Photography Is Not A Crime

[Pertinacious Tom]

Camera Shy Cops in Louisiana
 

Body camera footage show a Louisiana state trooper beating a black motorist with a flashlight over and over again, all over a traffic stop for "improper lane usage." The video was kept secret for years.

It's the second recent violent police encounter in Louisiana in which footage was kept concealed but was subsequently acquired and exposed by the Associated Press.

In this incident, Aaron Larry Bowman was pulled over by state troopers in May 2019 in the city of Monroe. The footage shows State Trooper Jacob Brown arriving on the scene, striding over to Bowman, who is already out of his car and on the pavement, and immediately beating him 18 times with a flashlight as Bowman screams that he's not resisting. Bowman was left with a broken jaw, broken wrist, three broken ribs, and head gash that required staples to close.

...

That's all horrible enough, but there's also the matter of how Louisiana officials have been burying these incidents. The state police didn't even investigate the incident until Bowman filed a civil lawsuit almost two years later. The state police now say that Brown failed to report the use of force and deliberately mislabeled his body-camera footage. Bowman's defense attorney says he was told there was no body-camera video of the encounter.

The Justice Department is now investigating these incidents, and the A.P. reports that federal prosecutors are trying to determine what role, if any, leaders of the Louisiana State Police played in obstructing the truth. After all, Brown was not the only trooper on the scene, and official investigations into the troopers' conduct didn't begin until after civil lawsuits were filed. Sources told the A.P. earlier in August that head of the Louisiana State Police, Col. Lamar Davis, and his chief of staff attempted to pressure prosecutors not to charge any officers for Greene's death back in 2019.

...

Uh huh. Who "told" him there was no body camera footage?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

8th Circuit says prohibiting photography is unconstitutional
 

...

Ness   claims   that   the   ordinance   is   unconstitutional   as   applied   to   her photography and video recording of matters of public controversy for dissemination on the internet.  The City and Ness dispute whether the ordinance prohibits speech or merely proscribes conduct.  Even if we assume that the ordinance on its face does not aim at the suppression of speech, the ordinance operates to restrict speech in this case.

...

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Update from the Supreme Court:

Photography is a crime, even if some police policy says it's not, until a court specifically says it's not
 

The Supreme Court has just refused to hear a case at the nexus of police abuse and the First Amendment, declining to consider a petition from a man who says his free speech rights were violated when a group of cops searched his tablet without a warrant and attempted to delete a video he took of them beating a suspect.

Officers with the Denver Police Department (DPD) cornered Levi Frasier in the summer of 2014 after they noticed he had recorded an altercation moments prior. The video showed a cop punching a suspect in the face six times while executing an arrest over an alleged drug deal—the man had a sock in his mouth that the cops thought was contraband—and it captured a different officer throwing a woman to the ground by her ankle when she approached the scene screaming. Upon noticing Frasier, DPD Officer Russell Bothwell shouted "Camera!" and the group proceeded to harass him for the footage. Frasier says the police implied they would jail him if he refused to produce the clip. "Well, we could do this the easy way or we could do this the hard way," Officer Christopher L. Evans reportedly said, pointing to his squad car. Despite Frasier's protestations, the police then confiscated the tablet and went through it without the owner's permission.

Those officers were given qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that allows a slew of state actors to infringe on your rights if the way they went about doing so has not specifically been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court or the same federal circuit. It's a granular standard that has seen government officials get off for assaulting and arresting a man for standing outside of his own home, for shooting and killing a man who had been sleeping in his car, for beating a man after pulling him over for broken lights, for leaving an innocent man's home in ruins after conducting a SWAT raid on the wrong house, and for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without a prior ruling with identical facts, the victims in the above scenarios were not allowed to state their claims before a jury.

That standard is particularly egregious here, because the DPD enacted a policy in 2007 informing officers that the public has a constitutional right to film them on duty. But that wasn't good enough, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which ruled in March that the only permissible avenue for overcoming qualified immunity is to find that perfect court precedent.

...

Those training guidelines will now "somewhat lose their force," says Anya Bidwell, a nutjob at the Institute for Justice, a nutjob firm. Cops have less reason to follow department policies if they know the federal courts will decline to hold them accountable for breaking those very rules. In shielding a group of rogue government employees, the court inadvertently weakened the public's First Amendment rights.

