted maniac" or a "gentleman" who has had too much to drink and decides to go on a high speed chase crashing and killing innocent familes in his drunken rage. Think about how those men and women in blue must feel when they catch these criminals and the criminal fights them, but some papparazzi wannabe pulls out his little video camera (which he carries around just for this sole purpose) and captures how these cops are hitting a "poor innocent man". Most of the time these videos only capture the end result, never how the bad guy fought, kicked, slapped, spit cops before they could put handcuffs on him. It looks outrageous to the public. It sells on primetime news. Luckily when it gets reviewed in court and the whole incident is shown to a judge or jury, the truth comes out and the cops were found to be doing their jobs. Of course, the public never sees the rest of the video because it wouldn't be as interesting to see cops doing their job as it is seeing them "abuse" some poor, "innocent" citizen. The courts don't make any money with primetime news, so they have no need to release the entire video tape to the public. We are then left with the notion that cops abused someone or violated his civil rights, when in fact, all they were doing was trying to stop this person from doing any more harm to himself or others.

JOSarff · Mar 12, 2008

Police state or the state of police

These outrages will continue in the US until Bush, Cheney and the rest of the republican neoNazi government are removed from office and hopefully prosecuted for war crimes. It is unbelieveable how they have made 8 years of power playing on the fears of the American people.

walter23 · Mar 12, 2008

snegron said:
Agreed! We all know how officers have absolutely no control over their impulses and need to be "kept honest" by having us photograph them in public! We all know how their training is an absolute sham and that in reality they never risk their lives for anyone.

The police are hired to serve the public, not the other way around. If the police are demanding a photographer destroys his images of them performing their duties, they probably aren't performing them in a way that serves the public. Otherwise why would they bother harassing the photographer?

I'm grateful for the police, when I need them, but they're public servants. If they're doing their jobs correctly, they have nothing to worry about if they are being photographed.

Sirius Glass · Mar 12, 2008

JOSarff said:
These outrages will continue in the US until Bush, Cheney and the rest of the republican neoNazi government are removed from office and hopefully prosecuted for war crimes. It is unbelieveable how they have made 8 years of power playing on the fears of the American people.

Agreed.

This country has not been the same since Bush I brought off the Supreme Court so Sonny Boy [Bush II, the arrogant and the stupid] could conduct a coupe because Bush II lost the popular vote. The Constitution clearly left these decisions with the Congress not the Courts. So once the Bushes crapped on the Constitution, what did you expect?

Steve

juan · Mar 13, 2008

Bush and Cheney have nothing to do with it. I worked as a TV news photographer during the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. During all of that time, the police were furious at being photographed. They used the same excuse of being undercover - even 25-years ago. The problem is a police mentality problem, not a national political problem.

A couple of years ago, a car ran off the street, ran across my yard, and crashed into my neighbor's car. She wasn't home at the time, so after the police had finished their investigation, and while they were standing around wasting time, I got out my camera and began taking photos of the scene to give to my neighbor for her insurance company. I was threatened with arrest by the police unless I "left the premises." I told them it was my yard, that I had every right to be there, and that I was not leaving. They told me I was interfering with an investigation, and I pointed out that they had already filed their reports (they have computers in the cars) so they'd have a very difficult time proving any interference They backed off.

I doubt these idiots know who the Vice President is. Have you every watched Jay Leno ask that question on the street? Hilarious.
juan

WarEaglemtn · Mar 13, 2008

"I don't know about you, but if some perverted maniac breaks into my home and threatens at gunpoint to rape my family and kill me, I sure wouldn't mind having one of those polyester-wearing ruffian officers show up and stop him from doing this."

If you don't have the skill set to do something about it yourself you are one sad puppy.

Andy K · Mar 13, 2008

I'm waiting for the ban on rucksacks.

Andrew Moxom · Mar 13, 2008

I'm a British ex pat, and now live in the US. Having owned shotguns in England, I now have a Concealed carry permit in Minnesota. I see lots of folks on here bickering that its the governments fault. Let me tell you if someone breaks into my house and tries to harm my family, they are going down if I cannot get everyone out of the house first. The liberalesque ideas about pandering to criminal activities is just plain wrong. Anyone who thinks that a perpertrator deserves the full protection of the law while committing a crime has their ideas bass ackwards. It happens in Britain all the time. The most well known case in the UK was the British farmer who got broken into by a known felon got confronted and yhe farmer shot him with his shotgun. The perps and family sued, and the farmer did jail time. We are also teaching our kids to sit and take scenarios like the Virginia Tech shooting. These folks were lined up and shot execution style. No one did anything to fight back. All this aside, if I am legally doing something like photographing and am questioned, I was taught to respect law enforcement, I will be nice and not take an attitude. If an officer gets all worked up at you, be civil, and do not raise your voice. Just explain it, and usually they will be okay. I realize there are exceptions, but for the most part it's helped me out in dealings with law enforcement.

