Gangsters in Blue

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In September of 2010, I was arrested. Several months later, I was tried, convicted, and sentenced.

My crime? Resisting arrest.

Here’s the story.

I had recently quit smoking, was irritable, and needed to do something. After drinking a full bottle of ginger-flavored brandy by 9:00pm on this Friday night, I decided to walk to the local bar to get a beer or two. I went in, legally purchased a 12 oz bottle of Samuel Adams, and walked through the room.

The bar was noisy, crowded, and filled with assholes. I felt uncomfortable, even with my buzz, and decided to walk out of the door.

A few seconds after I walked out, I heard noises behind me, which I ignored and walked away. A few seconds later, somebody yanked my beer out of my hand, which I was still apparently carrying in the public parking lot. OK, I thought – no harm done. They took my beer, which I didn’t even have a sip of, but no big deal. I realized I felt more tired than I had originally thought and I continued to walk home; until I met up with officer Jaime Branch of the Manchester Police Department.

“Hey, you!”, he yelled at me. I figured out pretty soon that he was talking to me and I asked him, “Am I being detained?” or “Am I free to go?”.  He said that I was being detained.  I asked him why and he refused to answer. He spoke with the person that had stolen my beer and another employee at the bar, asking them a few questions, investigating why I was being detained. We were both curious, apparently.

The officer asked to see my identification. I told the him that I knew my 4th Amendment rights and told him that I didn’t need to show him my identification as I was not driving a car. I also informed him that he did not have probable cause that I had committed a crime. I asked him for “articulable facts” that I was committing a crime, as well.

He said that he DID have probable cause that I had engaged in, “possessing an open alcohol container”; which is not actually illegal in the state of NH and the closest ordinance it comes to is “public drinking”, an ordinance violation that prohibits CONSUMING alcoholic beverages in a public place. I asked him again if I was being detained or if I was free to go, and he said I was being detained. I exercised my right to remain silent and he continued in his investigation. He talked to the employees (who I believed were cooperating out of fear that they would get in trouble), looked at the bottle (which was technically stolen evidence), and found that it was full. All of them agreeing that I had not consumed any.

He started asking me more questions, and I exercised my right to remain silent. He decided to write me out a ticket for “possessing an open alcohol container”, which I gladly accepted but he insisted that I showed him identification. I asserted my 4th Amendment rights and refused to show him my “papers”. He then asked for a name. I gave him one but it wasn’t good enough for him.

He then stated that if I didn’t show identification, I would be placed under arrest. I believed this to be a clear violation of the 4th Amendment and proceeded to have a half-hour long conversation about the 4th Amendment with the officer, including me giving him a full etymological history of the phrase “probable cause”. During this discussion I found out that the officer; 1) didn’t know what the 4th Amendment was and could not recite it, and 2) told me that the 4th Amendment, in his own words, “doesn’t apply to my job” – which was repeated multiple times, by multiple officers that night.

The officer asked me other questions such as, what my social security number was; to which I replied, “do I have the right to remain silent?”  He said, clearly and emphatically, that I did NOT have that right and that if I didn’t answer the questions, I would be placed under arrest. At this point, I started wondering if he was even a “real” cop.

He then continued his investigation, during which time I continued to ask if I was free to go. At one point, he said “yes, yes, yes”, and motioned for me to leave. I stared walking away and seconds later I was being man-handled by the guy with one hand in handcuffs.

I asked him why violence was necessary. He denied that he was using violence. I thought a demonstration was in order and I moved my free hand to the right side of my body. He told me to move it down behind my back, and I disobeyed his commands. He then yanked my hand down to tie it, at which point I asked a simple question:

“If I did to you what you just did to me, would I be charged with ASSAULTING a police officer?”, simply to show the officer that he was, in fact, using violence.

The question startled him for a second. He said, “yes, but….”, and stood there speechless before he continued his “assault”.  I was sent to Manchester police station where I had some laughably painful conversations, then proceeded to county jail.

When I got there, there was a man I knew only as “Wolfy” who was the most disgusting, depraved human being I’ve ever met in my life. He forced me to answer all kinds of questions, promising that I would be able to sleep in my “nice warm bed” if I did. He asked me what my sexual orientation was, what my religion was, what my political affiliations were, all under the understanding that non-cooperation would be punished with violence. He then forced me to strip naked and checked me for drugs, after which I put on an orange jump suit. He then escorted me to my cell. He and a couple other guys decided to play a joke on me and make it look like I was going to get beaten and raped by a particularly insane inmate. I know, that’s hilarious, isn’t it?

I didn’t sleep or eat for those three days. During “free time”, which lasts about an hour each day, I tried to make a phone call, but they made it difficult to the point of being psychological torture. You need to use your inmate number to make a call, and mine didn’t work ( I think that was deliberate, but I can’t prove anything), so I had to violate the rules and use somebody else’s. You can only call land lines (no cell phones) no more than once, and there is a message being played for the majority of the call, leaving you only 10 seconds out of about a minute and a half to actually say something.