...

The 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Circuits have all acknowledged a First Amendment right to film the police. Had those officers misbehaved in a location subject to one of those federal circuit courts, they would not have been so lucky.

And while the 10th Circuit acknowledged that DPD training invoked a constitutional right to film the police, the court danced around coming to any conclusion on that subject. "We do not consider, nor opine on, whether Mr. Frasier actually had a First Amendment right to record the police performing their official duties in public spaces," Holmes wrote, leaving officers in that jurisdiction free to violate the public's rights in the same way again without fear of recourse.

I agree with the quoted nutjob.

As noted in the Qualified Impunity thread, most cops really have little to no clue about the "clear notice" that court rulings supposedly give them.

I'll bet camera shy cops manage to learn about this decision, though. Screw that department policy that says citizens can film cops. Why pay attention to it when the courts clearly won't?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Someone Filmed the Kyle Rittenhouse Trial Jurors
 

Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder revealed at the start of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial that someone had filmed the jury at their bus pickup on Tuesday morning. He assured the jurors the video was deleted and more steps will be taken to protect them.

"At pickup, there was someone there and video recording the jury, which officers approached the person and required [them]...to delete the video and return the phone to him. I've instructed that if it happens again, they are to take the phone and bring it here," Schroeder said.

"Something like that should not have occurred, I’m frankly, quite surprised it did," he added.

...

Filming at a bus stop is not a crime. It's usually cops, not judges, who need to be told.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

What is it about Louisiana cops, people named Green, and cameras?

This Professor Shared Body Camera Footage of Cops Strip-Searching a Minor. Now, Prosecutors Want To Throw Him in Jail for It.
 

This incident was first mentioned recently in another thread.

The City of Baton Rogue made the footage public in the first place, then tried to suppress it by threatening to imprison Frampton.

The US district court judge wasn't having it.

...






"In measuring 'the significance of [Frampton's] alleged criminal activity', the Court finds under the circumstances of this case, there was no criminal activity," writes Judge John W. deGravelles in a 92-page opinion published Friday. "Frampton released a Video that was in the public domain, belonged to his clients, and he released it on the instructions and with the knowledge of his clients."

...




Indeed, the Green family reached a $35,000 settlement with the city after Clarence spent five months in jail. The government moved to dismiss its case against him, and a federal judge agreed—but not without first benchslapping the state for actions that could be criminal.



"Such an intrusion, in abject violation of the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects citizens against unwarranted governmental intrusions in their homes, may justifiably be considered to be a trespass subject to prosecution under" Louisiana law, wrote Judge Brian A. Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

The city of Baton Rouge insisted that it was Frampton who violated the law, by disseminating the video. But it was the city that put that footage into the public record in the first place.

DeGravelles thinks this was never really about prosecuting someone for breaching the law. Instead, he says, it was about revenge and skirting accountability. "The record is replete with evidence," he writed, "that the City/Parish would not have pursued this matter in the absence of its bad faith motive to retaliate."

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Wrong house in the stupid drug war again.
 

Judge says footage shouldn't be made public. In May 2020, a SWAT team burst into the Raleigh, North Carolina, home that Yolanda Irving shared with her five children. For nearly two hours, the cops poked around and pointed guns at the family, searching the home and three of Irving's kids. "The entire family was terrified that they were about to be shot and killed," Irving's lawyer said in court this week. The cops were looking for drugs and money, one officer told Irving.

They had the wrong house.

Their search warrant listed her address but featured a picture of another place, Irving told the Raleigh News & Observer. "I never got an apology. I never got anything from the Raleigh Police Department," she said. "You have my kids scared. I am petrified.…On top of that, you are running behind my son with a gun. I could have lost him."

Now, Irving is fighting for the release of bodycam videos of the encounter. She and her neighbor—who was also detained during the encounter—have taken the matter to court with the help of civil rights group Emancipate NC.

"This footage and case provides a great opportunity for public assessment of no-knock raids, as well as the use of confidential informants," her lawyer, Abraham Rubert-Schewel, told a judge this week.

