Baltimore police can't arrest people who record them, so they bust them for "loitering" instead

[Video Link] A fellow named Scott Cover noticed a group of Baltimore Police standing over a man handcuffed on the ground. He remembered reading that morning that the Baltimore Police department had told its officers they couldn't arrest people for taking photos or videos of them while they worked, so Cover pulled out his cell phone and began taping. One of the officers spotted Cover and order to him to leave, because he was "loitering." He argued with her a bit, but started to walk away, taping the officers has he left. That wasn't good enough for the officer, so she stopped him and asked for his ID. The video ends there.

The new rule says that citizens have an "absolute right" to photograph or video record the enforcement actions taking place in public view. The chief legal counsel for the agency called it "an extension of the citizen's right to see. [An officer] wouldn't go up to a citizen at a crime scene and tell them to close their eyes, so the officer can't tell them they can't film."

But the rules also says that the person recording may not "violate any section of any law, ordinance, code or criminal article" - such as loitering - while doing so. The officers on Cross Street seemed aware of that fine print.

The police union says the officers acted appropriately and professionally; the ACLU says it shows there's more work to be done.

In Federal Hill, citizens allowed to record police - but then there's loitering.. (Via The Agitator)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

Ihavenofuckingname

Ahh loitering, the new ‘disorderly conduct’. He’s lucky they didn’t shoot him for a ‘percieved threat’.
- phisrow
  
  Probably not of the melanized persuasion… A cellphone is typically either smallish, black, and handheld or smallish, silver and handheld. It Might Have Been A Gun!!! Definitely should have shot him just in case.
- http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
  
  Of course they didn’t shoot him; this was in Baltimore, not Seattle or San Francisco.
  - http://canweriotnow.github.com/ Jason Lewis
    
    Oh, right, because the cops never shoot you for brandishing a wallet here…
Guest

Classic Malicious Compliance, but of course the police never behave like petulant children.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Okay, so this is their move. What’s our response going to be? Come on internets, don’t let us down!

Also, what exactly is the definition of “loitering”? What if one is walking reeeeaaaallllyy slow in the other direction?
- phisrow
  
  I’m fairly sure that ‘loitering’ is intended to mean either ‘being homeless near us decent people’ or ‘youth group behavior that makes the shoppers nervous’…
- the_proph
  
  from the Baltimore Digest of Criminal Offenses (clears things right up!):
  
  Public PlacesOffense: Loitering in public places so as tointerfere with passage, harass or obstructothers, threaten breach of peace, etc.(Art. 19, §25-1)Penalty: $500/10 days. (Art. 19, §25-1)Civil Citation: $50. (Art. 1, §41-14)
  - Warren_Terra
    
    Sorry for the recursion, but under the circumstances the definition of “harass” seems to be important (as we can assume he wasn’t interfering with passage, physically obstructing, or threatening a breach of the peace); any guidance?
ComradeQuestions

There you go again, giving a fuck when it ain’t your turn.
Lance Murray

When politely told to leave the scene, he continued to be an idiot and make his own grandstanding case, interfering with the duties of a police officer and creating a disturbance. The police don’t need another idiot to deal with when they’ve got one on the ground. He was arrested for being an asshole. But now he’s a happy, glory seeking asshole.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  That sort of thinking is exactly what is wrong with this country. Sad thing is, nothing anyone can say here will make it any clearer to you. Unless you’re trolling…in which case, carry on.
- Ihavenofuckingname
  
  I’m politely asking you to leave the internet. We don’t need another idiot to deal with.
  - http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
    
    You may have no fucking name, but you sure do have a way with words!
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/R3QYS45DT7QGZKFCUSQDM3BAAA adrianm
      
      Easy to “have a way with words” when you’re right!
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Desnee-Flakes/100000681827164 Desnee Flakes
    
    It seems that at this point you are loitering and disturbing the peace. Where is a Baltimore cop when you need one?
- Sagodjur
  
  Translation for the non-police-biased: “When given an unlawful order to leave when he wasn’t doing anything unlawful, simply recording cops who didn’t like being recorded, he continued to assert his right to record the police while standing a good distance away and not interfering with their duties at all, especially since they didn’t have a problem doing their duty until they saw him and chose to create a disturbance by telling him to leave, unlawfully. The police apparently chose to arrest a second person because one wasn’t enough for them. And now he has civic-mindedly posted the video online so that other citizens can see the injustice perpetrated by those to whom we give the responsibility and authority to protect us.”
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Desnee-Flakes/100000681827164 Desnee Flakes
    
