Protesters at 2004 RNC Probably Shouldn’t Have Been Arrested
By Joe Coscarelli
New York Magazine
Sept. 30, 2012
A federal court decided today that out of the thousands of arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, a good number of them were made without probable cause. Guilt by association, Judge Richard Sullivan ruled, doesn't cut it, and the mass-fingerprinting of arrested demonstrators wasn't legal either. "With this ruling, the time has come for the city to put this controversy behind it, to settle the rest of the Convention cases, and to make sure that mass arrests never happen again here," said a lawyer for the NYCLU. Thank you, swift justice.
Showing posts with label false arrest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label false arrest. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Crowe case plaintiff Houser settles lawsuit
Crowe case plaintiff Houser settles lawsuit
J. Harry Jones
SDUT
Oct. 12, 2011
DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — Aaron Houser, one of three teenagers wrongfully accused of murdering Stephanie Crowe in 1998, has settled a lawsuit for an undisclosed amount of money against four Escondido police officers, one Oceanside police officer and a psychologist.
Michael Crowe, the only remaining plaintiff, has not settled, and a trial in federal court is tentatively to begin Oct. 31, although a request to continue the proceeding into November has been made.
Joshua Treadway, the third teen who was arrested, opted out of the lawsuit years ago.
The notice of settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego on Tuesday.
How much money Houser will receive as a result of the settlement is confidential, lawyers for Houser, the officers, and the city of Escondido say. The San Diego Union-Tribune plans to challenge that assertion with the argument that settlements regarding public employees, represented by attorneys working for city-authorized insurance companies, should be a matter of public record.
Twelve-year old Stephanie Crowe was found stabbed to death in her Escondido home on Jan. 21, 1998. Her older brother Michael, 14 at the time, and his friends, Houser and Treadway, were arrested soon afterward. Following hours of interrogations by Escondido police and an Oceanside police officer called in to help, authorities said that Crowe and Treadway confessed. The courts later said the confessions were coerced.
About a year after the killing, on the eve of the boys’ trial, all charges against them were dropped. DNA testing showed that Stephanie’s blood was on the sweatshirt of a transient who had been in her neighborhood the night of the slaying, acting oddly and banging on doors.
That man, Richard Tuite, was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
A lawsuit brought by all three boys claiming violation of rights against self-incrimination, false arrest and prosecution was brought soon after, but U.S. District Judge John Rhoades threw out the bulk of the case in 2004 and 2005. Rhoades ruled that while the interrogations were harsh, they could not be considered coerced because they were never used against the youths at a criminal trial.
In 2010, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S., Circuit Court of Appeals revived key portions of the lawsuit, setting the stage for the settlement and trial to come.
The Crowe case has had far reaching implications. District Attorney Paul Pfingst was defeated in 2002 while seeking a third term in office. His challenger, Bonnie Dumanis, aired television ads leading up to the election that featured a picture of Stephanie Crowe as an example of why a new county district attorney was needed.
The case was even made into a 2002 TV move called “The Interrogation of Michael Crowe,” which continues to be shown all these years later.
J. Harry Jones
SDUT
Oct. 12, 2011
DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — Aaron Houser, one of three teenagers wrongfully accused of murdering Stephanie Crowe in 1998, has settled a lawsuit for an undisclosed amount of money against four Escondido police officers, one Oceanside police officer and a psychologist.
Michael Crowe, the only remaining plaintiff, has not settled, and a trial in federal court is tentatively to begin Oct. 31, although a request to continue the proceeding into November has been made.
Joshua Treadway, the third teen who was arrested, opted out of the lawsuit years ago.
The notice of settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego on Tuesday.
How much money Houser will receive as a result of the settlement is confidential, lawyers for Houser, the officers, and the city of Escondido say. The San Diego Union-Tribune plans to challenge that assertion with the argument that settlements regarding public employees, represented by attorneys working for city-authorized insurance companies, should be a matter of public record.
