NYPD Put Couple On 'Wanted' Poster For Videotaping Police
from the overreact-much? dept
We’ve had plenty of stories lately about police overreacting to people filming them — and multiple courts have ruled that filming the police is perfectly legal. Even the Justice Department has spoken out and warned police departments that they need to let the public photograph and video tape them if they want.
And yet, we keep hearing of new incidents of police going after people for filming them. Slashdot now points us to a story that takes that to a different level. It involves the NY Police Department creating a “wanted” poster for a couple who have been regularly filming them and posting the videos to a YouTube channel. While the poster did not technically say “wanted” it sure looked like a Wanted poster, and the couple worried that anyone who saw it would think they were sought for arrest. The poster did describe them as “professional agitators.”
Filed Under: nypd, police, wanted poster
Comments on “NYPD Put Couple On 'Wanted' Poster For Videotaping Police”
Professional Agitators sounds right to me. Kind of like Pirate Mike. Make a living off of desperately following others, trying to find anything wrong (or that can be spun as wrong) to harp on. Meanwhile, they themselves are cowards and unable to face criticism. The irony.
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How do those jackboots taste? When you get down there to lick them, do you use Tabasco sauce or do you prefer the all natural flavor?
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“Make a living off of desperately following others, trying to find anything wrong (or that can be spun as wrong) to harp on. Meanwhile, they themselves are cowards and unable to face criticism.”
I lost track of which side you were describing. Irony indeed!
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LOL! You’re right, that dumb AC described themselves precisely. I’m going to be chuckling at that for the next week at least. Good job! 🙂
Re: Hypocracy
How about extreme hypocracy: This “Anonymous Coward” accusing people (who are not anonymous) of being “cowards”.
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Hahahaha
This is one of the most obvious I have ever seen. Projecting self to others is the name of the game and you have just hit the motherload! 🙂
Re: White Knighting - twice in one day - I'm tired
We already have The Pirate Party, MEP’s and local political officials. But We still need a president…
Pirate Mike for president – 2012 ?
Sounds like a good choice.
What’s it feel like to be on the wrong side of history, where pirates are proud and anti-pirates are shameful scum that hate culture ?
I probably “spun it wrong”
Spin it right and the Anti-pirates are proud, kind people.
cough…cough…not sneaky…cough…greedy bastards at all…cough…bullshit
iNB4 :
You might have better luck white knighiing if you had some armour. Or even just didn’t do it naked
Proof I am not naked, taken from my webcam.
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Are you trolling or to you actually think you have a legitimate point
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Wow. Your unremitting truthiness has swayed me to your point of view. Even though your posts are filled with unsubstantiated accusations and drip with vitriol that would be better directed inward, you are definitely a force for justice and the American Way. Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?
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Oh, you mean kinda like you’re doing now hiding behind anonymity while calling others cowards. The irony and they hypocrisy.
Ahhh, the desperation.
Nice to meet you and the NYPD.
Too bad you don’t have the backbone Mike has or 1/90th the courage of the average beat cop.
Re: response to Anonymous Coward
You sound exactly like the kind of pig that want’s it’s outrageous illegal behavior taped so that you can continue to illegally harass and abuse people and get away with it.
Only bully pigs are afraid of cameras recording their illegal behavior.
So says an AC? Hypocrite much?
You know what else is a professional agitator?
Commercial grade washing machines. Will they be putting up wanted posters of laundromats next? Sheesh!
You would think that NYPD would have enough other work to do without trying to create more…
Re: You know what else is a professional agitator?
All commercial grade washing machines are required by law to be front loaders, and thus do not contain agitators like top loaders do.
Re: Re: You know what else is a professional agitator?
Top loader at home, no agitator. DO NOT CALL THE NYPD on me.
Professionally agitated?
Every cop the world over should be acting as if their every action is under public scrutiny. They’re servants of the public. Unfortunately, so often, the police has been compared to a legalized mafia. And is it any wonder many of us think of them as such?
Re: Professionally agitated?
After all of the crappy attention police depts have received on this topic, it’s obvious they are not going to stop. I wish someone with deep pockets would sue and just get this crap over with.
Re: Re: Professionally agitated?
I hate to say it, but the only things I’ve ever seen that affected police behavior, was having a seriously powerful state/federal authority breathing down their necks, ready to send them to “poke in the ass prison”, or really bad people with guns planting them in the ground. That’s it.
Law suites sometimes affect the politician leadership, but not always. It puts money in the pockets of the lawyers, who were or will be politicians themselves. They almost never actually affect the day-to-day operations of police officers. Any cop is quick to point out that the law that gets practiced in a courtroom usually has little relation to the law on the street. You can actually take that as gospel.
Re: Re: Professionally agitated?
That would not matter.. They keep doing this and they keep getting sued. Why don’t they care? Simple they’re paying the lawsuits with TAX PAYERS MONEY.
They don’t get in trouble..
They don’t get fired..
Without some actual consequences that directly effects them this will never stop.
Re: Re: Re: Professionally agitated?
I think I have a solution.
We need a bill that enacts new laws. We will call it the Civil Observation of Police Abuse or COPA for short.
