Mustang Social Forums

http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/man_arrested_for_unlawful_photography/11576/

What do you guys think of this? I think it was a bit ridiculous to take a picture of the cop, but arresting the person? that's a little insane. This sounds like one of those i-was-picked-on-in-school-and-I-beat-my-wife type of cops exercising their Mcthority on others.

That cop belongs in prison.

Weird. Surely there's got to be more to that the story tells? If not, then the office is a headcase.

I read the article and then I read the police reports at the end of the article. My conclusion is, the officer was a douchebag.

The officer got mad because the bloke turned around and took a photo of the officer and the officer cited 'unlawful photographing in violation of privacy' as one of the reasons for arrest. Right, officer - you're arresting a bloke for taking a picture of you on a public (the clue's in the name) roadway, where you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That charge will be thrown out of court straightaway. Another reason for the arrest was 'disorderly conduct' - the bloke probably had some choice words for the officer when he was asked to delete the photo, which is understandable considering an officer of the law can not legally demand that a photograph be deleted or that you hand over your memory card/camera. Finally, the officer claimed the bloke pointed a red light at him. Well, girls and boys, not every red light is a laser.


/It infuriates me when 'the law' doesn't know the law...

I'm probably going to get flamed up the butt for saying this, but I totally disagree with all of you guys and the people who commented on that website. I think the officer had every right to arrest the man! I mean, here you are protecting people and yet there are still people out there who, given the opportunity, would kill you. I think that would make me very paranoid about anything that seemed a little out of the ordinary, and I would deffinately consider taking a picture after turning around "out of the ordinary!!"
My dad works at the Curry County Jail, the holding facility for Curry county, and here he has had threat on his life and people saying "I know where your family lives" or "you better hope I don't find out where you live." Now, we're talking about a dinky little county with a population of just over 22,000...now imagine a huge place where these kind of people run around in abundance, how would you feel knowing someone like that has a picture of you? I can tell you I'd be severly disturbed knowing someone can look at me whenever he wants, and do who knows what else with it.
In that article, the man that was arrested tried to make it sound like he wasn't doing anything but taking a picture and how horrible it was that he was arrested in front of his children, but when you read the police report the other officer said that the man became irrate and started cursing, also infront of his children. It just seems ridiculous to me that the article I read didn't seem to include any of the police report, leading to another good old fashion Rodney King "incident."

I think that the arresting officer is thinking that the man taking his picture has some bad intention on that picture. The policeman might have mistaken him for a terrorist.

You never know what people are thinking or going to do! I'd be really wary too! specially if someone did something weird like that!

I do take your point Josiah, but surely the point is that there's no law stopping the guy taking a photo of an officer by a public road? Police officers get photographed and even filmed by the media every day, but they don't chuck all those journalists in jail, do they?

I don't know about the laws, but just like tickets, when you're a douche to the cop he doesn't go out of his way to be nice to you. Probably the same issue here except the officer felt he had a legitamate reason to arrest the guy. I suppose this will probably turn into a huge lawsuit or soemthing ridiculous like that...ltmq

I guess if I were an officer and someone created hell then I'd not go out of my way to be nice either, which may explain the arrest, but it still doesn't explain why the officer was querying the photo in the first place.