The raid on Irving's home was one of the last investigations involving Omar Abdullah—a Raleigh police detective accused of improperly arresting 15 black men in fake drug busts. Abdullah—and an informant who was involved in these busts. "The informant has since been charged with obstruction of justice, as prosecutors started to dismiss drug charges in those cases," the News & Observer reports. Abdullah was fired in late 2021, after more than a year on paid leave.

On Wednesday, Wake County Superior Court Judge G. Bryan Collins ruled that footage from the raid of Irving's home could be released to her attorney but could not be made public.

"These rulings are the game being played by the rules law enforcement creates and not in the best interest of the public or transparency," tweeted Emancipate NC. "Living people have just as much right as the dead to have the public see the trauma they suffer at the hands of police."

"The decision denying public release of BC footage is disappointing," said Rubert-Schewel. "We plan to ask the Court to reconsider."

...

I'm glad that Yolanda Irving's lawyer can see the footage but agree with Emancipate NC that the public should see this stuff happen.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Arizona House Committee Approves Bill To Criminalize Filming Cops on the Job
 

The Arizona House Appropriations Committee on Monday green-lit a bill that would criminalize filming cops on the job in some cases, reinvigorating questions around the constitutionality of such provisions.

If passed into law, House Bill 2319* would make it illegal "for a person to knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity, including the handling of an emotionally disturbed person, if the person does not have the permission of the law enforcement officer" and is within 8 feet of the cop. The original text stipulated that it would be a crime to do so within 15 feet, but Rep. John Kavanagh (R–D23), the bill's sponsor, altered the radius in an amendment meant to assuage constitutional objections.

Whether it actually accomplishes that is up for debate.

"Can you be arrested for standing still while wearing a GoPro under this statute?" asks T. Greg Doucette, an attorney who specializes in criminal defense and free speech law. "It seems the answer here is yes, which would violate the First Amendment (since standing still isn't interfering with an officer's duties)."

The right to film government officials in public has been at the center of a slew legal challenges over the last few decades. And several federal appeals courts—including the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 11th Circuits—have ruled that it is indeed an activity protected by the First Amendment.

It was also established in the 9th Circuit—where Arizona is located—almost 30 years ago, in a 1995 decision where the court ruled that a cop violated the Constitution when he physically sought to stop a man from videotaping a public protest in 1990.

Yet Kavanagh appears undeterred by that precedent. He's not the only state lawmaker who has prioritized this sort of legislation. Arizona joins Florida in this pursuit; the Sunshine State currently has a bill on the table that would criminalize "directly or indirectly harass[ing]" police by approaching within 30 feet without the officer's permission. The legislation's vague wording would make it effectively impossible to legally film law enforcement on the job.

...

I miss V Green. He knew that cameras protect good cops and only bad cops should fear them.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Anti-Crime Checkpoints in Jackson, Mississippi, Blatantly Violate the Fourth Amendment
 

"We're checking driver's license, proof of insurance," a Jackson, Mississippi, police officer tells Wayne Halcomb, a local resident who is waiting in a long line of cars at an anti-crime checkpoint. "Why?" Halcomb asks. "Have I committed a crime?" The officer, who has stopped Halcomb without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, is puzzled by his resistance but eventually lets him go after he repeatedly refuses to produce his license or proof of insurance. "Am I being detained?" Halcomb asks. "No," the officer responds, and Halcomb drives off.

"That's how you deal with checkpoints, people," Halcomb adds in his video of the encounter, which he posted on Facebook. The incident illustrates the intrusiveness of the blatantly unconstitutional traffic stops that the Jackson Police Department has been conducting in the state capital since last month in an effort to catch people with outstanding warrants. "People should be outraged at what happened," Halcomb told WLBT, the NBC station in Jackson. "I definitely recognize that I have white privilege, and I try to use my white privilege to shine a light on some of the issues going on."

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Good for him, but this might not be such a good idea if you appear to cops to need stopping and frisking for some reason.

 

[dacapo]

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[Pertinacious Tom]

NYC Mayor Adams is a cop who doesn't seem to like cameras, my least favorite kind.
 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday that bystanders filming the police too closely "is not acceptable, and won't be tolerated."

When he won the Democratic nomination last summer, Adams was seen as a moderate. A former New York Police Department (NYPD) captain turned state senator, Adams rejected calls to defund the police at a time when the idea had gained currency on his party's left flank. But Adams' term in office has not been a civil libertarian's dream. For example, despite criticizing the "stop and frisk" policies practiced under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Adams now plans to implement his own version.

