Miami Beach Police Ordered Videographer At Gunpoint To Hand Over Phone

[ElNono]

Miami Beach Police Ordered Videographer At Gunpoint To Hand Over Phone
But video survived even after police tried to destroy phone

Miami Beach police did their best to destroy a citizen video that shows them shooting a man to death in a hail of bullets Memorial Day.

First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer.

Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling “you want to be fucking paparazzi?”

Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer's back pocket as he was laying down on the ground.

And finally, they took him to a mobile command center where they snapped his photo and demanded the phone again, then took him to police headquarters where they conducted a recorded interview with him before releasing him.

But what they didn’t know was that Narces Benoit had removed the SIM card and hid it in his mouth, which means the video survived.

[Click for the full story (http://www.pixiq.com/article/MIami%20Beach%20Police%20Ordered%20Videographer%20 At%20Gunpoint%20To%20Hand%20Over)]

[ChumpDumper]

Those are some stupid cops.

[Nick Manning]

That video was insane...100 rounds unloaded. I wasn't far from there (at the Clevelander on Ocean and 10th), although much earlier in the day.

[TDMVPDPOY]

[B]

But what they didn’t know was that Narces Benoit had removed the SIM card and hid it in his mouth, which means the video survived.

[Click for the full story (http://www.pixiq.com/article/MIami%20Beach%20Police%20Ordered%20Videographer%20 At%20Gunpoint%20To%20Hand%20Over)]

you mean the mini sd card in the phone he pulled out? wtf did sim cards hold memory

[Capt Bringdown]

Protect and Serve.

Riviera Beach couple witnesses Miami Beach Police Shootings (http://www.cbs12.com/articles/police-4732814-miami-early.html)

"He says police also took cellphone cameras away from other bystanders nearby who had recorded the police shooting incident on Collins Avenue."

[Wild Cobra]

you mean the mini sd card in the phone he pulled out? wtf did sim cards hold memory

The original article does say memory card. The journalist is ignorant to the facts he/she reported from.

[Nick Manning]

The journalist is ignorant to the facts he/she reported from.

I know you have much sympathy to offer in that department.

[Wild Cobra]

I know you have much sympathy to offer in that department.

I have little sympathy for bad journalists or bad cops.

[Nick Manning]

miami sucks

a beaner would say that...Cubans are at the top of the Hispanic caste system, so to speak. Nothing lower than a beaner.

These are things we know.

[Winehole23]

Beaner smack. Interesting choice.

[boutons_deux]

There needs to be a challenge as unConstitutional and victory over laws that forbid filming the cops.

Any defense that cops' "methods" have to be kept secret is pure bullshit.

[Wild Cobra]

There needs to be a challenge as unConstitutional and victory over laws that forbid filming the cops.

Any defense that cops' "methods" have to be kept secret is pure bullshit.

Are you saying it's illegal to film in a public place? Since when?

[LnGrrrR]

Are you saying it's illegal to film in a public place? Since when?

It isn't, but it seems lately cops have been trying to capture any video evidence from bystanders.

Fuck that.

[Leetonidas]

Fuck tha police

[Heath Ledger]

is this video posted online yet?

[boutons_deux]

Are you saying it's illegal to film in a public place? Since when?

Since whenever the fucking pigs invent and enforce their own no-pics laws.

The article above, RIF.

Also, the Park Police forbid dancing in public monuments, like the the Jefferson, body slamming and arrest dancers.

[Trainwreck2100]

so i guess the police owe this guy a new phone

[ElNono]

Are you saying it's illegal to film in a public place? Since when?

http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

[TDMVPDPOY]

destroying the evidence or not, if those viewers willing to be witnesses to a prosecution, then its the cops words against the witnesses who could be large in numbers....

guilty as charge, wasting taxpayers money

[Winehole23]

An armed force for protection and participation.

[Winehole23]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TUUDedT49k

[boutons_deux]

documentaries:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086356/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070355/

[boutons_deux]

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1857623&

[Winehole23]

In response to Buehler's federal lawsuit, Oborski and several other officers claimed they did not realize he had a right to record them. But according to U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane, they really should have. In yesterday's decision (http://cloudfront-assets.reason.com/assets/db/14063077544714.pdf), which allowed the lawsuit to proceed, Lane cites "a robust consensus of circuit courts of appeals"—including the 1st, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—that "the First Amendment encompasses a right to record public officials as they perform their official duties." He also notes two decisions in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas, "seems to assume, without explicitly stating, that photographing a police officer performing his official duties falls under the umbrella of protected expression."

This is not some newly discovered right that Oborski and his colleagues might have understandably overlooked. To the contrary, it rests on longstanding principles repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court. "If a person has the right to assemble in a public place, receive information on a matter of public concern, and make a record of that information for the purpose of disseminating that information," Kane writes, "the ability to make photographic or video recording of that information is simply not a new right or a revolutionary expansion of a historical right. Instead, the photographic or video recording of public information is only a more modern and efficient method of exercising a clearly established right." He therefore concludes that Oborski et al. cannot claim qualified immunity by arguing that the right was not clearly established at the time of Buehler's arrests.



http://cloudfront-media.reason.com/mc/jsullum/2014_05/war-on-cameras-cropped.jpg?h=206&w=275 (http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras)

In addition to his First Amendment claims, Buehler accuses Oborski and the others of false arrest, and Kane allowed him to pursue those claims as well. The charge of resisting arrest—which in Buehler's case presumably referred to the arrest that he photographed in the first incident, as opposed to his own arrest for resisting arrest—involves "using force," and Buehler claims he never did that. "Accepting as true Buehler’s factual allegations," Kane writes, "Oborski and [Officer Robert] Snider did not have probable cause to arrest Buehler on January 1, 2012 for Resisting Arrest, Search, or Transportation." A charge of interference with public duties is also inconsistent with the facts as described by Buehler, says Kane, since he claims he was merely observing and recording, which he had a right to do.


In addition to Oborski, Snider, and the other officers, Buehler is suing the city of Austin and the Austin Police Department, arguing that they had an obligation to make sure that the cops they employ understand their constitutional obligations. This sort of decision is important not only because it highlights a right that police are bound to respect but because it puts them on notice that they can be held personally liable for violating it.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/25/federal-judge-to-camera-shy-austin-cops