Twelve-year old Stephanie Crowe was found stabbed to death in her Escondido home on Jan. 21, 1998. Her older brother Michael, 14 at the time, and his friends, Houser and Treadway, were arrested soon afterward. Following hours of interrogations by Escondido police and an Oceanside police officer called in to help, authorities said that Crowe and Treadway confessed. The courts later said the confessions were coerced.
About a year after the killing, on the eve of the boys’ trial, all charges against them were dropped. DNA testing showed that Stephanie’s blood was on the sweatshirt of a transient who had been in her neighborhood the night of the slaying, acting oddly and banging on doors.
That man, Richard Tuite, was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
A lawsuit brought by all three boys claiming violation of rights against self-incrimination, false arrest and prosecution was brought soon after, but U.S. District Judge John Rhoades threw out the bulk of the case in 2004 and 2005. Rhoades ruled that while the interrogations were harsh, they could not be considered coerced because they were never used against the youths at a criminal trial.
In 2010, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S., Circuit Court of Appeals revived key portions of the lawsuit, setting the stage for the settlement and trial to come.
The Crowe case has had far reaching implications. District Attorney Paul Pfingst was defeated in 2002 while seeking a third term in office. His challenger, Bonnie Dumanis, aired television ads leading up to the election that featured a picture of Stephanie Crowe as an example of why a new county district attorney was needed.
The case was even made into a 2002 TV move called “The Interrogation of Michael Crowe,” which continues to be shown all these years later.
Friday, July 01, 2011
Strauss-Kahn Is Released as Problems revealed in prosecutor's office
Strauss-Kahn Case Adds to Doubts on Prosecutor
By ALAN FEUER, JOHN ELIGON and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
July 2, 2011
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, seemed preoccupied when he sat down with two reporters last Monday. He already knew what the world wouldhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif soon learn: his marquee prosecution, the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was falling apart. Privately, his aides had told him they had discovered grave problems with the accuser’s credibility.
As the interview began, but before Mr. Vance was asked a question, he offered an unsolicited defense — not just of the Strauss-Kahn case, but of his overall stewardship. “Ultimately,” he said, “the success of a D.A.’s office, and of a D.A., is measured not in individual cases, but over time.”
“The cases you don’t read about,” he added, “define what the job of a D.A. really is.”
But that job has grown increasingly tumultuous. Since Mr. Vance took over 18 months ago, morale in some parts of the office has begun to sag, in part because of his firing of some prosecutors. Relations with one of the office’s key partners, the Police Department, have grown tense at times, with the agencies competing over many issues, including control of anticrime initiatives, officials on both sides say.
Mr. Vance’s predecessor, Robert M. Morgenthau, who became the pre-eminent district attorney in the country while holding the post for 35 years, was once a close ally of Mr. Vance’s, providing crucial support for his election in 2009. Mr. Vance worked for Mr. Morgenthau in the 1980s.
Now, Mr. Morgenthau, 91, rarely speaks to Mr. Vance.
Mr. Morgenthau has apparently become displeased with Mr. Vance’s management style and his revamping of the staff that Mr. Morgenthau put together, according to people who know both men well.
Mr. Vance’s supporters attribute the criticism of his tenure to people who are unsettled by his efforts to reinvigorate and modernize an office that his supporters say had stagnated under Mr. Morgenthau. They pointed out that only after Mr. Vance became district attorney were prosecutors given smartphones.
Still, the second-guessing of Mr. Vance’s leadership has intensified in the wake of a string of courtroom losses that culminated in the startling events last week, when prosecutors revealed their concerns about the honesty of the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in May.
Even a member of the finance committee for Mr. Vance’s 2009 campaign, Gerald L. Shargel, a Manhattan defense lawyer, questioned how the case had been handled.
“What’s most curious is hearing the line prosecutors saying early on that they had a strong case, a very strong case,” Mr. Shargel said. “Obviously, they hadn’t looked very hard. I have enormous respect for Cy as a prosecutor, but this is like a series of bad dreams.”
A judge in Manhattan freed Mr. Strauss-Kahn from house arrest on Friday, and the case against him appeared to be collapsing.