    Now if you could just draw pictures to go with that brilliant explanation maybe the terminally cowed would understand the point. Until then just be satisfied that your point wasn’t lost on all of us.
    - OoerictoO
      
      the terminally cowed should reference the MOVING PICTURES in the article to which they are replying…
- http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
  
  Being told to leave so he couldn’t record them is 1) NOT interfering with the duties of a police officer, and 2) NOT a legal order. There was no reason for the police to mess with the guy recording other than they wanted to abuse their authority, and all the excuses in the world aren’t going to change that. And neither is some random apologist on the Internet.
  - zombiebob
    
    Wait, but didn’t you see that the offender had to haul her chubby rear all the way across the street to tell him to stop loitering? C’mon, if that isn’t an inconvenience, I don’t know what is!
    - DavidN6
      
      When the officer had to leave to arrest troublemaker 2, the remaining officers may have been outnumbered by troublemaker 1 on the ground.
      - zombiebob
        
        Ok, so basically, what you are saying is that it is more important to stop someone recording than it is to secure a suspect? Seriously, that’s your argument?
    - DavidN6
      
      Sorry, not clear – sarcasm.
      - zombiebob
        
        It was missing the proper level of inferred snark or emoticon. Sometimes using the words ‘realllly’ or ‘clearly’ or ‘Come Now!’ conveys sarcasm properly.
- marilove
  
  “He was arrested for being an asshole. ”
  
  Last time I checked, being an asshole wasn’t an arrest-able offense.
  - oasisob1
    
    Don’t you wish it was?
    - http://twitter.com/eltiare Jeremy Nicoll
      
      Only when I see stupid comments like some that I see here. But my sense of what’s fair and practical always seems to get in the way of such wishes.
    - marilove
      
      Nope. I value freedom. Don’t you?
- http://www.jimdraws.com Thorzdad
  
  Or, you know, the police could have simply ignored the guy with the cell phone across the street. The police chose to make his recording an issue. No one was interfering with the duties of an officer. The officer made the decision to be the asshole.
  
  Have fun shining those pretty badges.
http://excelsior-station.wikidot.com Sarge Misfit

Don’t loitering laws infringe on a persons’ Freedoms? Otherwise, nobody would be allowed to watch a sunset for they would be loitering on the beach.
- Guest
  
  Loitering is defined as “interfering with the lawful use of public spaces” or something like that. So technically standing there isn’t loitering, but the cops know that a threat of arrest, even unlawful, is enough to deter most people who won’t be able to afford to fight it out in court.
  - Guest
    
    you can beat the charge, but you can’t beat the ride.
awjt

Freedom of assembly?
- http://www.youtube.com/user/PipLagenta Pip_R_Lagenta
  
  He was assembling a YouTube video.
  - Guest
    
    all he needed was a willing participant and a spectacular event.
    
    And Officer Friendly was all too willing to be a spectacle.
hakuin

loi·ter (loitr)intr.v. loi·tered, loi·ter·ing, loi·ters 1. To stand idly about; linger aimlessly.2. To proceed slowly or with many stops: loitered all the way home.3. To delay or dawdle: loiter over a task.

[Middle English loitren, probably from Middle Dutch loteren, to totter, be loose.]

he had specific purpose. As usual, the cops are criminally abusing their power.
- ialreadyexist
  
  The dictionary definition is irrelevant. See the legal definition above from the Baltimore Digest of Criminal Offenses. Either way, the police acted unlawfully as he didn’t fit either definition.
  - Clevername
    
    The above legal definition uses the word loitering to define the offense loitering. Surely the accepted meaning of the word loitering must be taken in to account, otherwise the legal definition is meaningless and circular.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Desnee-Flakes/100000681827164 Desnee Flakes
      
      Or the legal definition defines loitering differently. You are aware that words can have more than 1 meaning and having read the legal definition above the dictionary definition is too broad to use in law. Taking your definition the police could be arresting people for not walking briskly enough. I don’t think that would be practical, but I know there are Law & Order freaks who love the law until it stops working for them.
nautodidact

Loitering is typically defined as ‘standing around with no given reason’. I can’t see how this would apply since his reason is obviously to stop cops being assholes without cause.
ultranaut

Citizen journalism is always punished in a police state.
- http://www.youtube.com/user/PipLagenta Pip_R_Lagenta
  
  Perhaps someone might be able to quantify the Police State development by measuring the violence and/or bureaucracy used to silence the citizen journalist.
  - Guest
    
    I’m not into the anthropological analysis of lost freedoms. I’m content enough with the qualitative analysis.
    - OoerictoO
      
      that’s possibly one reason they remain lost
      - Guest
        
        another reason might be that too many of the people who see it clearest are more interesting in counting than fighting back?
unit_1421

The stevedores’ union needs to put their squad cars into a can and send them on a world tour. Rawls would put them on hull scraping duty on the Marine Unit. Boat For Life!
snagglepuss

The sadly-typical cop belief that the only laws worth enforcing are the ones that benefit or protect cops.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

Loitering … causing an obstruction … disorderly conduct … ‘behavior liable to cause a breach of the peace’ – what are the other handy ‘catch-alls’ available to law enforcement for sweeping up people who annoy them?

