Amy, I guess you've seen the Youtube video of the guy that the police arrested for videotaping, and then they shot his poor dog. I had nightmares after seeing that video.

Cops are thugs. All of them.

Yesterday I saw a cop litter. I asked him for his badge number and he scoffed and walked away.

I need to get a dashcam.

What?! Lucy's gone? Bummer, sorry to hear that.

Clearly, why have the constitution or laws at all when the police just make $hit up as they go along?

Not saying who's right or wrong here - but nobody can tell from this video snippet whether or not the officer is justified in doing what he's doing.

Obviously, something has gone on before the video starts. We don't know what.

Once again, not saying who's right or wrong.

What it looks like to me - looks like, I can''t say for sure - is that the woman was filming in a place where she is not allowed to film (township board meeting, maybe?), and the officer stopped her from doing that, taking away her I-Pad in the process. The action then moves outside, to a public place, where filming continues. Note that the officer does not try to stop the filming that takes place in public - else how would we be seeing this video? The woman then becomes loud and argumentative, and he tells her to move on. Note that he repeatedly gives her the opportunity to recover her 'stuff', possibly including the I-Pad, but she's too busy making speeches.

Need a lot more context before any of the conclusions being made here can be justified.

First rule of police work - believe only half of what you see, and none of what you hear.

llater,

llamas

Similar thing happened here in New Haven, last year. Woman was using her iPhone to video an arrest, one of the cops had his foot on the guy's head. She was arrested because when the cop tried to take her phone she put it in her bra.

Here's a part of the rest of the story:

http://www.wfmj.com/story/22749319/pulaski-twp-resident-raises-ethics-questions-during-township-hearing-on-new-drilling-permits

It is reported that the lady was asked to leave the township meeting for causing a disturbance, which apparently involved filming. Her I-Pad was seized, but was apparently returned to her almost-immediately - this only happened Monday.

So she wasn't threatened with arrest for videotaping, as alleged. She was asked to leave for creating a disturbance, which she did. Maybe she was threatened with arrest if she refused to leave after creating a disturbance - which seems fair enough. Your 1A rights don't extend to the right to creat a disturbance.

The threat of arrest was after she continued to make a disturbance in public and would not pipe down or move along. Nothing to do with videotaping, and indeed, the officer knew when he made the threat to arrest her that he was being videotaped, and he did nothing to stop it.

In other words, the headlines screamed all over the story don't seem to have any connection to what actually happened.

Funny how that happens.

llater,

llamas

Ack! link-fail!

http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/crime/woman-busted-for-videotaping-police#.UdRLfm1ibj4

I've been thinking of you lately, Amy - you just keep cranking out the work without a break, but I know it must be awfully hard without Lucy.

My favorite part of the day is coming home to my sweet little old pug lady, and I think that when she is gone I won't even want to come home anymore. I'll probably get home from work and, I don't know, sleep in my car or something.

I do look forward to hearing about it when you adopt a new dog.

So she was creating a disturbance by filming a public meeting in a public place where public employees answers question put to them by the public? A public meeting of public officials which is recorded anyway by those public officals in order to produce transcripts to give to the public.

I can see how that is disturbing

Luj, I was thinking the same thing... where I live, the state's open-meetings law guarantees the right to film public meetings.