Auditors are seen as annoying antagonists, just like the people who open carry in places that cause the police to get panic calls. But without them the police get too comfortable breaking the laws with no accountability.
I don't have the time, money, or balls to be an auditor, but the ones who know the laws and do it without bothering the general public are good in my book.
You should know what a Terry stop is. You should know you have the right to remain silent, know what the true meaning of "I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one"
Nobody going about their day should have to take a bullshit case to the supreme court (or even district court). These folks help change policy intentionally instead of someone just living their life having their day / week / career / life ruined.
I used to think of auditors as annoying antagonists (in my real life people never ever carry lethal weapons and police are reasonable people) until I started watching their Youtube videos.
There was one where a somewhat post-middle-aged guy is walking on the side of a busy road or highway. He's legally blind and he has a folded cane in hand, which the cops stop him for and threaten to arrest him.
Then there are the more innocuous ones, where a person is on public property just video recording public buildings from the public sidewalk, and cops come to threaten him with arrest.
I remember one where a guy is video recording in a public library and they call the cops, who come and explain that a public library is public.
And it is a him. Always a him.
In all of these the police, who are visibly and egregiously breaking laws themselves, never apologize and even when a superior tells them to screw off and leave the law-abiding private citizen alone.
Open carrying is a right. Not getting "panic calls" is not.
Furthermore, anyone who freaks out and calls 911 because someone is walking around not breaking the law is the problem, not the person exercising their rights.
Too many people treat the police as social tech support, not as law enforcement.
Sure it's a right. But you won't see me walking down our main street with my AK47 on my back because we know the outcome, and that's my point. No one is arguing what the rights are, my context is they are pushing the boundaries to assert their rights and change how the police interact with people.
The fact that the line is associated with Jay-Z (it's an Ice-T lyric he stole) AND people think it's actually about a dog is one of the most impressive PR accomplishments in music. Bravo, Jay-Z's PR team in the #metoo era.
Don't care for his music, the person, but my point still stands that you can't be held up for a drug dog at a traffic stop is a real thing you should know and according to Jay Z himself it's exactly what it's referencing.
Whether he stole the hook or not doesn't really matter in this context, and has nothing to do with #metoo, I don't even know where that fits in as well.
What a weird hill to try and die on, especially being 100% wrong about it.
His first verse is about ignorant rap critics, exploitative advertisers, and fickle radio stations, and uses the 99 problems lyric to reference them.
His second verse details a police stop where he was transporting drugs, and the 99 problems lyric is to reference the K-9 that is due to arrive.
His third verse he talks about a physical altercation he had with another man who was performatively aggressive, without anything to back it up. In that verse, he makes another point about how he is using a term often used for women, but he is not using that way "A nigga like myself had to strong-arm a ho/ This is not a ho in the sense of having a pussy/ But a pussy having no goddamn sense try and push me". At the end, the 99 problems lyric is used to reference this senseless man.
No where in the song does he talk about ex-girlfriends, strippers, club hookups or literally anything about women. The song is completely structured around clearly and consistently setting it up and paying it off as wordplay against things that aren’t women.
The Wikipedia cited reference for the lyric being about a police dog (but only when sung after the 2nd verse) is from 2011, so I think you have your #MeToo timetable wrong.
Considering that Jay-Z himself tells us what those lyrics mean to him in his 2011 book, how would you consider that a "PR accomplishment"? The person who wrote the song ("stolen" line or otherwise) is the best source for what the artist intended, no?
I once had to go to my local station to get a copy of a police report that resulted from harassment by a neighbor. I was legally open-carrying my sidearm and had a camera on my hat recording the interaction.
While I was waiting for the report to be printed, two uniformed officers emerged from the back room and started interrogating me; they obviously were trying to intimidate me and get me to say something that would allow them to arrest me. It was incredibly unnerving and put me off from ever wanting to set foot there again. I felt lucky to not have been arrested and charged for no legitimate reason.
As far as I am concerned, the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted.
I am trying to think of a good reason to open-carry into a police station apart from "making a point".
You won't be the "good guy with a gun" in an active shooting. You won't be robbed. You won't be attacked.
If you draw your gun at a police station for any reason you will be arrested or killed.
Like, technically in my state I have the right to open-carry a rifle past a school while wearing a ski-mask as long as I'm off-property. Completely legal.
If I did that while picking my child up from school to "assert my rights" surely you'd think I was being insane, confrontational and threatening because I could have no legitimate interest in doing so.