I spent 3 days in jail with my cell mate, who was a heroine addict. He told me how easy it is to get his fix “inside” and how many people who “used to be straight” become heroine addicts after doing some time because it’s easily accessible and there’s nothing else to do. He also told me how most people who meet inside hook up later to hang out, do drugs, and get into other criminal activity.

At the bail hearing (after 3 days without food or sleep), Judge William H. Lyons felt that I was too dangerous to let go on my own reconnaissance, so I was forced to stay there until my “speedy” trial 3 months later. Luckily, I was bailed out.

I had apparently signed up for a public defender when I was scared shitless and had gone without food and sleep for 3 days. Her name was Donna Esposito. She didn’t return my phone calls, didn’t return my emails, and didn’t even bother reading the arrest report. Her incompetence was so great that I got the distinct impression that she was working with the state in an attempt to get a conviction. I called other lawyers, who basically said that I didn’t have a chance; not because of the evidence of the case, but because of the “conservative judges” who would find me guilty regardless of the facts of my case. I soon learned why they said that.

The charges were changed several times, the final change right before the trial. The original charge was “possessing an open alcohol container in a public place”, which was dropped because there wasn’t actually a law against that – the cop either made it up or got the law completely wrong (I found out that the cops around here use a “cheat sheet” that has a mistake on it).

The original charge of “resisting arrest” was changed as well. It was originally because I had lifted my hand up to the side during the arrest, making the officer push it down. In the arrest report it stated that I “struggled” with him as he attempted to handcuff me. That was changed to me walking away when I “wasn’t supposed to” (because I thought I was free to go). The reason for the change was obvious; it is circular reasoning to be arrested for resiting that very same arrest, so they had to arrest me for something else.

During the trial, both the cop and I testified. We gave our stories, which matched perfectly except for a couple of things. According to him, 1) I never asked if I was being detained and he never stated that I was, 2) I never even mentioned the 4th Amendment, 3) He never threatened to arrest me for not showing ID, and 4) He saw me “in violation” BEFORE he detained me, rather than the truth that he had detained me before he even started to investigate what was going on. All four of these statements were lies, made under oath. This means he committed perjury, which is a felony.

The reason why he lied is simple: if he DID threaten to arrest me for not showing ID, it COULD have been considered a violation of the 4th Amendment. If he detained me prior to his investigation, it COULD have been argued that it was an illegal detainment. If I mentioned the 4th Amendment and didn’t like his answer, It COULD have been argued that I did not “recognized him as a law enforcement official”.

Still, this shouldn’t have changed anything, as the only thing left I was charged with was the “resisting arrest” charge; and in order to prove that “beyond a reasonable doubt”, they have to show that I “recognized him as a law enforcement official” (which wasn’t actually true, as I recognized that he was breaking the law). They also had to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that I “willfully and knowingly interfered” with him, which I didn’t as I thought I was free to go at the time.

Since both of these things are describing activity IN MY OWN HEAD rather than what was going on objectively, it makes no sense whatsoever to take the cops word over my own.  While the cop may be a more reliable witness to what was going on around me, he can’t possibly be a better witness to what was going on in my head, can he?

The judge (William H. Lyons) decided that I was guilty. That’s right, the judge said that the cop was a “more credible witness” to what was going on in my own head. The judge said that this was not an illegal detention because, as he stated in his court order, “Where a police officer has reasonable suspicion that a person has been, is being, or is about to commit a crime, he is permitted by the forth amendment to seize or detain an individual”. He later defines crime as, “an offense punishable by a jail sentence”, even though the ordinance violation doesn’t qualify, especially given the fact that the ordinance violation didn’t exist. He was grasping at straws for reasons to convict me. He WANTED to convict me. He was committed to BREAKING the law, not enforcing it.

A couple months after I was sentenced, I received a note that explained that walking out of a bar with a beer is a misdemeanor. It would have been nice to actually be told what crime I was committing BEFORE I was arrested, or at least before the trial or, at the very least, before I was sentenced. Apparently that is too much to ask.

So, in short, I was illegally detained, threatened with an unconstitutional arrest, unlawfully arrested, and sentenced because the judge re-defined the word “crime” so that I would qualify as a criminal.

At that point, I realized a few things.

The first thing I realized is, despite the massive tome of words that is commonly called “the law”, there is really only one law – OBEY THE COMMANDS OF THE STATE. You do what you’re fucking told, or else violence will be used against you. You want a fair trial? Tough shit. You think the constitution protects you? You thought wrong. The constitution is a worthless scrap of paper with meaningless scribbles on it. The people who interpret the law can interpret it any way they like. They can even re-define the word “crime” in order to turn you into a criminal.

I also realized that Judge William H Lyons, Officer Jaime D Branch, and the Manchester Police Department didn’t care about the law they are supposed to enforce or the constitution they were sworn to protect. These people are criminals and should be viewed as such.

That day, something died in me – any hope or faith that I had in my country.

Fuck you, Officer Branch.
Fuck you, Judge Lyons.
Fuck you, Manchester Police Department.