(Fictional examples, such as Steve Bell’s BUFAPOPO – “Bearing an Unsympathetic Facial Aspect in the Presence Of a Police Officer” or Constable Savage’s “urinating in a public convenience”, “possession of an offensive wife”, and “coughing without due care and attention”, don’t count).
blissfulight

If the cops are doing nothing wrong, then what do they have to be worried about?
- BrianOman
  
  No doubt. Hell, if they had any sense of modernity they’d realize that one of their kids could probably throw together an officer training video with all the free footage of appropriate and inappropriate cop behavior in the field. Updated policy? Send Junior to work grabbing footage for a mixup instructional.
dcorbett

It’s all about perception and depends on who is doing the filming… look at this former RISD student and cop was doing ‘vertical patrols’ on housing projects. While working it was “OK” for him to shoot his fellow officers and civilians and now he’s being hailed as “an artist”. http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/on-the-beat-with-a-gun-and-a-camera/
What a load of crap. Try telling that to the cops when you’re filming.
- realityhater
  
  I took a look at the photos and have a few comments , problem#1 they are for the most part staged photos.. . Take a good look at picture # 8 with the caption “officers update their memo book to make sure all 3 accounts match November 2008 ” ahh isn’t that conspiracy ??? I mean shouldn’t all 3 accounts already match ? and just how are they correcting them to match ? – yeah he is an ARTIST alright…
http://twitter.com/gratefulvideo gratefulvideo

I can’t help but wonder what those many cops intended to do to the guy they already had cuffed on the ground that they didn’t want to be on video
- Guest
  
  i consider that intent to loiter
- DavidN6
  
  But that guy on the ground was definitely loitering.
Quintilius Varus

No Lollygagging!!!!
Guest

Of course the police union says their members didn’t do anything wrong. When’s the last time you’ve heard of cops doing anything about other cops misbehaving?
Mike Hayward

Where can I get an online journalist I.D.?
(i.e., “Hey, I’m not loitering. I’m a freelance journalist working for _____ _________. See? Here’s my I.D. Now please leave me alone and let me do my job.”
- Guest
  
  You’re very compromising.
cscalfani

Loitering is what I like to call a Gateway Law. It’s a law that’s on the books that no one complains about, but is used as a gateway to seize your civil liberties.

Want to pull someone over because you don’t like their bumper sticker, no need to have probably cause, simply pull them over for not wearing their seat belt (another gateway law) or talking on their cell phone (gateway). It won’t matter that it’s clear that they’re wearing their seat belt and/or they weren’t talking on their phone when you get to the window, because then you can detain them for appearing to be impaired, possibly high on drugs, which now gives you cause to search their car.
realityhater

Imagine that a “loophole” in the law , I guess they really do exist… Thanks Baltimore PD, for giving every other police department another excuse to arrest or otherwise detain citizens with cell phones. Bringing us all one step closer to the police state we all love and trust right? …right ?/
Dylan Wilson

Normally I side with cops on these types of videos but this really pissed me off.
- realityhater
  
  Why would you side with the “thugs with a badge” ? I have yet to see one of these videos , that did not portray the offending officer in his or her true element – do what I say regardless or you will go to jail ,even if I have to make shit up to put you there! – in other words you will be forced to “respect my authority”…..not saying there are no good police officers , just saying there are plenty that tarnish the badge they wear ! Which brings me back to.. If you are doing nothing wrong , you should have no worries being caught on video.If you are walking the fine line between right and wrong well just confiscate the evidence and arrest the perp for loitering……….
http://www.facebook.com/Coastwalker Jeremy Slawson

This is becoming almost laughable. Each day there is one more news story that makes the US look no better than China or the old Soviet Union from the UK. How can we have been so blind to this nonsense about freedom that has been peddled for the last half century or more.
- OoerictoO
  
  are you saying the US looks worse than the UK with respect to freedoms? in response to a police abuse article? are you serious?
  
  oh, but you are right about the “nonsense about freedom that has been peddled”. we should just all give up. ;-)