It seems very odd to not just leave your gun in the car. Perhaps you're a principled pedestrian or cyclist? That I could see.
The United States is a very large place. I currently live somewhere relatively civilized. Here, I have a permit for concealed carry but I never actually carry.
In a past life, I lived somewhere much less civilized. There, I carried (either open or concealed) as a matter of course in my daily life. While I was always cognizant of where I was allowed to carry and where not, I never removed my gun unless legally required to do so. This is both a simple matter of convenience and a practical matter of security, as a gun on my person is inherently more secure than a gun stored in my vehicle, even though it was doubly locked while in the vehicle.
> It seems very odd to not just leave your gun in the car.
Never leave an unattended weapon in a car. Especially outside a police station. Either leave it at home, or keep it on your person. There are some products out there for securing weapons in vehicles that could work but if you don't have one don't leave your gun in your car.
Sorry are you saying rights don’t matter if it makes coppers uncomfortable? Sounds like approval of gang/crook intimidation behaviors from public servants
This[1] young girl would disagree with you, as would this[2] man.
Also committed while in police custody, not necessarily in stations, bur certainly where you could also reasonably try and claim "you won't be attacked": [3], [4]
It's incredibly ignorant to make out like someone visiting a police station will magically be fine, because the police are the "good guy with a gun" in your scenario.
As for going into the station, it doesn't matter whether GP is "principled" or not, (a) they're allowed to carry, and (b) a car is not a holster.
If GP had been concealed-carrying you wouldn't have had any argument, you're trying to criticize open-carry as if there are only certain situations where it's acceptable.
If GP is legal to open-carry, they can do so wherever they like, providing particular legislation or bylaws don't prevent it.
Not sure why you're deepthroating the boot, but happening to be (legally) armed while making a regular request, is not a reason to be treated suspiciously by police.
1) I always carry. Everywhere. I live in a very rural area. Police response time is 15 minutes or more. But so what? They have zero obligation to protect you, even if they could show up in 30 seconds. I will never willingly abdicate my right to self-defense to anyone.
2) I do not have a place to secure my gun in my car, so that was not an option. Leaving guns in your car is not a good idea, so I usually avoid going into places that require me to disarm.
3) The camera was a result of the harassment by my neighbor. I did not mention that one of them is a cop. They filed a false report against me and then tried to have me arrested under those false pretenses. I started recording everything that I did, to provide an affirmative defense against accusations in situations without objective witnesses. Basically, everywhere and always.
4) I went there as a routine errand, going about my daily business. I never expected a confrontation to ensue. I never expected to be treated like a criminal from the start of the conversation. I was friendly and open in my interaction and sure as hell was not trying to provoke this kind of encounter.
5) I don’t have video because the first thing that they did was intimidate me into stopping the recording. They insinuated that my recording there was illegal and that was why they they approached me. My gun then became another lever for them to attack me.
6) I believe that the main thing that saved me was thinking quickly, knowing my rights, and articulating that understanding and resulting position in a way that made it clear that I was not going to be an easy mark. I use big words and seem intelligent, which I think intimidated them a little bit. That, and I luckily happened to have a friend with me who watched it all go down, and that could have been inconvenient when they went to tell lies on an arrest report.
Where was this? Even the more 2A literalist states often maintain that government buildings are/can be gun free areas for both open and concealed carry.
My thoughts are there are hardly any good police officers.
I think if any officer saw another doing anything illegal or would get them in trouble, 99% of the time they wouldn’t report them. The Blue Wall is real.
Why did you go in with your sidearm and camera? Legal or not, it seems unnecessarily provocative, and that you went in with a camera because you knew it would cause a reaction.
Why is it provocative? The police also have firearms and cameras, does that make them "unnecessarily provocative" when they're walking the beat?
Would you be as critical if GP's firearm was concealed, or if the camera used was one in their phone, and not on their hat?
Sounds like you're making a lot of baseless and judgemental assumptions about voakbasda -- not everyone is a deliberately antagonistic self-professed "auditor," you know.
> open-carrying my sidearm [into a police station]
> camera on my hat recording the interaction.
> they obviously were trying to intimidate me
Someone involved in a harassment dispute with a civilian shows up at a police station in full Agent Provocateur kit, then complains about harassment by the police when [lawfully] questioned.
You sure seem to invite harassment. You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale. Yet you want people to internalize that "the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted."
Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Your story stinks. I call shenanigans. You're either a foreign agent or a professional victim.
I'll steel man against this argument. Even if OP was trying to be provocative, the police should be able to resist the temptation to intimidate them. Police have the power to arrest people (or worse) with impunity. They should be able to withstand someone using their constitutional rights in their presence without retaliating against them.
> You sure seem to invite harassment.
Serious question: What does this statement mean? Do you believe there to be conduct that is non-criminal and still validates police intimidation? What would that be? It's not like OP walked into the police station and hinted that he was a murderer.
> You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale.
Do you believe that as long as someone isn't illegally detained or assaulted for behaving in a "provocative" yet totally legal way, they have no basis for complaint?
> Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Is there literally anything on that video that could convince you the police mishandled OP's situation? The police know how to intimidate people -- doing so is literally their job when it comes to getting people to comply with orders or to answer questions in interrogation. The notion that the police officers in this situation acted to intimidate OP is not at all farfetched.
The fact that OP wasn't illegally arrested or worse makes the situation described that much more plausible. The cops know how far they can push things without risking accountability for their misconduct.
The only reason I can think of other than "Standing on your rights" is that you normally carry, and don't want to leave your gun somewhere it can be stolen.
Kinda feels like more people should be doing this, but interacting at all with cops in America carries a nonzero chance of being abruptly murdered for no reason, so it's scary.
This doesn't meaningfully diminish the problem here: the police in the US are heavily armed, and are trained to manufacture pretext for violence (cf. any number of videos where police shout "stop resisting" or "hands up" repeatedly to people who are already complying).
Ordinary people, even ones who might hurt you, are aware that doing so comes with the threat of the law. The police are the law, and as such are emboldened towards violence when antagonized in ways that the ordinary public is not.
"undermines the privacy of people who interact with the criminal justice system and compromises the integrity of ongoing investigations."
Crazy how dishonest this response from the police is. Public buildings have restricted zones that the public cannot enter, they are clearly defined by the law, such as a public lobby vs someone's office.
Some of these "Auditors" are just trying to stir shit up with cops for views, but plenty have done real work asserting our basic rights when interacting with cops
And the best way to disempower auditors is not to react to them. When the police learn not to react to lawful activities, the "auditing" movement will be dead. The "plenty" will be happy with this situation, because that is what they want.
I am certainly no auditor, but last week I felt uncomfortable with how a stop-and-search of a person of colour was being conducted in England last week, so I filmed it from a reasonable distance. There was no provocation from me, and the police didn't react - which is the right thing, and makes a boring video (which I had no intention of uploading anyway).
Despite this, when one of persons friends got close (~15 feet away) to talk to him (which is entirely lawful with a stop-and search), one of the police pushed (with force) him away. I interjected and told the constable he "could use words, rather than force", and his response was "I could have pushed harder if I wanted". If the constable was willing to have this type of interaction on camera, imagine what it could have been like if it wasn't filmed.
Why aren't you planning to upload it (or send it to some oversight board, if your community has one)? That shitty interaction you describe at the end should be publicized, or at least reported in some way, no?
Not really the same thing as walking into the police station with the only reason you're doing so is to film the police as they work, or even heckle them with the camera rolling to see if you can rile them up enough to point your finger and say "ha! see? got you!".
Unfortunately, the police have seized on this stereotype to try to discredit all auditors, most of whom are not looking to provoke police or anyone else, but are merely trying to assert their First Amendment rights.
In the NYPD raw footage, you can see an officer tell Mr. Reyes, post-arrest, "You wanted this." And Reyes responds, "I wanted my freedom to be taken away from me?" It's preposterous on its face. And if merely asserting a constitutionally protected right is synonymous with baiting or provoking law enforcement, what crazy world do we live in?
In other videos on his channel, it has become routine for police officers to pull public employees aside and say, "Look, he's just doing it for the views or to start a lawsuit." Essentially, they imply that he's trying to exploit some loophole of the law for personal gain.
In reality, though, like any other journalist, he's entitled to a source of income from the content he produces, and that doesn't mean he's doing anything dirty or sensational. And he's certainly not exploiting a loophole of the law. The right to do what he's doing is enshrined in the Constitution.
There's an interesting youtube channel called audit the audit that calls out the bad actors and praises the cops who do their jobs correctly. I'm glad folks are willing to do the work of civil rights auditing. I suspect most are just hoping it'll result in youtube views or a nice lawsuit with a large payout, but I don't mind. I value my life/time/comfort too much to do that kind of work for youtube ad money.