Fuck you for destroying my faith in my country and in the constitution.

Fuck you.
Joshua Jacob Albert Freeman

Judge William H. Lyons re-defined the word “crime” to turn me into a criminal. is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

On September 17th, disillusioned individuals gathered in a lower Manhattan park and spawned the Occupy Wall Street movement, which now has a presence in over 1,000 cities and towns worldwide. Those involved represent a diversity of views – from those who wish to control the violence of the State for their own purposes, to those who advocate for self-government.

While discourse and idea sharing on how we got here and how to best move forward is what’s needed, focus has centered on interactions between those who wear badges and those who don’t, and for good reason. Those in the former have systematically violated the rights of those in the latter.

While it’s nothing new (once arbitrary authority is granted there is no accountability until it’s withdrawn), the shear scale of this movement coupled with camera-savvy occupiers means the misdeeds – including arrests – are being captured. And now one site specifically is documenting them: OccupyArrests.com.

I caught-up with site-creator, Chris Ernesto, who was kind enough to share some info about his motivations and goals for the site and the Occupy movement.

- What motivated you to spearhead OccupyArrests.com?
To help draw attention to the magnitude of the Occupy arrests, and to help tell the stories of the people being violated by cops all around the country for simply expressing their views.  How is it that we live in the “land of the free” yet more than 4,000 people have been arrested for utilizing their First Amendment rights, and why do we have the highest incarceration rate in the world?  Plus, Americans love scoreboards…

- How can people help you with the site? Any specific talents or capacity needed to help take it to the next level?
The police, media, corporations and government obviously don’t want people to know how many protesters have been arrested during the Occupy protests, so making sure that we get the word out is important.  We have a counter that people can put on their websites and blogs.

- What is the significance of many Occupy events occurring around the world?
The ruling class, and those who protect it have been put on notice, and people appear to be realizing how much power they potentially have.

- What recommendations do you have for those participating at an Occupy event on how to mitigate potential rights-violations by those wearing badges?
No matter how difficult it is, don’t fight back when the cops act brutally.  And make sure arrests and acts of police aggression are videotaped and spread on the internet.  Two women getting pepper sprayed in New York, an Iraq war vet getting injured by cops in Oakland, and students at UC Davis getting assaulted all led the public to take the side of the Occupy protesters.  If people acted violently in return the public would likely have had no remorse for the real victims and their cause.

- What is your end-goal, both in lieu of the site and your activism in general?
First, to help insure that people don’t become desensitized to police brutality.  If nobody pays attention to thousands of people getting arrested for protesting, then cops would have a better chance of getting away with acting even more violently towards demonstrators.   And second, to help stop the U.S. empire from destroying the lives of people around the world and here in the U.S.   As bad as we have it here due to a corrupt system that is filled with greed and institutionalized violence, the people in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan have it even worse in large part due to our country’s desire for global domination.  As citizens of the empire I think it’s our responsibility to help stop the destructive path our country is on.

Thanks to Chris for allocating his scarce time to such a worthy effort!

If you know of arrests not-yet documented on the site send details to: info@occupyarrests.com. And if you’re in the Tampa/St. Pete area be sure to check out another site Chris runs: StPeteForPeace.org.

And much love to mutual friend and liberty-activist James Cox for introduction. Check out his project: Peace, Freedom & Prosperity.

OccupyArrests.com Brings Accountability is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

On March 4, 2011, at about 1:00 a.m. My son Brian Bieganski was traveling westbound on a 2007 Suzuki Motorcycle on East Green way Road on his way home from work. He was a line cook at a restaurant in Scottsdale.

After proceeding through a private business drive on the South East corner of 40TH St. and East Greenway Rd he stopped in the exit lane. A 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, owned by the City of Phoenix and driven by Phoenix Police Officer Timothy Miller drove at a high rate of speed into the exit lane and crashed into his motorcycle, rolling over him and his motorcycle.

At all times Officer Miller was acting within the scope of his employment for the City of Phoenix. As a result he was seriously injured and taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment. Officer Miller was negligent per se in that he was operating his vehicle in violation of Arizona Revised Statutes 28-701(a).

In addition, while it appears that Officer Miller intentionally drove his vehicle into him, at best he was negligent in that he was inattentive, failed to keep a proper lookout for vehicles in the driving portion of the roadway and driveway, failed to exercise reasonable care in the operation of his motor vehicle for the protection of others, failed to stop in time to avoid colliding with my son’s motorcycle, failed to apply his brakes in time to avoid colliding with my son’s motorcycle, and failed to turn his vehicle to the left or to the right to avoid colliding with his motorcycle, although by a reasonable exercise of his faculties, he could have and should have done so.

This was all from the result of Officer Timothy Miller’s attempt to pull my son over for a TRAFFIC VIOLATION?? $165,000 later just in medical bills and a crushed helmet which was the only thing that saved his life I might add!!! No skid marks on pavement what so ever!!!!

