Police Department Detains Man Over Recording
Stemming from a rather disturbing episode The American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) has informed the Baltimore Police Department of its intention to sue because a man was wrongfully detained and had videos deleted from his camera. The man in question was a patron at the 2010 Preakness horse race, and police took his property after he was observed filming officers "roughing up" a female. He also questioned police tactics as the helpless female patron laying bleeding and apparently dazed on the ground.
Fortunately for those who care about the protection of civil liberties another patron’s video of the same incident involving the female patron of the same incident made it onto YouTube. That particular video features a member of the police department outright misstating the law of Maryland when he says it is "illegal to record anybody's voice or anything else in the state of Maryland."
The ACLU says "Police officers doing their jobs in a public place are accountable to the public they serve, and camera phones have become an important accountability tool, It is antithetical to a democracy for the government to tell its citizens that they do not have the right to record what government officials say or do or how they behave in public."
Curiously, before the video surfaced, police said no one had been arrested at the event. The apparent forgetfulness of the police department makes all that more important the protection of citizens right to record police behavior.