>audit the audit that calls out the bad actors and praises the cops who do their jobs correctly
This conflates constitutional rights violations by police with merely being an annoying "bad actor" civilian, which is intellectually dishonest and completely reprehensible.
"Stirring shit up" doesn't mean doing anything illegal. If they also get views WHILE calling out the bad stuff, why is that bad? They aren't violating the law. They aren't forcing anyone to do anything. I really don't see why not breaking the law is suddenly frowned upon.
I explicitly mean that some of these people know they get better ad revenue by being rage bait and getting the cops to do something to them, and are willing to cross lines that are fuzzy. That kind of stuff provides fodder for those trying to paint the entire movement as bad faith.
In this case it protects it. An auditor relying on a day job is at great financial risk by auditing. One that lives on ad revenue is free to keep auditing.
Plus, if police keep their emotions in check the auditor will likely have to look for a day job and have no more time to bother them!
If people can't exercise their first amendment rights in or around police officers/offices, maybe police shouldn't be allowed their 2nd amendment rights, and only allowed non-lethal firearms. Many other countries do well with that limitation.
While I of course agree that you should be able to exercise your first amendment (and other constitutional rights) around police officers, and I would also like to see fewer officers carrying deadly weapons, I don't see why they should be related?
If you exercise your legal rights and the police beat you with a baton, or cuff you and kneel on your neck for several minutes, or just detain you for the maximum number of hours without charging you, that's still a meaningful problem.
Readit News
I don't have the time, money, or balls to be an auditor, but the ones who know the laws and do it without bothering the general public are good in my book.
You should know what a Terry stop is. You should know you have the right to remain silent, know what the true meaning of "I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one"
For those unaware, a verse from Jay Z's "99 Problems":
The year's '94 and my trunk is raw
In my rearview mirror is the motherfucking law
I got two choices y'all, pull over the car or
Bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor
Now I ain't trying to see no highway chase with Jake
Plus I got a few dollars I can fight the case
So I, pull over to the side of the road
I heard, "Son, do you know why I'm stopping you for?"
"Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low"
Do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don't know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?
"Well you was doing fifty-five in a fifty-four" (uh huh)
"License and registration and step out of the car"
"Are you carrying a weapon on you, I know a lot of you are"
I ain't stepping out of shit, all my papers legit
"Well do you mind if I look around the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back
And I know my rights so you goin' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack? You some type of lawyer or something?"
"Somebody important or something?"
Well, I ain't passed the bar, but I know a little bit Enough that you won't illegally search my shit
"Well we'll see how smart you are when the K-9 come"
I got ninety nine problems but a bitch ain't one, hit me
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol56/iss2/7/
Nobody going about their day should have to take a bullshit case to the supreme court (or even district court). These folks help change policy intentionally instead of someone just living their life having their day / week / career / life ruined.
There was one where a somewhat post-middle-aged guy is walking on the side of a busy road or highway. He's legally blind and he has a folded cane in hand, which the cops stop him for and threaten to arrest him.
Then there are the more innocuous ones, where a person is on public property just video recording public buildings from the public sidewalk, and cops come to threaten him with arrest.
I remember one where a guy is video recording in a public library and they call the cops, who come and explain that a public library is public.
And it is a him. Always a him.
In all of these the police, who are visibly and egregiously breaking laws themselves, never apologize and even when a superior tells them to screw off and leave the law-abiding private citizen alone.
Furthermore, anyone who freaks out and calls 911 because someone is walking around not breaking the law is the problem, not the person exercising their rights.
Too many people treat the police as social tech support, not as law enforcement.
Dead Comment
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-officer-released-p...
Don't care for his music, the person, but my point still stands that you can't be held up for a drug dog at a traffic stop is a real thing you should know and according to Jay Z himself it's exactly what it's referencing.
Whether he stole the hook or not doesn't really matter in this context, and has nothing to do with #metoo, I don't even know where that fits in as well.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/239513-court-ru...
What a weird hill to try and die on, especially being 100% wrong about it.
His first verse is about ignorant rap critics, exploitative advertisers, and fickle radio stations, and uses the 99 problems lyric to reference them.
His second verse details a police stop where he was transporting drugs, and the 99 problems lyric is to reference the K-9 that is due to arrive.
