I started to see stories about this show up yesterday on CNN. This looks pretty bad. Pointing a gun at a bystander to force compliance of handing over a phone? Attempted destruction of evidence.A police shooting of a man in Miami Beach on Memorial Day was terrifying, but when it was over, officers turned their attention to a man filming the violent scene with his cellphone. They demanded the device, smashed it and probably thought that was that; no video anymore. It was not: Narces Benoit had had the presence of mind to pull the phone's memory card with the video on it from his cellphone and put the card in his mouth.
That action saved the video you see above, showing the police shooting dead a suspect at the end of a chase, and some of what happened to Benoit. It was after the shooting ended that police turned their sights on Benoit, who had been darting behind trees and stop signs, filming with his HTC Evo phone.
At about 1:38 into the video, we see and hear a police officer turn to Benoit and shout: "Gimme the phone now!"
Benoit's response: "I ain't got no weapon!"
And he did not: But more and more cellphones are becoming weapons of sorts to police, who are finding themselves filmed in public places and not liking it. Just about everyone has a cellphone, and just about every cellphone now shoots video of some kind.
In New Jersey, the ACLU is pursuing the case of a high school student who used her phone to take video of police on a city bus who arrested a man, then took her into custody because she refused to turn her cell phone off. Police later released the teen, but not before erasing the video on her phone.
Benoit and his girlfriend got into their car to leave, but not before a police officer turned his gun on the couple (see it at about 2 minutes into the video), demanding they get out of the car. The couple complied.
"They put guns to our heads and threw us on the ground,” his girlfriend, Ericka Davis, told the Miami Herald. Benoit told the newspaper an officer yanked his phone from him and said:
“You want to be [expletive] Paparazzi?” and stomped on his phone before placing him in handcuffs and shoving the crunched phone in Benoit’s back pocket. He said the couple joined other witnesses already in cuffs and being watched by officers, who were on the lookout for two passengers who, police believe at the time, had bailed out of Herisse’s car. It is still not known whether any passengers were in the car.
After getting his broken cell phone back, "he discreetly removed the ... card and placed it in his mouth," said the newspaper, which also reported the couple contends that officers "smashed several other cell phones in the ensuing chaos."
The police chief says if the couple files a complaint, which they're considering doing, the police department will investigate. Otherwise, the department has had little to say about what happened.
The couple has hired a lawyer, but is still weighing what to do. "We just want the right thing to be done," Davis told the newspaper. "That was just too much."
There is a new trend starting in several states that I find very discomforting. States are starting to make a crime to record police doing their duty. A police officer unlawfully detains you and has you arrested for a night? Slap on the wrist. Video tape him arresting you? Spend 3 years in prison. Unlawful imprisonment has a lower punish than recording a freaking cop or judge.
Something needs to be done to reverse this trend and quickly.Under the Eavesdropping Act, which applies in 12 states, all parties must consent to a recording being made.
Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts are the only states where it is illegal to record conversations with the police.
In Illinois police are currently prosecuting nine people for alleged breaches of the law.
The maximum penalty is only three years behind bars for the first time the law is broken and five years if it is done again,
But anyone recording a judge, attorney general, state attorney or police officer can be sent to jail for up to 15 years.
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- PeZook