Phoenix Police ran over my kid with their 3 ton SUV is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Guest post submitted via our submit tab

While we hear about police brutality on the news frequently, and we read blogs like Cop Block, which help us understand that excessive police force is not an isolated phenomenon, sometimes more context is required to get the bigger picture. Pick up a few of these books and arm yourself with the knowledge that police brutality has been deeply entrenched in our system longer and more pervasively than you may have thought.

1. Police Brutality: An Anthology, ed. Jill Nelson

If you want to place police brutality in a historical context, and get several different views on police violence from different people, then look no further than this book. Comprised of twelve different essays, Police Brutality offers readers a multiplicity of perspectives, outlining the circumstances under which police brutality in America began, explaining its ties to racism, and offering potential solutions to stem the rising tide of police violence.

2. Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams

Published in 2007, Our Enemies in Blue is hailed as a very well-researched account of police brutality in America, dating police-led abuse from as far back as colonial times. Although many critics find Williams’ conclusion—that the police system should be abolished altogether, replacing the existing setup with volunteer, community-led law enforcement—controversial and naïve, the author still gives readers an interesting insight into possible alternatives.

3. Brotherhood of Corruption by Juan Antonio Juarez

Subtitled “A Cop Breaks the Silence on Police Abuse, Brutality, and Racial Profiling,” this narrative is one of the few books out there that gives an insider’s perspective on police brutality. Juarez, who served seven years as a narcotics office for the Chicago Police Department, tells in shocking detail the extent to which corruption exists within police departments. Most importantly, Juarez explains how a strict interdepartmental code of silence enables police corruption to continue undetected among the general public.

4. Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters with Law Enforcement by Katya Komisaruk

Although not specifically about police brutality, Beat the Heat is an informative, jargon-free guide that educates readers about their rights when dealing with law enforcement. Considering that police corruption is so firmly entrenched, many of us average citizens will unwittingly forgo our rights when dealing with forceful, corrupt police. This book lucidly explains what we should know and say when faced with common situations that involved police.

By-line: Jane Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes about free background checks for Backgroundcheck.org. Questions and comments can be sent to: janesmth161 @ gmail.com

Jane Smith

4 Must Read Books about Police Brutality is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

The monotony of a surveillance camera inside a parking garage is shattered as a man runs into view. Immediately he’s tackled by a second man who punches him in the face. A third man joins the fray and delivers repeated kicks to his head. Thirteen to be exact.

An assault? Without question. But, despite the video evidence, it’s doubtful the assailants will be held accountable. They wear badges. Or, wore badges.

Robert Woolever

John Doyle

John Doyle and Robert Woolever were the aggressors. Nicholas Blume was their victim.

Murry Conrad, direct supervisor to Doyle and Woolever at Albuquerque PD who followed-up on the incident concluded that the pair was “completely justified” in their actions. This, after claiming to watch the video “hundreds of times.” Not all took Conrad at his word.

Prompted by a bevy of shootings and brutality allegations from those wearing “Albuquerque PD” badges, the Albuquerque Journal filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain video of the incident (props!). Apparently the police knew that not all depicted would bode well for them – the first video released didn’t include what a later version disclosed: Doyle and Woolever’s celebratory chest-bump after beating-down Blume.

In light of that new evidence, Beth Paiz – deputy chief, called Doyle and Woolever’s actions “unjustified.” The two were fired. And it *only* took nine months – the incident happened last February.

Conrad (now retired) accused department brass of bending to bending to “political pressure and pressure from the media,” and praised Doyle and Woolever for their actions under the guise of officer safety.

Does anyone honestly believe that in their four years at APD this was the first time Doyle and Woolever used a level of force their colleagues (or more importantly those who don’t wear a badge and subsist on stolen money) would deem “unjustified”? Or that this was the first time Conrad covered for the actions of such aggressors?

Sure, they lost their jobs but those of us who believe justice more than an amorphous concept should not be content with half-measures. Put yourself in this situation – what would be the outcome?

If you and a colleague beat-down someone else while on the clock you would not only be fired but you’d almost assuredly be caged. (Not that I think caging people is the best course of action, but this is demonstrative of the double-standard afforded to individuals based solely on their place of employement.)

And while we’re told “The kicking incident has been turned over to a special prosecutor in Torrance County for possible criminal charges against Doyle, and the FBI is monitoring the criminal case” how realistic are real, tangible repercussions for Doyle and Woolever? It’s probable such political gesturing will evaporate as soon as the media cycle moves on.

It’s important to get justice for Blume and other victims of police brutality. But doing so reactively is tantamount to treading water. To address the issue the monopoly on “law enforcement” must end, which means each of us individually ceasing to grant arbitrary authority to someone based on their title or costume. If you’d view actions of a friend or neighbor as wrong don’t let pro-State indoctrination cause you to make excuses or look the other way when the same action is done by someone wearing a badge.

Ask yourself: how much more accountable and cost-effective would those providing “law and order” be if they were subject to competition? If they were hired (and fired) voluntarily, like the providers of any other good or service?