His third verse he talks about a physical altercation he had with another man who was performatively aggressive, without anything to back it up. In that verse, he makes another point about how he is using a term often used for women, but he is not using that way "A nigga like myself had to strong-arm a ho/ This is not a ho in the sense of having a pussy/ But a pussy having no goddamn sense try and push me". At the end, the 99 problems lyric is used to reference this senseless man.
No where in the song does he talk about ex-girlfriends, strippers, club hookups or literally anything about women. The song is completely structured around clearly and consistently setting it up and paying it off as wordplay against things that aren’t women.
Considering that Jay-Z himself tells us what those lyrics mean to him in his 2011 book, how would you consider that a "PR accomplishment"? The person who wrote the song ("stolen" line or otherwise) is the best source for what the artist intended, no?
While I was waiting for the report to be printed, two uniformed officers emerged from the back room and started interrogating me; they obviously were trying to intimidate me and get me to say something that would allow them to arrest me. It was incredibly unnerving and put me off from ever wanting to set foot there again. I felt lucky to not have been arrested and charged for no legitimate reason.
As far as I am concerned, the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted.
You won't be the "good guy with a gun" in an active shooting. You won't be robbed. You won't be attacked.
If you draw your gun at a police station for any reason you will be arrested or killed.
Like, technically in my state I have the right to open-carry a rifle past a school while wearing a ski-mask as long as I'm off-property. Completely legal.
If I did that while picking my child up from school to "assert my rights" surely you'd think I was being insane, confrontational and threatening because I could have no legitimate interest in doing so.
It seems very odd to not just leave your gun in the car. Perhaps you're a principled pedestrian or cyclist? That I could see.
In a past life, I lived somewhere much less civilized. There, I carried (either open or concealed) as a matter of course in my daily life. While I was always cognizant of where I was allowed to carry and where not, I never removed my gun unless legally required to do so. This is both a simple matter of convenience and a practical matter of security, as a gun on my person is inherently more secure than a gun stored in my vehicle, even though it was doubly locked while in the vehicle.
Never leave an unattended weapon in a car. Especially outside a police station. Either leave it at home, or keep it on your person. There are some products out there for securing weapons in vehicles that could work but if you don't have one don't leave your gun in your car.
It is legal to do so?
This[1] young girl would disagree with you, as would this[2] man.
Also committed while in police custody, not necessarily in stations, bur certainly where you could also reasonably try and claim "you won't be attacked": [3], [4]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/01/police-custody... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64435109 [4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230860978_Reported_...
It's incredibly ignorant to make out like someone visiting a police station will magically be fine, because the police are the "good guy with a gun" in your scenario.
As for going into the station, it doesn't matter whether GP is "principled" or not, (a) they're allowed to carry, and (b) a car is not a holster.
If GP had been concealed-carrying you wouldn't have had any argument, you're trying to criticize open-carry as if there are only certain situations where it's acceptable.
If GP is legal to open-carry, they can do so wherever they like, providing particular legislation or bylaws don't prevent it.
Not sure why you're deepthroating the boot, but happening to be (legally) armed while making a regular request, is not a reason to be treated suspiciously by police.
1) I always carry. Everywhere. I live in a very rural area. Police response time is 15 minutes or more. But so what? They have zero obligation to protect you, even if they could show up in 30 seconds. I will never willingly abdicate my right to self-defense to anyone.
2) I do not have a place to secure my gun in my car, so that was not an option. Leaving guns in your car is not a good idea, so I usually avoid going into places that require me to disarm.
3) The camera was a result of the harassment by my neighbor. I did not mention that one of them is a cop. They filed a false report against me and then tried to have me arrested under those false pretenses. I started recording everything that I did, to provide an affirmative defense against accusations in situations without objective witnesses. Basically, everywhere and always.
4) I went there as a routine errand, going about my daily business. I never expected a confrontation to ensue. I never expected to be treated like a criminal from the start of the conversation. I was friendly and open in my interaction and sure as hell was not trying to provoke this kind of encounter.
5) I don’t have video because the first thing that they did was intimidate me into stopping the recording. They insinuated that my recording there was illegal and that was why they they approached me. My gun then became another lever for them to attack me.
6) I believe that the main thing that saved me was thinking quickly, knowing my rights, and articulating that understanding and resulting position in a way that made it clear that I was not going to be an easy mark. I use big words and seem intelligent, which I think intimidated them a little bit. That, and I luckily happened to have a friend with me who watched it all go down, and that could have been inconvenient when they went to tell lies on an arrest report.