In the weeks before that, Mr. Vance’s office failed to win rape convictions against two New York police officers accused of sexually assaulting a drunken woman (the officers were found guilty of lesser charges). And the most significant terrorism charges were dropped against two men accused of planning attacks against synagogues in the city, though serious counts remain.
Some of the most pointed complaints about Mr. Vance are emanating from the district attorney’s office itself, according to numerous interviews with prosecutors and other officials. They spoke on the condition that their names not be used, saying they feared reprisals.
Several said they worried that cases were often pursued with an excessive focus on whether they would generate publicity. Some said Mr. Vance had taken away the discretion of midlevel prosecutors, sometimes to the detriment of cases.
Those two issues, some prosecutors said, contributed to the difficulties in the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who had been considered a leading contender for the French presidency.
After Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the district attorney’s office faced the question of whether to ask a judge to keep him in custody.
To do so, the office had to obtain an indictment within five days. The alternative was to agree to a bail package so that prosecutors could take their time investigating the case before deciding whether to indict, according to four people briefed on the matter.
In the end, Mr. Vance chose a quick indictment, drawing criticism that he had moved before he knew of the accuser’s background.
Prosecutors have said in court that they decided to seek the indictment and to keep Mr. Strauss-Kahn in custody to avoid the possibility of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s fleeing the country.
The case also unfolded as a rift had already developed between Mr. Vance and the chief of the office’s sex crimes unit, Lisa Friel. She stepped down last week under circumstances that were not entirely clear. It did not appear that her decision was directly related to the Strauss-Kahn case.
Early on, Mr. Vance took the case away from the sex crimes unit and gave it to two other experienced assistant district attorneys...
Strauss-Kahn Is Released as Case Teeters
By JOHN ELIGON
New York Times
July 1, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday as the sexual assault case against him moved one step closer to dismissal after prosecutors told a Manhattan judge that they had serious problems with the case.
Prosecutors acknowledged that there were significant credibility issues with the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in May. In a brief hearing at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors did not oppose his release; the judge then freed Mr. Strhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifauss-Kahn on his own recognizance.
The development represented a stunning reversal in a case that reshaped the French political landscape and sparked debate about morals, the treatment of women and the American justice system. The case could also alter the political fortunes of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, who is just a year and a half into his tenure and was facing his most highly publicized case to date.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was considered a strong contender for the French presidency before being accused of sexually assaulting the housekeeper who went to clean his luxury suite at the Sofitel New York. After his arrest, Mr. Strauss-Kahn resigned his position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
From Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s first court appearance on May 16, Mr. Vance’s office expressed extreme confidence in its case. At that hearing, an assistant district attorney said that “the victim provided very powerful details consistent with violent sexual assault committed by the defendant.”
At another court appearance three days later, prosecutors said the victim “offered a compelling and unwavering story” and that the proof against Mr. Strauss-Kahn was “continuing to grow every day.”
Those accounts varied greatly from what prosecutors revealed on Friday, acknowledging publicly for the first time that the case was not as strong as they initially suggested. In a letter sent to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers and filed with Justice Michael J. Obus on Friday, prosecutors outlined some of what they had discovered about Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser.
Prosecutors disclosed that the woman had admitted lying in her application for asylum from Guinea; according to the letter, she “fabricated the statement with the assistance of a male who provided her with a cassette recording” that she memorized. She also admitted that her claim that she had been the victim of a gang rape in Guinea was also a lie.
The woman also admitted to the prosecutors that she had misrepresented her income to qualify for her housing, and had declared a friend’s child — in addition to her own daughter — as a dependent on tax returns to increase her tax refund.
Questions are sure to be raised about how swiftly and vigorously prosecutors proceeded with the case, as many in France questioned whether there was a rush to judgment with Mr. Strauss-Kahn.
While prosecutors have not yet dismissed the case, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will now be able to move about the country more freely; although prosecutors will retain his passport, most of his restrictive bail conditions have been lifted. Under those conditions, he was required to stay in a Lower Manhattan town house under armed guard and wearing an ankle monitor. He could only leave for certain reasons and had to notify prosecutors when he left.
Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.
Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.
According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.
That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.
The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends...
Matt Flegenheimer and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.