More:
The State is Not Great: How Government Poisons Everything (50min YouTube by Jacob Spinney)
Liberty On Tour’s Resource’s page (tons of links for relevant audio, events, quotes, books, essays, and videos)

*UPDATE (2011.11.19) We advocate for transparency so upon reflection I thought it worth sharing what happened before Doyle and Woolever assualted Blume in the parking garage. Blume was being chased on foot after he crashed a stolen car he’d been driving. Is Blume a saint? No. But were Doyle and Woolever out of line? Yes.

Thirteen kicks to the head “unjustified” is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

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This past summer I was arrested, in Marietta GA., for blowing a .01 BAC % into a breathalyzer at age 19; which is illegal in the State of GA.  I also received a fraudulent possession charge for less than a gram of marijuana; which will be reviewed in court. My friend Mario Sanchez admitted to the cops prior to arrest that it was his marijuana.  Records can be retrieved from the Cobb County Magistrate Court.

When I first arrived in jail, the sheriffs painfully ripped colorful yarn out of my hair.  Shortly after, I was stripped and asked to squat down while female sheriffs snicked behind my nude body. During this early stage of my experience I overheard the civil police and sheriffs taunting an Asian man’s name and dietary habits.  A Hispanic woman, who later learned she would be deported and separated from her child, was ridiculed for her ethnicity.  My Hispanic comrade, Mario, was inappropriately groped and ridiculed.  Meanwhile, the police who arrested me mocked my last name and continued to browse my cell phone, camera, and Ipod; all trivial matters.

I was placed in a female holding cell alone. Fraught with humiliation, I hysterically shredded the toilet paper given to me in the holding cell for the sheriffs to pick up.  A group of sheriffs flooded into my cell with body chains.  I was chained  around my waste and violently thrown into solitary confinement – “female observation”- where I accepted my fate and concentrated on meditating.  Occasionally I stood up to look out of the window.  A male sheriff sexually harassed me outside the window,  provocatively taunting me to show him my tongue.  I complained to a sheriff of the incident and was told I could go online and file a code violation “17.4”; an option that I later learned was not available to the public. In the meantime, I was barefoot and denied socks because, “I wasn’t in Macy’s”.

As is routine, I was taken from solitary confinement into the nurse’s office to undergo a Tuberculosis test injection. The room was unsterile and smelled of urine.  Without explaining the shot, the nurse asked me to hold out my arm.  Because I refuted her request, a police woman, Officer Jerked, ordered me to subdue my arm or I would be taken “upstairs where people shit on each other, shit on themselves, and will shit on you”.  In response, I kept my word and disgraced her barbaric occupation, Officer Jerked grasped my shirt collar and violently slung me back into solitary confinement.

Midway through the experience I was temporarily released from solitary confinement to contact my parents; after spending approximately 6 hours meditating alone between four white walls.  I could not reach them.  At this stage, I was having my fingerprints taken and was charged $1300 to bail myself out of jail.  The possibility of losing financial aid and getting transferred to the “population” of the detention center flooded my emotions.  I was allowed to sit with the rest of the new inmates and cynically watch FOX news, if I behaved.

My father contacted the detention facility and negotiated the bail with a sheriff I had complained to.  In the meantime, I overheard Officer Jerked and her fellow minions taunt my desire to report sexual harassment.  Nearly hysterical and humiliated by her jests, I told Jerked that I didn’t want to “see her, hear her, breathe the oxygen she was breathing, smell her, or taste her”.  She angrily charged me, scaring me further into my seat.  She tore me out of my shocked position and hoisted me into the concrete floor where I suffered a subluxation in the upper region of my spine.  Sobbing, I was thrown back into solitary confinement where I was given Fritos and red punch.

Several hours later, a sheriff entered my cell to inform me that I was being released without bail.

To cope with this experience, I want to voice this experience through the United States’ Media to inform the general public of the degree of corruption existing in America’s jails.  The Cobb County Adult Detention Center is the black heart of this town, slowly pulsating venomous blood throughout our streets.  Solitary Confinement has not yet been reviewed by the Supreme Court of its Constitutionality;  neither has sexual harassment, or unjustified physical abuse.  This injustice must come to a standstill.

In the words of Martin Luther King;  “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

I am currently gathering and organizing information to communicate this experience to Amnesty International in London, and I greatly appreciate any constructive feedback.

Amanda Constantinides

Victim of Police Brutality in Cobb County, Georgia is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

According to SFGATE.COM

Dozens of campus police in riot gear descended on students in a violent confrontation outside UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall on Wednesday and arrested seven protesters as they tried to set up an “Occupy Cal” encampment.

The protesters were among about 1,000 students, faculty and Occupy activists participating in a statewide protest that marked the first banding of the Occupy movement with students against the financial handling of the state’s higher education system.

Students voted to set up an encampment in defiance of university orders, and as soon as they had three tents erected in front of Sproul Hall, baton-wielding police moved in on them.

“Put the guns down!” shouted students who had linked arms as police shoved and swung batons, whacking anyone who stood between them and the impromptu encampment outside the administration building.