I'm willing trust an officer as a person, but not as a part of the system.
I think if any officer saw another doing anything illegal or would get them in trouble, 99% of the time they wouldn’t report them. The Blue Wall is real.
Would you be as critical if GP's firearm was concealed, or if the camera used was one in their phone, and not on their hat?
Sounds like you're making a lot of baseless and judgemental assumptions about voakbasda -- not everyone is a deliberately antagonistic self-professed "auditor," you know.
> open-carrying my sidearm [into a police station]
> camera on my hat recording the interaction.
> they obviously were trying to intimidate me
Someone involved in a harassment dispute with a civilian shows up at a police station in full Agent Provocateur kit, then complains about harassment by the police when [lawfully] questioned.
You sure seem to invite harassment. You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale. Yet you want people to internalize that "the police are a gang of thugs and crooks. They cannot be trusted."
Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Your story stinks. I call shenanigans. You're either a foreign agent or a professional victim.
> You sure seem to invite harassment.
Serious question: What does this statement mean? Do you believe there to be conduct that is non-criminal and still validates police intimidation? What would that be? It's not like OP walked into the police station and hinted that he was a murderer.
> You weren't even detained or roughed up. You lived to tell the tale.
Do you believe that as long as someone isn't illegally detained or assaulted for behaving in a "provocative" yet totally legal way, they have no basis for complaint?
> Where's the crime? Where's the deception? Where's the video?
Is there literally anything on that video that could convince you the police mishandled OP's situation? The police know how to intimidate people -- doing so is literally their job when it comes to getting people to comply with orders or to answer questions in interrogation. The notion that the police officers in this situation acted to intimidate OP is not at all farfetched.
The fact that OP wasn't illegally arrested or worse makes the situation described that much more plausible. The cops know how far they can push things without risking accountability for their misconduct.
Like, you're clearly not a felon, and in many cases the feds already have a full set of your fingerprints.
Ordinary people, even ones who might hurt you, are aware that doing so comes with the threat of the law. The police are the law, and as such are emboldened towards violence when antagonized in ways that the ordinary public is not.
Crazy how dishonest this response from the police is. Public buildings have restricted zones that the public cannot enter, they are clearly defined by the law, such as a public lobby vs someone's office.
I am certainly no auditor, but last week I felt uncomfortable with how a stop-and-search of a person of colour was being conducted in England last week, so I filmed it from a reasonable distance. There was no provocation from me, and the police didn't react - which is the right thing, and makes a boring video (which I had no intention of uploading anyway).
Despite this, when one of persons friends got close (~15 feet away) to talk to him (which is entirely lawful with a stop-and search), one of the police pushed (with force) him away. I interjected and told the constable he "could use words, rather than force", and his response was "I could have pushed harder if I wanted". If the constable was willing to have this type of interaction on camera, imagine what it could have been like if it wasn't filmed.
This is what most of the auditors are working towards.
In the NYPD raw footage, you can see an officer tell Mr. Reyes, post-arrest, "You wanted this." And Reyes responds, "I wanted my freedom to be taken away from me?" It's preposterous on its face. And if merely asserting a constitutionally protected right is synonymous with baiting or provoking law enforcement, what crazy world do we live in?
In other videos on his channel, it has become routine for police officers to pull public employees aside and say, "Look, he's just doing it for the views or to start a lawsuit." Essentially, they imply that he's trying to exploit some loophole of the law for personal gain.
In reality, though, like any other journalist, he's entitled to a source of income from the content he produces, and that doesn't mean he's doing anything dirty or sensational. And he's certainly not exploiting a loophole of the law. The right to do what he's doing is enshrined in the Constitution.
This conflates constitutional rights violations by police with merely being an annoying "bad actor" civilian, which is intellectually dishonest and completely reprehensible.
"Stirring shit up" doesn't mean doing anything illegal. If they also get views WHILE calling out the bad stuff, why is that bad? They aren't violating the law. They aren't forcing anyone to do anything. I really don't see why not breaking the law is suddenly frowned upon.
"You reap what you sow" even predates the current issues with police.
Plus, if police keep their emotions in check the auditor will likely have to look for a day job and have no more time to bother them!
If you exercise your legal rights and the police beat you with a baton, or cuff you and kneel on your neck for several minutes, or just detain you for the maximum number of hours without charging you, that's still a meaningful problem.
Dead Comment