By ALAN FEUER, JOHN ELIGON and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
July 2, 2011
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, seemed preoccupied when he sat down with two reporters last Monday. He already knew what the world wouldhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif soon learn: his marquee prosecution, the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was falling apart. Privately, his aides had told him they had discovered grave problems with the accuser’s credibility.
As the interview began, but before Mr. Vance was asked a question, he offered an unsolicited defense — not just of the Strauss-Kahn case, but of his overall stewardship. “Ultimately,” he said, “the success of a D.A.’s office, and of a D.A., is measured not in individual cases, but over time.”
“The cases you don’t read about,” he added, “define what the job of a D.A. really is.”
But that job has grown increasingly tumultuous. Since Mr. Vance took over 18 months ago, morale in some parts of the office has begun to sag, in part because of his firing of some prosecutors. Relations with one of the office’s key partners, the Police Department, have grown tense at times, with the agencies competing over many issues, including control of anticrime initiatives, officials on both sides say.
Mr. Vance’s predecessor, Robert M. Morgenthau, who became the pre-eminent district attorney in the country while holding the post for 35 years, was once a close ally of Mr. Vance’s, providing crucial support for his election in 2009. Mr. Vance worked for Mr. Morgenthau in the 1980s.
Now, Mr. Morgenthau, 91, rarely speaks to Mr. Vance.
Mr. Morgenthau has apparently become displeased with Mr. Vance’s management style and his revamping of the staff that Mr. Morgenthau put together, according to people who know both men well.
Mr. Vance’s supporters attribute the criticism of his tenure to people who are unsettled by his efforts to reinvigorate and modernize an office that his supporters say had stagnated under Mr. Morgenthau. They pointed out that only after Mr. Vance became district attorney were prosecutors given smartphones.
Still, the second-guessing of Mr. Vance’s leadership has intensified in the wake of a string of courtroom losses that culminated in the startling events last week, when prosecutors revealed their concerns about the honesty of the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in May.
Even a member of the finance committee for Mr. Vance’s 2009 campaign, Gerald L. Shargel, a Manhattan defense lawyer, questioned how the case had been handled.
“What’s most curious is hearing the line prosecutors saying early on that they had a strong case, a very strong case,” Mr. Shargel said. “Obviously, they hadn’t looked very hard. I have enormous respect for Cy as a prosecutor, but this is like a series of bad dreams.”
A judge in Manhattan freed Mr. Strauss-Kahn from house arrest on Friday, and the case against him appeared to be collapsing.
In the weeks before that, Mr. Vance’s office failed to win rape convictions against two New York police officers accused of sexually assaulting a drunken woman (the officers were found guilty of lesser charges). And the most significant terrorism charges were dropped against two men accused of planning attacks against synagogues in the city, though serious counts remain.
Some of the most pointed complaints about Mr. Vance are emanating from the district attorney’s office itself, according to numerous interviews with prosecutors and other officials. They spoke on the condition that their names not be used, saying they feared reprisals.
Several said they worried that cases were often pursued with an excessive focus on whether they would generate publicity. Some said Mr. Vance had taken away the discretion of midlevel prosecutors, sometimes to the detriment of cases.
Those two issues, some prosecutors said, contributed to the difficulties in the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who had been considered a leading contender for the French presidency.
After Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the district attorney’s office faced the question of whether to ask a judge to keep him in custody.
To do so, the office had to obtain an indictment within five days. The alternative was to agree to a bail package so that prosecutors could take their time investigating the case before deciding whether to indict, according to four people briefed on the matter.
In the end, Mr. Vance chose a quick indictment, drawing criticism that he had moved before he knew of the accuser’s background.
Prosecutors have said in court that they decided to seek the indictment and to keep Mr. Strauss-Kahn in custody to avoid the possibility of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s fleeing the country.
The case also unfolded as a rift had already developed between Mr. Vance and the chief of the office’s sex crimes unit, Lisa Friel. She stepped down last week under circumstances that were not entirely clear. It did not appear that her decision was directly related to the Strauss-Kahn case.