The laws in this bill would be the following:
1) Citizens can stop and search police officers while on duty, to make sure they aren’t carrying anything they could use to plant evidence (e.g. drugs, a spare gun, etc.)
2) Citizens can place GPS trackers on police vehicles without a warrant.
3) Officers are to be fingerprinted and submit a DNA sample, which will be entered into a database maintained by the civilian community.
4) Officers are to go through a backscatter body scanner before entering another neighborhood.
5) In the event that officers will search a suspect’s property, officers will have to submit to a strip search and a cavity search before entering such property.
6) Any officer who is accused of terrorism by any person may be detained indefinitely in someone’s basement. Civilians are allowed to waterboard officers detained in this manner in order to obtain information.
7) 3 strikes plan: each time a civilian complains of an officer’s behavior, the officer will receive a formal notice, also known as a “strike”. After 3 strikes, the officer will be barred from carrying a weapon.
8) Officers or politicians who do not approve of this bill will be labeled child molesting terrorists.
Can anyone read all of what’s on the poster? From what I can see, the cops gave out their home address and accused them of interfering with police business and endangerment.
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Yep, that’s what I see too. So what if we take pictures of the cops, call them agitators, and then list their home addresses? Would we get by with simply removing the posters?
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From what I can tell, the poster only states the street that they live in and warns the police to be careful in that area because these two people have a tendency to portray the police’s actions in a negative way.
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Oh, then that’s okay.
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Unfortunately, the poster would do more harm than good. Competent officers don’t need to be told not to attack people for taking pictures of them. Incompetent ones would think the poster was an actual wanted poster and head off to break into their house and beat them into submission.
Still, it’s a start. Needs to be generic, though. How about, “When people take your picture, smile and wave.”?
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*smile and wave the bird
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The day police officers would smile and wave when photgraphed seems so long ago.
My father taught me that the policeman is a friend.
My children will be taught that he is to be avoided.
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“From what I can tell, the poster only states the street that they live in and warns the police to be careful in that area because these two people have a tendency to portray the police’s actions in a negative way.”
How in the name of all that’s holy is filming the EXACT actions of the police and posting them portraying the police actions “in a negative way?”
We need a new designation. Police State Apologist. We’ll call their messages PSA’s.
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How in the name of all that’s holy is filming the EXACT actions of the police and posting them portraying the police actions “in a negative way?”
It depends on what those actions are…
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Yes, it did. Whoever posted this flyer (Likely a “Sgt. Nicholson” as he was listed as a point of contact for more information) needs to be properly punished. If it is Sgt. Nicholson, he needs to be immediately removed from the force for blatant abuse of authority, defamation, and suppression of Constitutional Rights.
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Oh, almost forgot. Public Endangerment. The layout of the poster is obviously intended to make people think the couple are dangerous criminals. Including their home address on it is essentially a call for vigilante violence against the couple.
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Cop fighting to stay on force after conviction for felony assault.
?Convicted ‘kicking’ cop fights for job? by Tim White, WPRI, 5 Jul 2012:
Cop fighting to stay on force after conviction for felony assault??now that’s blatant.
Re: Re: Re: Hail the Sixth Amendment!
And there’s that handy Sixth Amendment again, which granted her defense the right to subpoena the security tape footage once they knew a camera was pointed at the area where the incident occurred.
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Translation – I ***’d out the numbers in the addresses and couldn’t make out Sgt Nicholsons cell number.
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Sounds like an internal warning for officers not to react negatively if they are in a position of being flimed / heckled by these two. Not too sure what the problem is unless these were put out for public viewing (which the article does not state.)
Wow
I can understand why the Police are camera shy, no video = no accusations of improper conduct etc. but unless we live in a secret police state and as long as the Police are public servants for Law and Order, they should be aired out. The Constitution of the United States of America guarantees every citizens right to free speech, not suppression or repression. The Police shouldn’t be so camera shy in our free country.
why would the police say why they did it? that would be an admission of ‘we did it because we can, even though it was wrong and we know it’.
can you spell "moderate"
are there any moderate middle-of-the road yanks left, or are all of them either crypto fascist cops or anarcho syndicalist justin bieber groupies?
Re: can you spell "moderate"
im not a groupie
Re: can you spell "moderate"
Some of us are fascist anarchists
hall of fame
So if some of these posters went up for sale on eBay, which autographs would fetch the higher price, Gonzalez and Swaye, or the NYC police commissioner?
Well I don’t see a big problem in this story.
Their recordings were annoying the Police who decided to strike back at them. However this poster was unprofessional of the Police and it is good to see it was soon removed. The biggest issue here seems to be violating their privacy, including publishing their home address, then putting them at risk of assault due to the criminal looking theme.
We can learn from this that if you video the Police you may well get some objections. One can also wonder if recorded events can be seen in the correct context. So I can only feel that maybe the Police need to more welcome this community interest though some documentary like cooperation.