“It really, really hurt – I got the wind knocked out of me,” said doctoral student Shane Boyle, raising his shirt to reveal a red welt on his chest. “I was lucky I only got hit twice.”

Six UC Berkeley students and one faculty member, English Professor Celeste Langan, were arrested for resisting and delaying police officers, said Lt. Alex Yao of the UC Berkeley Police, which got help from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and other UC police.

Full article

Berkeley Police Violently Attack College Kids With Batons 11/9/11 is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

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In an opinion released on August 26, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that a private citizen’s right to videotape police officers performing their duties in a public space is “unambiguously” protected by the First Amendment. Glik v. Cunniffe, et al., No. 10-1764 (1st Cir. Aug. 26, 2011).

In 2007, Simon Glik encountered three police officers making an arrest in the Boston Common. Concerned that the officers were using excessive force,  he began to record video footage of the arrest with his cell phone. One of the officers told Glik, “I think you have taken enough pictures,” and Glik replied that he was videotaping the arrest. When Glik affirmed that his cell phone recorded audio, he was arrested and subsequently charged with violation of Massachusetts’ wiretap statute, disturbing the peace and aiding in the escape of a prisoner. The latter charge was voluntarily dismissed for lack of probable cause and, in 2008, the Boston Municipal Court granted Glik’s motion to dismiss the remaining two charges. Thereafter, Glik filed a civil rights action against the officers and the City of Boston in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights, in addition to various state law claims. The district court denied the police officers’ motion to dismiss Glik’s complaint on qualified immunity grounds, and the defendants immediately appealed the ruling to the First Circuit on interlocutory review.

To determine whether public officials are entitled to qualified immunity, the court considers whether the facts alleged by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional right and, if so, whether the right was “clearly established” at the time of the defendant’s alleged violation. With regard to Glik’s First Amendment claim, the First Circuit unequivocally concluded that there is a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public, explaining that “[i]t is firmly established that the First Amendment’s aegis extends further than the text’s proscription on laws ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,’ and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information.”

The court cited precedent firmly establishing that videotaping of public officials is an exercise of First Amendment liberties and observed that gathering information on government officials protects free discussion of government affairs, aids in the uncovering of abuses, and promotes effective functioning of government. Although the right to film is subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, the court opined that the peaceful recording of an arrest in a public space that does not interfere with police duties is not reasonably subject to limitation.

The First Amendment right to gather news does not only inure to the benefit of the news media, but also to the benefit of private individuals, the court further noted. Recognizing that evolving technology has allowed private citizens to increasingly contribute to news gathering and dissemination, the First Circuit stated:

Moreover, changes in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.

In addition, the First Circuit concluded that Glik’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause, relying on the fact that his recording in plain view was not “secret” within the meaning of the state wiretap statute. Even if the officers did not actually know that Glik was recording audio on his cell phone, the court found that the conspicuous use of a cell phone commonly known to record audio is sufficient evidence from which to infer actual knowledge of the recording.

Rodman Gomez

Breaking Down the Police Videotaping Decision is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Police and their supporters always talk about how policing is such a difficult and dangerous job. As with most things related to police, this attitude is derived from general misconception, ignorance, and a tendency of people to arbitrarily worship those in fancy uniforms. Year after year, policing fails to make the top ten list of most dangerous professions. The dangers they face on the job consistently fall below that of pilots, loggers, sanitation workers, farmers, fishers, etc.

Further, much of the dangers they face on the job are self-imposed, which lends even more reason to withhold sympathy or respect with regard to the “dangers” of their profession. Despite the incessant whining from the media and police community about increased violence against police, officer deaths have been on the decline in the last 25 years.  40 percent of their deaths are due to police failure to wear seatbelts during traffic accidents (more here). Basically, the local garbage man has a more dangerous job than a cop, and when a cop dies, there’s a huge chance he died because he was an idiot, not because the scary people out in society were out to get him, as most people would have you believe.

But what is truth to the police and their cronies? They continue to drone on the tired bit about bravery in the face of danger, and heroic efforts to “protect” the public. Yes, they are so brave – this must be why they have special laws to protect them when they mistreat, beat, or kill ordinary people, but demand special punishment when people mistreat or injure them. When a police officer abuses, mistreats, or kills an individual, he is subject to qualified immunity, which is a substantial hurdle for the victim to overcome, if he seeks to sue the officer.

On the other hand, police face no such hurdle when others injure them. They are taking great delight in this as the Occupy Protests continue. Police sergeants in New York have stated they are planning to “pursue legal action” against demonstrators who injure police. Of course, if they injure the protesters, no harm, no foul.

Ed Mullins, President of the NYPD’s Sergeant’s Benevolent Association, stated that, “any assault on a police officer is not only punishable as a felony in the State of New York, but will also be met with swift and certain legal action…”. Right. When the police wrongly arrest people, or otherwise abuse them, it’s business as usual, and the victims have no recourse. When the police shoot a man peacefully standing around in the head (see picture above right) with god knows what, and crush his skull, then throw flashbang grenades at people who attempt to come to his rescue, it’s no big deal.

