PD Editorial: Make it clear: Taking video of cops is legal

Late Saturday, Baltimore police arrested a credentialed journalist who was doing something they apparently didn’t like - his job. He was taking pictures and video as they chased a man for throwing bottles as they were trying to enforce a curfew.

The arresting officer accused the reporter, Ford Fischer of News2Share, of “interfering” with police business. When informed by a member of the National Guard that the man was “credentialed media,” the officer reportedly said, “I don’t care,” and grabbed Ford and pushed him to the ground with his face to the pavement.

Police originally were going to charge him with violating the curfew, but given that credentialed journalists are exempt, they charged him with disorderly conduct.

We wish we could say this was the exception, but it’s not.

A photographer for Reuters was arrested and another for the Baltimore City Paper was tossed to the ground by Baltimore police during a tense standoff with protesters just days earlier. Meanwhile, four journalists arrested during last summer’s protests in Ferguson, Mo. have filed lawsuits against the St. Louis County’s police department for civil rights violations and unlawful detention. They were attempting to interview people and take photos just before they were arrested.

It’s cases like this that underscore the need for legislation recently approved in the state Senate that would make clear that anyone who takes a photo or a video recording of a police officer engaged in police business in a public place is not breaking the law. It’s ludicrous that we need laws that point out that such activity is not only inherently non-obstructive but is constitutionally protected. But such is the environment of our times.

Senate Bill 411, authored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would clarify that any person who takes a photograph or makes a recording of a police officer, while the officer is in a public place, is not engaging in a punishable offense.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed the measure on a vote of 31-3 last week. The bill is now in the Assembly awaiting assignment to a committee.

Among the groups supporting the bill are the ACLU, the Conference of California Bar Associations and California Public Defenders and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

Even without bills like this, it should be apparent to law enforcement that police are not going to be able to arrest their way out of this trend of having their interactions with the public caught on film.

Cameras are here to stay. The use and need of such film was apparent in the recent case of a white South Carolina police officer who was captured on video fatally shooting a fleeing, unarmed black man in the back.

But studies have also shown that video of police arrests of accusations of abuse more often than not exonerates the officers involved. Which is why many jurisdictions such as the Santa Rosa Police Department and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office have or are moving toward having cameras on officers.

Either way, reports of private citizens and members of the press being arrested or intimidated for taking video of police activity need to end. The state Assembly should approve SB 411 and send it to the governor for his signature.