On Wednesday, Adams appeared at the New York City Police Academy in Queens to announce his reintroduction of the NYPD's controversial anti-gun unit. In response to a reporter's question regarding citizens who want to "document what's going on," Adams responded forcefully:


"That is one thing that we are going to do: We are going to teach the public how to properly document…If an officer is trying to prevent a dispute from taking place and deescalate that dispute, they should [not] have someone standing over their shoulders with a camera in their face, yelling and screaming at them, without even realizing what the encounter is all about. There's a proper way to police, and there's a proper way to document…Stop being on top of my police officers while they're carrying out their jobs. That is not acceptable, and it won't be tolerated."



Adams also added, "If your iPhone can't catch that picture with you being at a safe distance, then you need to upgrade your iPhone."

...

If their job is to stop and frisk people who are the wrong color to make sure they aren't exercising a constitutional right, perhaps they should be documented?

Or just stopped from doing that racist job, but that would mean backing off a tiny bit on gun control so is extremely unlikely.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Camera-shy cops in Fresno
 

The city of Fresno, California, has been trying to prevent citizens from documenting sweeps of homeless encampments in town. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU NorCal) is suing to try to stop this violation of First Amendment rights.

The ACLU NorCal complaint takes aim at an amendment to a city ordinance approved on February 28 that allows city officials to construct barriers surrounding homeless encampments when the city comes in and removes the camps. Under this amended ordinance, no person is allowed to cross the barrier without authorization from the city official or the contractor on site. Crossing the barrier without permission can result in a misdemeanor charge or a $250 citation. The ordinance also includes a clause that shields city officials or contractors from personal liability for any damage they do during an abatement.

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Dez Martinez, one of the plaintiffs in the case and founder of homeless advocacy organization We Are Not Invisible, often goes to encampment sweeps and covers them, uploading the recordings online, while also providing assistance to the homeless people involved. In one sweep Martinez went to, city workers began placing homeless people's belongings in unmarked black bags, promising to either deliver the belongings or store the items for safekeeping. Martinez pleaded for the workers to label the bags, but they did not do so. The belongings were only labeled after Martinez obtained a pen from one of the workers and labeled them herself, according to the complaint. 

The lawsuit argues that public observers like Martinez can compel city officials to act with greater care. One homeless person quoted in the complaint said, "These people would walk all over us without Dez. When she is there, she gets out her camera and they behave." In addition to that, "people have the right under the First Amendment to film officers conducting official business in public," Chessie Thacher, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU NorCal, tells Reason. 

Public scrutiny and fear of liability is essential for government accountability, and this new ordinance provides Fresno's government with a tool to hide their misconduct and avoid liability of wrongdoing, says Thacher.

...

I suspect that acting without much (or any) care in removing these people is viewed as a feature, not a bug.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Sheriff Villanueva launches criminal investigation into leak of use-of-force video
 

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he is launching a criminal investigation to find out who leaked security video of an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed inmate for more than three minutes.

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“That is still an active case — it’s not supposed to see light of day until it’s concluded,” he told the station. “And the fact that The Times had not only the investigation, they had the videotape — that was stolen from the department, and by department members.”

“If the sheriff really did try to prosecute somebody for theft, under these circumstances, to me [it] would be: ‘Dude, you’re in L.A. County. Don’t you have more serious crimes to worry about than somebody leaking a video? And aren’t you really doing this because it’s embarrassing you?’” said Karl Olson, a lawyer who specializes in 1st Amendment and public records cases.

Olson said the individual who leaked the video would have a strong claim under laws designed to protect whistleblowers.

“The laws exist to encourage people to come forth and report illegal or fraudulent activity on the part of government,” Olson said.

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The sheriff denied an allegation made by Eli Vera, a former top-ranking department official who is seeking to unseat him, that he had been involved in the cover-up and had viewed the video at an aide’s desk within days of the incident.

Internal records show that at least one top executive above the level of division chief was aware of the incident early on. That could include Villanueva, Undersheriff Tim Murakami and three assistant sheriffs. Villanueva has refused to answer questions about who was made aware of the incident and what direction they gave.