Early on, Mr. Vance took the case away from the sex crimes unit and gave it to two other experienced assistant district attorneys...
Strauss-Kahn Is Released as Case Teeters
By JOHN ELIGON
New York Times
July 1, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday as the sexual assault case against him moved one step closer to dismissal after prosecutors told a Manhattan judge that they had serious problems with the case.
Prosecutors acknowledged that there were significant credibility issues with the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in May. In a brief hearing at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors did not oppose his release; the judge then freed Mr. Strhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifauss-Kahn on his own recognizance.
The development represented a stunning reversal in a case that reshaped the French political landscape and sparked debate about morals, the treatment of women and the American justice system. The case could also alter the political fortunes of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, who is just a year and a half into his tenure and was facing his most highly publicized case to date.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was considered a strong contender for the French presidency before being accused of sexually assaulting the housekeeper who went to clean his luxury suite at the Sofitel New York. After his arrest, Mr. Strauss-Kahn resigned his position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
From Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s first court appearance on May 16, Mr. Vance’s office expressed extreme confidence in its case. At that hearing, an assistant district attorney said that “the victim provided very powerful details consistent with violent sexual assault committed by the defendant.”
At another court appearance three days later, prosecutors said the victim “offered a compelling and unwavering story” and that the proof against Mr. Strauss-Kahn was “continuing to grow every day.”
Those accounts varied greatly from what prosecutors revealed on Friday, acknowledging publicly for the first time that the case was not as strong as they initially suggested. In a letter sent to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers and filed with Justice Michael J. Obus on Friday, prosecutors outlined some of what they had discovered about Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser.
Prosecutors disclosed that the woman had admitted lying in her application for asylum from Guinea; according to the letter, she “fabricated the statement with the assistance of a male who provided her with a cassette recording” that she memorized. She also admitted that her claim that she had been the victim of a gang rape in Guinea was also a lie.
The woman also admitted to the prosecutors that she had misrepresented her income to qualify for her housing, and had declared a friend’s child — in addition to her own daughter — as a dependent on tax returns to increase her tax refund.
Questions are sure to be raised about how swiftly and vigorously prosecutors proceeded with the case, as many in France questioned whether there was a rush to judgment with Mr. Strauss-Kahn.
While prosecutors have not yet dismissed the case, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will now be able to move about the country more freely; although prosecutors will retain his passport, most of his restrictive bail conditions have been lifted. Under those conditions, he was required to stay in a Lower Manhattan town house under armed guard and wearing an ankle monitor. He could only leave for certain reasons and had to notify prosecutors when he left.
Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.
Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.
According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.
That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.
The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends...
Matt Flegenheimer and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Should filming the police get you arrested?
Jun 21, 2011
Should filming the police get you arrested?
A newly released video shows a woman being taken into custody for taping cops while standing on her own property
Video
By David Sirota
Last month, I wrote a column on how police departments across the country are simultaneously employing ever-more sophisticated surveillance techniques while trying to criminalize the act of recording police officers in public spaces. This latter effort comes -- not coincidentally -- at a time when police forces are facing potential federal investigations into police brutality.
To get a sense of just how far some police departments seem willing to go to prevent citizens from exercising their civil right to record public spaces, watch this recently released video of a Rochester woman who appears to be getting arrested for video taping police from her own front lawn. (Note: The police officer in the video refers to an earlier exchange, so there may be another aspect to this story.)
For more details on the situation surrounding the Rochester arrest, go here. Needless to say, the event epitomizes the situation -- and shows how the use of police powers in this way is one major part of a larger campaign to criminalize free speech.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
June 21, 2011
Rochester Police Arrest Woman For Videotaping Them From Her Front Yard
By Carlos Miller
A woman was arrested for videotaping police from her front yard in Rochester, New York.
Emily Good, 28, was recording a traffic stop where police had a man handcuffed on May 12th. The video was uploaded to Blip TV today.
The cop who arrested her has been identified as Mario Masic, according to the Rochester Indy Media.