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I would see about Suing the Police!!!! The Police are Public Figures. We have every right to make sure they do their job correctly. You shouldn’t have anything to hide! On the other hand putting up what looks like a Wanted posted of people who did nothing at all wrong is a Invasion of Privacy!!! Posting there Address on it makes it even worse.
Put it this way, the Police don’t even put up posters of Child Molesters and their address up on posters!!! If anything that would be 1000 times more helpful to the people of the neighborhood!!!!
I can’t believe the police still have a problem with this when it gets thrown out of court in every case. But this is a new low of the police!!!
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You should feel lucky that the police doesn’t arrest you for LOOKING at them while they’re dealing with a suspect.
Amazing how the irony escapes them
“The poster did describe them as “professional agitators.” “
Ironic that policemen are getting paid to do this sort of thing.
Re: Amazing how the irony escapes them
I wonder if that poster might even be actionable. Calling someone a “professional agitator” who isn’t seems likely to qualify as defamation.
Re: Re: Amazing how the irony escapes them
Best to just take it as a compliment.
Wanted posters for those who video tapes Policemen who where either doing their job right or making a fool of themselves?
Darwin awardee brains in their noggin….
No wonder there are more BAD cops than decent ones in the word….
Am I the only one who instantly thought she looks like Zee Hernandez from DMZ?
This is starting to look like a movie I once saw.
I believe there was a poster extolling the moral crimes of some people spreading “sedition”.
THIEF and VIOLATOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
Bradley Odle (a/k/a B.D. Odle)
3480 County Road 2550
Pomona, Missouri
469-2217
Employer: Missouri State Highway Patrol, Troop G (a group of fellow thieves and Constitutional rights violators).
I think this story shows why Techdirt gets things wrong.
When someone pirates something, it’s a “personal choice”. When someone takes a video, they are always working alone – with absolutely no agenda. Yet, when a single officer in a single precinct makes up a poster, it’s “the police” as a group who are broadbrushed.
“the police still have not explained why they created them in the first place.”
Why no identify who you spoke to? Why the broad grouping rather than the individualization? Oh wait, you want anyone in authority to be a cardboard cutout, a faceless operative of a large secretive group.
Weiner.
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Troll harder. You suck at it.
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This from a guy who can only manage half a line. Bite me.
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Your comment doesn’t merit a thorough response because you’re a hateful moron. Now go away pest.
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“when a single officer in a single precinct makes up a poster, it’s “the police” as a group who are broadbrushed.”
Absolutely, when the police don’t voluntarily take disciplinary action against this sort of behavior, on their own without public pressure, then they should get collectively blamed.
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Four Dozen Police Salute A Murderer
Of course, [former] Officer Karl Thompson wasn’t really convicted of murdering Otto Zehm. No, he just ?violated his civil rights?.
Immediately following Officer Karl Thompson’s conviction in connection with the brutal, videotaped beating death of Otto Zehm, Officer Karl Thompson served a weekend in jail. Then he was released. He has not yet been sentenced, and Officer Karl Thompson remains free on a signature bond.
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?Off-duty officers escort Sgt. Clifford out of jail? by Tim Blotz and Mike Durkin, KMSP, June 19, 2012
This little escort incident reminded folks of the collective police salute for convicted officer Karl Thompson.
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?L.A. County sheriff’s official tells of jail brutality? by Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2012:
Would it be ?disciplinary action? if someone was hit in the face?
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Broad grouping? Funny you should mention that. The RIAA/MPAA have been using this to justify every single law and settlement demand that they’ve pushed out. Everyone is in some faceless pedomurderrorist organisation aimed at getting free music, movies, pornography and beer, which is why we need laws like SOPA so poor innocent CEOs can shutdown any attempt to parody or satirise them. It also hits the main demographics guilty of such anti-American behaviour the hardest – children, grandmothers, misnamed people, homeless people, disabled people, dead people, laser printers and iguanas.
You want everyone to be a dumb consumer at the behest of whatever laws the industry feels like dishing out, and the reckless enforcement of said laws. You broadbrush Techdirt. Why can’t people broadbrush people? Or do you have some super-special-secret patent and copyright on broadbrushing?
So you are claiming that a rogue officer used the logos of the honorable NY police force to do it?
Is that a prank?
People should film the police officer fixating those illegal posters then, so the police officers involved should be held accountable to their acts don’t you think?
Why?
Um… because they can?
Very Simple..
the cops hate people who videotape them. They fully believe that it is or should be a crime to videotape the police anyway.
The cops see no reason why they should not harras people who annoy them. Civil rights are not the concern of the cops anyway.
I think that a lot of the videotaping of police in NYC is encouraged indirectly by their ‘stop and frisk’ policy. Asking people at random to submit to a search is unconstitutional and works to eliminates trust between law enforcement and the public who pay their salaries. It also raises serious concerns about racial profiling.
Putting up a poster of people along with their names and addresses simply for videotaping the police while on duty is a thinly-veiled threat to others to dissuade them from performing the same actions. Apparently it’s A-OK when law enforcement and businesses do surveillance, including accessing over 1.3 million mobile phones without user consent, but not when a citizen does it to a cop.
re:
I can remember when they were just unpaid “Intern Agitators”
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