Saturday, July 29, 2006

"You should have just went in the house and minded your own business...

...instead of trying to take pictures off your picture phone,'" yelled a police officer as he threw 21 year old Neftaly Cruz against a squad car and arrested the man for taking a picture of a drug raid.
"They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an investigation, obstruction of a investigation. … They said, 'You were impeding this investigation.' (I asked,) "By doing what?' (The officer said,) 'By taking a picture of the police officers with a camera phone,'" Cruz said.

[snip]

"There is no law that prevents people from taking pictures of what anybody can see on the street," said Larry Frankel of the American Civil Liberties Union. "I think it's rather scary that in this country you could actually be taken down to police headquarters for taking a picture on your cell phone of activities that are clearly visible on the street."

[Link]

1 comment:

Jonathan Perri said...

where to start...

Taking a picture with a cell phone camera, or even a Nikon D2X, is not "impeding an investigation."

How ridiculous is it for these officers to waste their resources on arresting a citizen for taking a picture? The excuse being used for arresting a drug dealer is to make the neighbors safer. So why arrest a 21 year old student that takes a picture of these actions? Did the police do something unlawful during this drug raid, or is this simply an attempt to make an example out of Cruz, so that future police actions will not be photographed.

"They said if the supervisor was there I wouldn't be a free man and that he is letting me go because he felt that I was a good person," Cruz said.

A good person that needed to be arrested for taking a picture huh? And the supervisor would not know that a person can't be arressted for taking a picture of police activity. Great. Just great.

www.copwatch.com