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Doesn't like cameras or whistleblowers, do Villanueva qualifies as "bad cop" two different ways in my book.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Florida Cop Convicted on Felony after Bodycam Video Proved he Lied on Arrest Report

and that bodycam video may never have surfaced without cellphone video.

The police narrative fell apart after Green posted a cellphone video days after the arrest, exposing the lie. The story was picked up by the media including PINAC resulting in charges against the women being dismissed as well as the cop being placed on suspension.

Which helps explain why we're still seeing copyright abuse.

Camera-Shy Cops Hide Behind Disney Lawyers
 

On April 4, in Santa Ana, officers responded to a report of a stolen car around 11 p.m. In a video of the events uploaded to the YouTube channel "Santa Ana Audits," the man filming approaches several parked police SUVs surrounding a car which he later identifies as a Porsche. Suddenly, after a period of filming, the sound of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me," from the Toy Story soundtrack, starts playing through loudspeakers, seemingly from one of the police vehicles.

As the playlist cycles through several other songs from Disney movies, neighbors come out of their homes and approach the officers, complaining about the noise. One of those is Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, a Santa Ana city councilman. Hernandez asks one officer, who is holding a cell phone still playing Disney songs, "What's going on with the music?" The officer indicates that the filming was "not letting us conduct our investigation"; when pressed further on why he's playing music, he gestures to the camera and says, "Because it'll be copyright infringement for him."

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While playing songs from children's movies may be less adversarial than grabbing someone's phone from their hands, the motivation is the same: to prevent themselves from being lawfully recorded while interacting with citizens. It still constitutes an abuse of power, and a violation of the public's trust. But it is also an example of the power to weaponize laws that apply too broad of a brush to certain issues. Incidentally capturing background music in a video is not a copyright violation, and it should not be treated as such by an overzealous algorithm.

...

Why can't an officer investigate a stolen car while someone nearby films the (probably boring) work?

Cameras protect good cops, only bad cops should fear them. The cop was being a jerk and should have just done his job and ignored the citizen exercising his rights.

Still, I'm not sure how an algorithm can be "overzealous" nor how it could know whether music was incidentally captured or stolen and added deliberately.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

New Arizona Law Will Make it Illegal to Film Within Eight Feet of Police

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Interfering with police, or obstruction of justice, is one of the most frequently cited justifications for frivolous and retaliatory arrests.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona opposed the legislation, saying it "lacks specificity and gives officers too much discretion—making it the bill more apt to protect bad cops who want to hide misconduct than those who are doing their job properly with a bystander recording nearby."

The bill's sponsor, state Rep. John Kavanagh (R–Fountain Hills), wrote in a March op-ed that he introduced it "because there are groups hostile to the police that follow them around to videotape police incidents, and they get dangerously close to potentially violent encounters."

"I can think of no reason why any responsible person would need to come closer than 8 feet to a police officer engaged in a hostile or potentially hostile encounter," Kavanagh wrote. "Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary and unsafe, and should be made illegal.

T. Greg Doucette, a criminal defense attorney who also specializes in free speech law, told Reason in February that there are constitutional problems with the law.

"Can you be arrested for standing still while wearing a GoPro under this statute?" Doucette asked.
...

Or maybe just the new sunglasses I saw advertised yesterday. Apparently Ray Ban has figured out to mount a tiny camera in the glasses frame. This advertising worked. I haven't looked further, but my thought was that the GoPro that I can mount to one of my hats never actually gets used that way because it's heavy and awkward to wear something like that on a hat. But if I'm just wearing Ray Bans and have a hands-free camera? Sounds good to me, assuming they were smart enough to make it waterproof.

 

[BeSafe]

New Arizona Law Will Make it Illegal to Film Within Eight Feet of Police


Or maybe just the new sunglasses I saw advertised yesterday. Apparently Ray Ban has figured out to mount a tiny camera in the glasses frame. This advertising worked. I haven't looked further, but my thought was that the GoPro that I can mount to one of my hats never actually gets used that way because it's heavy and awkward to wear something like that on a hat. But if I'm just wearing Ray Bans and have a hands-free camera? Sounds good to me, assuming they were smart enough to make it waterproof.

