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CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

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Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#121

Post by throwaway76543 »

jMyles wrote: post #111
lohengramm wrote: post #81

Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that "standing his ground". I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Source: the YT channel himse…

> actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them As for the insulting part - sure, that's always a shame. But what's wrong with following bearers of state power and recording their actions? That's precisely in the spirit of the first amendment.

Insulting is likewise precisely in the spirit of the first amendment.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#122

Post by baloneyman »

golergka wrote: post #104
bougiefever wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair, if you're going to use deadly force, to first find out with a much, much greater degree of certainty, that there actually is a weapon, and if so that they actually are in danger. Too many cowardly and scared police shooting at shadows and noises. "It's not to excuse the behavior of the police.." And yes, your comment is excusing the behavior of the police. Just saying that you didn't just excuse th…

Taking time to raise level of certainty will, with high probability, give the other guy time to shoot you. This is one untypical case that makes the news, so you're thinking about optimizing decision making for this case; all the cases where police actually get shot don't.

This isn't an issue in any other developed country. People don't want to shoot cops. Even if it was a gun, they shouldn't have shot him

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#123

Post by throwaway76543 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #114

> You can legally get as close as a foot to an officer provided there is no interference. So for instance one can get a few feet from a scene as a member of the press where an officer is ticketing somebody for an offence. Does the person being ticketed have no rights in this situation? I think I'd be pretty upset at the reporter if they got all up in my business like this.

In a public space, no. You have no right to restrict others from observing or recording.

It is not "your" business, according to the law. It's an event occurring in public and is everybody's business.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#124

Post by stinkytaco »

ithought wrote: post #107
lohengramm wrote: post #81

Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that "standing his ground". I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Source: the YT channel himse…

And why shouldn't they? Police departments and city officials across the US routinely lie, obsfucate and remove any sense of accountability for police officers who commit crimes or make mistakes. Look at the case of the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago. The lying and stonewalling is a common occurrence. It's not just a few bad apples, it's a bad system that promotes escalation and grants power without accountabil…

I absolutely think you should be able to record the police. But following them around is potentially unsafe for everyone involved. It's also a good way to harass good people out of the profession (the worse a job is, the more you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill it). In addition, it absolutely can be a misdemeanor to harass people, government employee or not. No one deserves to be insulted.

The problem here is lack of reason on either side. People being unreasonable just escalates the unreasonableness on both sides of the equation.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#126

Post by soheil »

lohengramm wrote: post #81

Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that "standing his ground". I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Source: the YT channel himse…

A book you might enjoy reading: Civil Disobedience [1]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Disobedience-Essays-Thrift-Edit...

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#127

Post by maxerickson »

tomschlick wrote: post #94
swsieber wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it probably looked like a gun from a distance. The police were in the neighborhood confronting somebody with a machine gun - not smart to take an action that looks like pointing a gun in a type of situation where one side has decided they need machine guns . It's not to excuse the behavior of the police..., but if you're pointing something at the police from across the street, it's hard to see the profile…

> with a machine gun Ugh. I wish reporters would stop embellishing stories like that with words they don't understand. An AR-15 is not in any sense a "machine gun".

It is in a US legal sense.

(The National Firearms Act doesn't analyze the tactical utility of the weapon, just whether it fires multiple rounds per trigger pull or is easily converted to do so)

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#128

Post by notjustanymike »

draugadrotten wrote: post #13

This sounds very much like one side of the story. "I was essentially arrested for filming a police checkpoint in Manchester, New Hampshire" I don't want to defend the police, but that sounds like there is a lot of information missing here. Why was he filming the police? What did other people do at/to/near the checkpoint? Was he alone or part of a group or even a mob?

When someone includes "essentially" in their statement, it means they're giving you their opinionated distillation of the facts.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#129

Post by bmelton »

sandworm101 wrote: post #108
lohengramm wrote: post #81

Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that "standing his ground". I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Source: the YT channel himse…

There is a mindset amongst many that police should never stop, question or even talk to people without some level of suspecion of wrongdoing. They see most any checkpoint as a threat to basic libery. Such "chasers", rather than the silent watchers who dont scream at officers, are extreemists who take laws and constitutional constructions far to literally.

That's not a mindset, that's the actual, current state of the law. Police pulling you over without cause is considered by many judges, jurists and supreme court justices to be a violation of your fourth amendment rights to privacy and your fifth amendment rights to due process. The alternative to this is stop and frisk.

Yes, the law is muddied, and yes, there are many, many exceptions... most notably those as defined in Terry v Ohio (ie, Terry stops), but even with Terry stops, officers need to have a reasonable suspicion that you're either presently armed, or should be considered dangerous enough to warrant a stop.

It isn't extremism to interpret the law as it is written, and as it is considered by many courts to be valid, that requires police to need at least some mandate to being pulled over (whether a traffic violation, exigent circumstances) more specific than "this guy was black", or "this guy was poor", or what have you.

The problem is that with qualified immunity and deference, we allow the police to get away with a lot of stops that don't even meet the legislative standards we've set, and as we allow these things to continue, from one generation to the next, the standards for what is or isn't a valid stop gets lowered.

TLDR, if a cop pulls you over just because he can, and he cannot formulate a reasonable suspicion, then he has overstepped his boundaries in the eyes of the law, even where that law seemingly has bent over backwards to accommodate arbitrary stops.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#130

Post by dec0dedab0de »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #114

> You can legally get as close as a foot to an officer provided there is no interference. So for instance one can get a few feet from a scene as a member of the press where an officer is ticketing somebody for an offence. Does the person being ticketed have no rights in this situation? I think I'd be pretty upset at the reporter if they got all up in my business like this.

Does the person being ticketed have no rights in this situation? I think I'd be pretty upset at the reporter if they got all up in my business like this.

Reporting on people being charged with a crime is not just legal, it is extremely common. Also, I'm pretty sure you don't have any right to privacy when you're out in public.

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