RoBBo · Mar 13, 2008

snegron said:
Agreed! We all know how officers have absolutely no control over their impulses and need to be "kept honest" by having us photograph them in public! We all know how their training is an absolute sham and that in reality they never risk their lives for anyone.

I propose we send a letter to all of our government representatives and request that all police forces be disbanded immediately! We don't need these primitive ruffians in polyester outfits running around with fast cars and weapons, preying on us poor, innocent photographers! We can run our society much better without any type of law enforcement officers. We can do a much better job at capturing child molesters, rapists, thieves, drunken drivers who kill innocent families, and dealers who push drugs on our children and loved ones than police! All we have to do is hug the bad guys and tell them that we love them. I'm sure that they won't do anything bad to us once we show them how much we love them. After all, we know that there is no such thing as a bad human being; only victims of uncaring societies.

I really wish that we could see how far our society would survive without any law enforcement officers. It would be interesting to have all officers quit their jobs all at once. I'm sure that we would all get along splendidly. After all, don't we all idolize criminals as seen with all the fantastic Hollywood movies glorifying the thug way of life?

It seems that all this "cop bashing" I have seen on APUG recently has inspired me to come up with this great new concept of a "cop-less" society.

p.s., I don't know about you, but if some perverted maniac breaks into my home and threatens at gunpoint to rape my family and kill me, I sure wouldn't mind having one of those polyester-wearing ruffian officers show up and stop him from doing this. Even if that officer is a tad bit rude to the intruder, I still wouldn't mind. Or maybe some of you might think that the officer should say to the gun weilding maniac, "kind sir, would it be possible for you to stop hurting these people? Thank you kind sir. Please turn around, at your conveniance, and place these metal restraints on your wrists so we can safely transport you to our clean holding facility. I apologize if it causes any discomfort on your tender wrists. Thank you kind sir for complying."

I can't blame law enforcement officers for seeming a bit unfriendly sometimes. After all, they deal with human garbage every day just to keep our cities safe for us and our loved ones.

Really missing the point.
It's not about them being bitter or unfriendly or anything like that, they're human beings, they deal with trash, it's understandable.
But from that...
the fact that they're human beings, and human beings have flaws, and break laws, and need to be able to be held accountable by (gasp!) other human beings! (Because there really isn't anyone else around to do it eh?)

We give them an awful lot of authority and when they try to take more and trample on our rights, for instance, our right to take pictures (not our right to not get bloodied up when being put in handcuffs, I dont think that exists, but perhaps, our right to not be put in handcuffs for photographing?) we need to be able to stand up to that, and the idea that they can willfully force us to destroy evidence of their wrongdoing? It's completely absurd!

jpeets · Mar 13, 2008

RoBBo said:
We give them an awful lot of authority and when they try to take more and trample on our rights, for instance, our right to take pictures (not our right to not get bloodied up when being put in handcuffs, I dont think that exists, but perhaps, our right to not be put in handcuffs for photographing?) we need to be able to stand up to that, and the idea that they can willfully force us to destroy evidence of their wrongdoing? It's completely absurd!

Agreed!

The police are there to enforce the rules by which we all are expected to live. If they do not respect the laws that they are supposed to uphold, how are we supposed to respect them (the police and the laws)?

I admit that it probably takes a special individual to try and restrain a brawling drunk or violent demonstrator, without losing it and giving them a good beating. Of course, if they cannot restrain themselves, they should find another line of work.

Too much testosterone, and something akin to a gang mentality (don't diss me!) amongst some cops. Also, a low threshold to violence. There have been a flurry of cases in Canada about inappropriate tasering and deaths in custody.

In this case, I would love to see some legal action: I know absolutely nothing about what the photographer's rights are in the UK, but the whole tale just seems sooooo wrong. As has been pointed out, citizens with cameras have done a lot to get bad cops off the streets.

pauliej · Mar 13, 2008

Maybe Billy Jack had the right idea. If you're minding your own dang business, and someone butts into said business, kick his teeth out, even if he's a redneck sheriff just having a little fun at your expense. Pretty soon the word will get around, leave the dude in the black hat alone, or you may lose some teefus. Especially when he is taking some pitchers with his (Toyota) Camry. Nuff said.

paulie

Terence · Mar 16, 2008

Dead Link Removed

Obviously not a stellar, upstanding citizen, but still . . .

thebanana · Mar 21, 2008

Photographers being hassled, and all the bad guys really have to do is check out the dumpsters.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/349367

MP_Wayne · Mar 21, 2008

Canada - home of the original Keystone Cops, and the Number 1 Training Academy for the Maxwell Smarts of the spy world. I especially like our most prized invention: The Cone of Silence...

Here, we strive for mediocrity where every day is a golden chance to prove that "government intelligence" is a long-standing oxymoron... sigh...

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