A man named Mario Masic who happens to be a police officer in western New York also runs a business called Harvest Moon Malamutes.
mariomasic.jpg
Mario Masic apparrently treats dogs better than he does camera-toting citizens
You can friend him on Facebook here. Or you can email him through his business email address at harvestmoonmalamutes@live.com.
The video, which has since gone viral, shows Masic hassling Good with absurd notions after he notices her recording.
“I don’t feel safe with you standing behind me, so I’m going to ask you to go into your house,”
“You seem very anti-police … due to what you said to me before you started taping me.”
It is not clear what Good said before she started recording, but if she said anything threatening, they would have arrested her at that moment.
She ended up getting handcuffed and taken away after she refused to walk into her house, even though she was clearly on her own property.
A friend or relative ended up taking the camera and we see her being led away.
Neighbors who witnessed the interaction confirmed she had done nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, the man they had originally handcuffed was released.
Mickey H. Osterreicher, attorney for the National Press Photographers Association, fired off a letter to Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard demanding that Good's charges be dropped.
Sheppard told Osterreicher and the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper that he has ordered an investigation, which normally is police talk for sweeping it under the carpet until the media attention dies down.
Police Illegally Trespass and Arrest Woman in Her Front Lawn for Recording Traffic Stop: An Eyewitness Report
Ryan Acuff
13 May 2011
At 9:50pm Thursday May 12, 2011 officer Mario Masic illegally trespassed and arrested a woman in her front lawn while she unobtrusively recorded a suspicious traffic stop in front of her house.
The Illegal Detention and Search of a Young Black Male
On Thursday night I was at my friend's house when at about 9:45pm my friend and I saw flashing lights in front of the house. We both went outside to see what the commotion was about and we found two police cars blocking the street as they were performing a traffic stop. Later on a third police car pulled up making a total of four officers on the scene. The person pulled over was a young black male. It was unclear why the man was originally pulled over but one of the officers interrogated the man and accused him of possessing drugs. Not satisfied with the man's answers, the police took the man out of his car, handcuffed and put him in the back of a police car. After the man was detained, the police officers searched his car and found no drugs. The officers then released the man and said he was free to go. As the man drove away about 9:55pm he didn't appear to receive a ticket.
The Illegal Trespass and Arrest Of a Woman Recording Incident
As soon my friend and I came out to observe the police activity in front of the house located in the 19th Ward my friend began to record the events with her IPhone. While the police were searching and detaining the driver of the car one of the officers noticed that my friend was recording the whole incident. He began to question her with an aggressive tone claiming he felt unsafe with her “standing behind him”. Interestingly, at no point was his back turned to us, so presumably he was upset that she was observing and taping. My friend responded that she had the right to observe. The officer responded that she did not have the right to observe from the sidewalk. My friend immediately moved back into her grass before the sidewalk. Then the officer ordered us both inside the house. The woman calmly noted that she had the right to be on her own property and the right to observe the police activity unobstructed. The officer commented that he thought she was “anti-police” and approached the woman stating “are you seriously not going to obey my order?” As the officer trespassed on to the property in a threatening manner, we began to walk toward the house. As we approached the porch, the officer said, “I'm just going to arrest you” and came onto the property to arrest the woman. She was put into a police car and taken away at about 9:55pm. According to the arrested woman, after the arrest the four police met in the parking lot of Wilson High School around the corner and had a conference for about an hour about how to deal with the case. A Sargent came over and gave them advice about how to write up the report that would minimize their wrong doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ZkFZkejv8ideo
Should filming the police get you arrested?
A newly released video shows a woman being taken into custody for taping cops while standing on her own property
Video
By David Sirota
Last month, I wrote a column on how police departments across the country are simultaneously employing ever-more sophisticated surveillance techniques while trying to criminalize the act of recording police officers in public spaces. This latter effort comes -- not coincidentally -- at a time when police forces are facing potential federal investigations into police brutality.
To get a sense of just how far some police departments seem willing to go to prevent citizens from exercising their civil right to record public spaces, watch this recently released video of a Rochester woman who appears to be getting arrested for video taping police from her own front lawn. (Note: The police officer in the video refers to an earlier exchange, so there may be another aspect to this story.)