But if ordinary people so much as touch a hair on an officer’s head, there will be “swift and certain legal action.” These threats clearly are coming from bullies who are trying to squash free speech, not the heroic protectors police claim to be. But they’ll keep telling you that it’s all to protect and serve.

Police promise to take legal action if they are injured by OWS protestors is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

- Tim Dunkin

One of the fundamental premises upon which any truly free society must be based is the notion that the government is open, transparent, and accountable to the citizens. To the extent that this is not the case, a society cannot be called “free,” and it is a notable, and lamentable, fact of modern America that our government at all levels has been growing more and more secretive, less and less accountable for blatant wrongdoing on the part of its officers and employees.

Instead of government activity being exposed to the disinfecting light of an informed citizenry, we are routinely kept in the dark about most of what our government does, as it tries to hide the corruption and injustices that would bring the system crashing down around the ears of our “betters” if we the people were to find out about them.

At the federal level, many laws—in the form of “administrative regulations,” and lacking wholly in legislative sanction—are created by an executive branch run amuck, something true regardless of which Party holds the White House. Whether by executive orders that the public rarely if ever knows about, or by the myriad of rules generated by an alphabet soup of unelected bureaucrats in unaccountable agencies, our lives are impacted detrimentally by the coercive powers of the state through means that have completely bypassed the legislature elected (supposedly) to be the close representatives of the people directly in government. Law and regulation are often made at our expense for the good of the favored few who constitute an incestuous circle of lobbyists and influence-peddlers, corporate donors, politicians, public unions, and career bureaucrats.

Just look at the current Solyndra scandal that has finally started to see the light of day (despite the best efforts of the leftist MSM to squelch the story): a “green” company, which just so happened to be an investment opportunity for a certain President and his associates, which received hundreds of millions of taxpayer “stimulus” dollars and ended up collapsing because there was nothing ever really there—it was just a cash funnel for corrupt corporate executives and corrupt politicians working hand in hand. Or what about the LightSquared scandal: revelations that another company (which just happens to be a major donor to high profile Democrats) was to have its open broadband product fast-tracked through the FCC’s approval process, allowing it to bypass the maze of regulations that hinder and afflict its less-favored competitors, despite concerns that said product almost certainly would interfere with civilian and military GPS applications. We all get to suffer degraded GPS performance and military protection so that a corporate Friend of Barack can save some bucks

At the state level, the same applies. Corporate and union corruptions drive much of the closed-door decision-making, and have worked to strangle much of the economic recovery that could have been seen in many of the states across this land. Take, for example, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s executive order a few years ago in which he mandated the vaccination of all pre-teen girls in his state with the anti-HPV (human papillomavirus) drug Gardasil. Thus, just as with all those people who would rather continue to fight the failed War on (Some) Drugs than accept that it’s a catastrophe that does nothing but shred our Constitution, the liberty to decide what goes or doesn’t go into your body takes a back seat to “safety.” As it turns out, Perry had just received thousands in campaign donations from Gardasil’s manufacturer, Merck.

State governments routinely bypass legislatures, create unelected bureaucracies, encourage empire-building, give free reign to its agents to “enforce laws,” and discourage too close inspection by interested and concerned citizens. It is especially at the state and local levels that government agents—police, judges, and so forth—have been actively trying to discourage citizen oversight of their behavior. One or the major means in which this is done is by misusing existing wiretapping laws to criminalize the taping of police and court officials in the performance of their public duties. These laws were most often originally intended to protect citizens against secret taping of privateconversations on phones in places (like their homes and businesses) where there wasthe reasonable expectation of privacy. In other words, some third party, say a business competitor or nosy neighbor, couldn’t install a tap on your phone line without your knowledge and subsequently record your conversations. However, the incidence of police officers arresting (and prosecutors prosecuting) citizens for videotaping the police in their public duties is increasing, relying upon these anti-wiretapping laws as a buttress.

Before exploring the nuts-and-bolts of this issue, the question any citizen should ask his or herself is why a police officer would feel threatened by someone videotaping them. Why do many police officers get so bent out of shape that they will smash cell phones and cameras, arrest, and beat up people taping them, and threaten them with decades in prison? This pattern of behavior suggests that many police officers believe they have something to hide, something they don’t want going onto a camera that they can’t control and alter at a later date. All too often, that something is some form of official misconduct, often revolving around violence or intimidation done under color of authority. In short, cops don’t want citizens recording them when they harass people, rough them up, or otherwise do things they shouldn’t. And even when police are not doing these things in any particular encounter between officers and citizens, they don’t want the precedent to be set that private citizens could videotape them, hence the many times where police will escalate otherwise peaceful encounters once they realize they are being taped or filmed.