I've always believed Google Glasses were just too early

Battery power is always gonna be a major issue but people have been intentionally wearing thicker frames as eye wear continues to evolve as fashion. There was a time when bulky headphones were a bad thing too. The camera is part of it but really the battery is what's ultimately going to be limiting. Camera + storage is easier than camera+wifi from a power perspective but both are possible.

Overall, it seems like it's more of an 'anti-paparazzi' law - which, if that's how its used, is probably fine. There's some dumb people out there and I've seen cases where someone is literally wrapping their arm round the cops head from the back to trying to get their face in the picture - to me, that's pretty clearly obstructing.

The downside with all these types of laws is that they're 'pile on' tools that are going to be selectively enforced. They are intentionally vague and therefor will be vaguely applied. Bad cops will use them vaguely to retaliate against citizens that piss them off and courts will 'vaguely apply them' when public outrage demands.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Another Court Affirms the First Amendment Right To Record Police

When YouTube journalist and blogger Abade Irizarry tried to film several police officers conducting a DUI traffic stop in May 2019, Officer Ahmed Yehia of Colorado's Lakewood Police Department blocked Irizarry's view of the incident, pointed a bright flashlight at his camera lens, and drove at Irizarry with his police cruiser.


Irizarry sued, arguing that Yehia violated his First Amendment rights. The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado ruled that Yehia had qualified immunity because he could not be expected to know that his precise actions would violate the law. The court wrote that Irizarry "failed to direct the court to a case which demonstrates that Officer Yehia was on notice that his conduct—standing in front of and shining a flashlight into Plaintiff's camera for an unknown period of time—violated Mr. Irizarry's First Amendment rights."


However, on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed the lower court and revoked Yehia's qualified immunity, writing that Irizarry's lawsuit "alleged a First Amendment retaliation claim under clearly established law." The ruling expands the number of federal court districts that now recognize filming the police as a protected First Amendment activity.

...

Yehia's most egregious actions occurred behind the wheel of a police cruiser—and were all but ignored by the lower federal court that had granted him qualified immunity. According to the 10th Circuit's ruling, after being told by other officers to stop harassing Irizarry and fellow journalist Eric Brandt, Yehia entered his cruiser, then "drove right at [Irizarry] and Mr. Brandt, and sped away." After taking one threatening pass at the men, Yehia pulled a u-turn and "gunned his cruiser directly at Mr. Brandt, swerved around him, stopped, then repeatedly began to blast his air horn at [the two men]." The U.S. District Court for Colorado granted qualified immunity without considering Yehia's most dangerous—and arguably most speech-chilling—actions.

The ruling makes the 10th Circuit the seventh court jurisdiction to find that individuals have a clearly established right to record police activity. However, the Supreme Court has declined to rule on the matter outright. For now, individuals' ability to record police—and to sue when that right is obstructed by officers—is contingent on the jurisdiction in which they reside.

So that's good news for 10th Circuit residents.

Other officers warned this Yehia yahoo to leave the people alone and he reacted with what sounds like attempted vehicular manslaughter to me. The guy not only shouldn't get qualified impunity, he should get a cell, probably a padded one.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

South Florida Cop Arrested for Choking Fellow Cop trying to keep him from Abusing Handcuffed Suspect

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The videos show the cops were having trouble trying to get him into the backseat of the car when Pullease pulled up.

However, the man who was already handcuffed agrees to get into the car just as Pullease walks up.

“Alright, I’m getting in,” he says as he places his legs inside the car.

But Pullease already has his pepper spray canister in his hand.

“Watch out, motherf*cker!” he says as he leans his body into the backseat of the car.

“Hey, look at me! Look at me! Look at me! You want to play f*cking games? You’re playing with the wrong motherf*cker!”

“Do what you got to do, man,” responds Similien. “You gonna mace me? Mace me.”

“Look at me, motherf*cker. You wanna play fucking games? You wanna be disrespectful with my fucking officers?

“I will remove your fucking soul from your fucking body!”

“Do what you gotta do,” responds Similien as the female cop runs up behind Pullease and pulls him back.

“What the f*ck? Don’t ever fucking touch me again! Get the fuck off me!” Pullease yells at the female cop while shoving her backwards with his hands on her throat.

A few moments later, he orders all the cops at the scene to turn their cameras off.

Giving that order should be one crime and complying with it should be another.