For more details on the situation surrounding the Rochester arrest, go here. Needless to say, the event epitomizes the situation -- and shows how the use of police powers in this way is one major part of a larger campaign to criminalize free speech.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
June 21, 2011
Rochester Police Arrest Woman For Videotaping Them From Her Front Yard
By Carlos Miller
A woman was arrested for videotaping police from her front yard in Rochester, New York.
Emily Good, 28, was recording a traffic stop where police had a man handcuffed on May 12th. The video was uploaded to Blip TV today.
The cop who arrested her has been identified as Mario Masic, according to the Rochester Indy Media.
A man named Mario Masic who happens to be a police officer in western New York also runs a business called Harvest Moon Malamutes.
mariomasic.jpg
Mario Masic apparrently treats dogs better than he does camera-toting citizens
You can friend him on Facebook here. Or you can email him through his business email address at harvestmoonmalamutes@live.com.
The video, which has since gone viral, shows Masic hassling Good with absurd notions after he notices her recording.
“I don’t feel safe with you standing behind me, so I’m going to ask you to go into your house,”
“You seem very anti-police … due to what you said to me before you started taping me.”
It is not clear what Good said before she started recording, but if she said anything threatening, they would have arrested her at that moment.
She ended up getting handcuffed and taken away after she refused to walk into her house, even though she was clearly on her own property.
A friend or relative ended up taking the camera and we see her being led away.
Neighbors who witnessed the interaction confirmed she had done nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, the man they had originally handcuffed was released.
Mickey H. Osterreicher, attorney for the National Press Photographers Association, fired off a letter to Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard demanding that Good's charges be dropped.
Sheppard told Osterreicher and the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper that he has ordered an investigation, which normally is police talk for sweeping it under the carpet until the media attention dies down.
Police Illegally Trespass and Arrest Woman in Her Front Lawn for Recording Traffic Stop: An Eyewitness Report
Ryan Acuff
13 May 2011
At 9:50pm Thursday May 12, 2011 officer Mario Masic illegally trespassed and arrested a woman in her front lawn while she unobtrusively recorded a suspicious traffic stop in front of her house.
The Illegal Detention and Search of a Young Black Male
On Thursday night I was at my friend's house when at about 9:45pm my friend and I saw flashing lights in front of the house. We both went outside to see what the commotion was about and we found two police cars blocking the street as they were performing a traffic stop. Later on a third police car pulled up making a total of four officers on the scene. The person pulled over was a young black male. It was unclear why the man was originally pulled over but one of the officers interrogated the man and accused him of possessing drugs. Not satisfied with the man's answers, the police took the man out of his car, handcuffed and put him in the back of a police car. After the man was detained, the police officers searched his car and found no drugs. The officers then released the man and said he was free to go. As the man drove away about 9:55pm he didn't appear to receive a ticket.
The Illegal Trespass and Arrest Of a Woman Recording Incident
As soon my friend and I came out to observe the police activity in front of the house located in the 19th Ward my friend began to record the events with her IPhone. While the police were searching and detaining the driver of the car one of the officers noticed that my friend was recording the whole incident. He began to question her with an aggressive tone claiming he felt unsafe with her “standing behind him”. Interestingly, at no point was his back turned to us, so presumably he was upset that she was observing and taping. My friend responded that she had the right to observe. The officer responded that she did not have the right to observe from the sidewalk. My friend immediately moved back into her grass before the sidewalk. Then the officer ordered us both inside the house. The woman calmly noted that she had the right to be on her own property and the right to observe the police activity unobstructed. The officer commented that he thought she was “anti-police” and approached the woman stating “are you seriously not going to obey my order?” As the officer trespassed on to the property in a threatening manner, we began to walk toward the house. As we approached the porch, the officer said, “I'm just going to arrest you” and came onto the property to arrest the woman. She was put into a police car and taken away at about 9:55pm. According to the arrested woman, after the arrest the four police met in the parking lot of Wilson High School around the corner and had a conference for about an hour about how to deal with the case. A Sargent came over and gave them advice about how to write up the report that would minimize their wrong doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ZkFZkejv8ideo
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