And let’s face it—there are a lot of times when police overstep their lawful authority and abuse their positions. Such as when six officers beat and taser an unarmed homeless man to death in an ordeal lasting 10 minutes. What about when they strip, handcuff, beat, and taser an unarmed suspect after he’s already been “immobilized”? Or whenthey’re shaking down out-of-state travelers and stealing their cash and other property? How about when they’re pointing guns at and pepper spraying the family of a scared teenage driver who ran from a minor traffic stop and hid out at his parents’ home, after forcibly busting into the home without a warrant? And of course, nobody likes to be videoed when they’re pulling over random vehicles and threatening to kill the passengers. Then there’s the case where Massachusetts cops handcuffed and then beat up a pro-life activist for handing out fliers at a public fair. What about the cop in Ohio who threatened to beat and execute a motorist who informed him of his concealed weapon, like concealed carriers are supposed to do by law? How about when they shoot a Marine in his own home, admitting later that they found nothing illegal going on?

And these are really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stories of police brutality, excessive force, and official misconduct.

One thing that several of the stories above have in common is that by one means or another they were caught on tape, and therefore saw the light of day. The police couldn’t cover them up. In several cases, the official police testimony of the events was radically contradicted by the actual video evidence, indicating that the officers involved were lying to investigators. It’s no wonder that police officers, especially those involved in shootings, will go to great lengths to prevent uncontrolled citizen recording of their behavior. For instance, there’s the case of a man in Miami Beach, Florida, who recorded the shooting of a suspect by police on his cell phone. When the police figured out what he was doing, one of them pointed a pistol at his head, smashed his cell phone, and handcuffed him (video here). Fortunately, the owner of the phone had the foresight to hide the memory card in his mouth.

Not an isolated case, of course. A woman in Rochester, New York was arrested for videotaping police officers making a traffic stop in front of her house, while she was doing so from her own front yard. In Concord, New Hampshire, a lemonade stand operator was assaulted and threatened with arrest (for wiretapping) for videotaping a police officer at a farmer’s market. In Maryland, police arrested and charged Anthony Graber with violating state wiretapping laws because his helmet camera captured a state trooper pulling a gun on him and ordering him off his motorcycle. The charge carries with it the possibility of a 16-year prison sentence, while the speeding and pop-a-wheelie that got him pulled over originally only merited a ticket. Police in Suffolk County, New York even arrested a news cameraman for videotaping the tail end of a police chase.

Do the police have such a bugaboo about “civilians” recording them because they know that they may often have something to hide? After all, the police tell people whose vehicles and homes they want to search without a warrant that “if you don’t have anything to hide, then you don’t have anything to worry about.” Why go to such lengths to keep people from recording you in public, unless you think you might be doing something you don’t want people to find out about?

Fortunately, recent rulings are showing this to be one area where the courts, surprisingly enough, are getting it right. Last month, the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a man who had recorded police during an arrest of a suspect (which included an officer punching the arrestee) had a constitutional right to do so, and in fact, that the police should have known this (PDF of the decision here). In Illinois, a state judge ruled as unconstitutional a state eavesdropping law that was used to prosecute a man who had recorded his interactions with police and with a judge in a closed session, saving him from 75 years in jail. Earlier this year, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the public has the right to record police in the performance of their public duties. Back in 2005, the U.S. District Court in eastern Pennsylvania ruledthat a citizen who was arrested for videotaping Pennsylvania state police as they performed truck inspections had his 1^st amendment rights violated. This case was later used by the 3^rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide a case in favor of a man who had been arrested on wiretapping charges for videotaping an encounter with state police as a passenger in the detainee’s vehicle.

As such, there does seem to be a good deal of broad-based precedent being built for affirming the constitutionality of videotaping or otherwise recording police as they perform their official duties. This has led at least one state (Connecticut) to consider a bill before its state legislature that would make it illegal for police officers to hinder or harass citizens who videotape them, provided the citizen isn’t directly obstructing the officer’s performance of his or her duties.

As much as liberty lovers criticize our elected officials, we should at least give credit to our legislators when they do the right thing and work to restrict the ability of out-of-control police and other executive agencies to take away our rights and to hide their activities in the shadows. While lovers of liberty have a lot of work to do across the board as far as fighting to regain lost freedom and to keep what little we still have, codifying the right of citizens to “keep tabs” on public officials, including (or perhapsespecially) police officers, is a lynchpin in gaining and keeping liberty. With greater authority and the ability to exercise the raw power of state-sanctioned violence necessarily come the need for greater oversight and control by the group who really form the basis of all legitimacy for government—the people themselves. If government agencies and their officers cannot bring themselves to accept citizen oversight and accountability, then those agencies and officers lose their claims to delegated legitimacy, and should rightly be removed. It’s time for lovers of liberty to make this point explicitly clear.

Tim Dunkin

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Tim Dunkin is a pharmaceutical chemist by day, and a freelance author by night, writing about a wide range of topics on religion and politics. He is the author of an online book about Islam entitled Ten Myths About Islam, and is the founder and editor of Conservative Underground<, a bi-weekly email newsletter focusing on foundational conservative worldview and philosophy. He is a born-again Christian, and a member of a local, New Testament Baptist church in North Carolina. He can be contacted at : patriot_tim@yahoo.com

The Right to Keep and Bear Cameras is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights