If you ask any Hollywood resident living in the vicinity of Hollywood Blvd, I would guess that most of them would say that Halloween night is one of the wildest nights of the year. That only the brave and stupid would venture out after 6 pm—especially in a car.
Well, for the past ten years I was not brave, but stupid, and for reasons I don’t even know why, Halloween Night is something I intentionally avoided every time it came around. However, this year was different, so for first time ever, I finally walked into the heart of darkness armed with an old Konica point and shoot, and it did not disappoint.
From the girls to the zombies to the thugs and the cops, the night was filled with an addictive energy that I’ll just have to wait another year to experience.
Now if I only had a Delorean and an ’80s puffy vest, so I could travel back in time and capture the previous ten Halloweens I missed.
It’s shocking to think that it takes a professional sports team to lose, in the grand scheme of things, a truly non-significant event (seriously, on a world scale of importance who actually knows or cares the Boston Bruins won the NHL championship?) to riot in the streets. And this is coming from someone who grew up in Boston and lived there for more than two decades.
But no one seems to care when an Arizona police officer executes a man in his own home, and the cop’s own partner turns on him. Frank Rodriguez was killed by Officer Richard Chrisman in October 2010 and nobody outside of Arizona’s Maricopa County seems to know about it. For instance, I just learned about Rodriguez’s death this week. We should’ve all known about this last year, and you would think that a police officer being charged with second-degree murder would be national-headline news. However, it’s not. And you would think that people would riot in the streets over something like this, but they don’t.
The likelihood of you being killed by a police officer in the United States is far greater than you ever having a shot at losing the NHL championship.
I was detained again recently (actually handcuffed and placed in the patrol unit) in Hollywood while photographing some people I’ve been following for a couple of weeks. My account of what happened, along with my footage (which is securely online already and stored on multiple hard drives that are not at my residence), will be released in the near future, but the experience has motivated me to finally comment on some letters I received in November 2010 from LAPD’s Chief of Police Charlie Beck and Paul Espinoza—the Northeast Patrol Division officer who unlawfully detained me because I photographed him and his partner performing a traffic stop on Hollywood Boulevard in February 2010.
The first paragraph of Chief Beck’s letter states the following:
An investigation into your complaint that was reported on February 21, 2010, regarding the conduct of an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department has been completed. The investigation has gone through several levels of review, including myself and the command staff of Internal Affairs Group. Your allegations that an officer was discourteous and unlawfully detained you were classified as Sustained. This means the investigation determined that the act alleged occurred and constitutes misconduct. An appropriate penalty will be imposed; however, Penal Code Section 832. 5 precludes me from disclosing the specific penalty.
And Paul Espinoza’s apology letter says:
I am the officer with whom you had contact on February 21, 2010. You should know there was a complaint lodged against me and I am sure you will be informed by the Department that complaint has been sustained. I wanted to write you a personal letter to apologize for my actions on that day. The Department has provided me training and I assure you I will handle similar situations in the future much differently. I am very proud to be a Los Angeles Police Officer and will do my best to serve you and the community to the best of my abilities in the future.
I hope the next time we meet it is under better circumstances. Again, please accept my apologies.
When I first received the letters I was initially pleased and certainly felt vindicated—especially towards my harshest online critics who inaccurately claimed that I was never detained and should have waited for the supervisor to arrive to say whatever it is that they thought I should have said to him.
Well, as all will know now, as some of us already knew then—I was unlawfully detained and treated disrespectfully. It’s that simple, and for full-brained people it really isn’t all that hard of a reality to grasp once you see the video.
As for the people who criticized me for not sticking around to speak to the supervisor, what they may not realize is the fact that speaking to a supervisor might well not resolve anything. More important, I don’t need to complain to Espinoza’s superior at the time; I can complain by filing a complaint with LAPD later. The two do not go hand in hand. Which, are both very good reasons why I left.
This was not my first time being detained, and I understand how the detainment and complaint process works. Plus, I have a lawyer friend who I can contact when I need advice or a legal question answered.
So once all the Monday-morning shutterbugs decide to stop taking family portraits, studio shots of fruit and martini glasses, and macro-shots of flowers and bugs and get their detainment cherry popped for taking legal pictures in public (which are decent enough to share with the rest of the world), then I’ll listen to what they have to say.
Sorry to digress, but all things must be addressed.
Then I read the letters again and thought about the outcome a little more. What did they do to make sure Espinoza wouldn’t do something like this again? And why does California Penal Code Section 832.5 (as well 832.7) prevent me and the public from knowing Espinoza’s “appropriate penalty”? For all I know, Espinoza’s appropriate penalty was to write a forced apology letter because he was caught on video screaming about his First Amendment rights, while at the same exact moment derailing my constitutional rights.
I should have the right to know Espinoza’s penalty, and so should you. We have the right to know the complaint history against all law enforcement officers in this country. This should be easily accessible information, rather than locked up and hidden from public scrutiny.
Penal codes such as 832.5 and 832.7 (which prevent LAPD from releasing information even about complaints that were determined valid), should not exist because all they do is raise credibility issues within the confines of law enforcement and stir contempt throughout the public.
While legally filming a TSA enhanced screening pat-down at Nashville International Airport I was confronted by an Airport Police Officer and told to stop filming. The officer later removed my iPhone from my hands, despite my protests, saying “I don’t need a warrant.”
When TSA officials told him I was within my rights to shoot footage of the checkpoint, he gave the phone back to me. As I was leaving, TSA agents insisted that I could not show the footage without their permission, which is false.
This occurred at Nashville International Airport in Nashville, Tenn., Monday November 22, 2010. at 5:30pm CT.
ALSO: Blogger/photographer Steven Frischling writes that he was harassed by the TSA at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, CT. While photographing TSA checkpoints, he was stopped by a Connecticut State Trooper who informed him that “photographing a TSA security checkpoint was illegal, and specifically a ‘Federal Offense.'”
Frischling knows his rights, though and informed said trooper specifically that, “the TSA publicly states that photography of checkpoints is legal, with limited restrictions.” (Uh….just how do you think all those photos of celebs going through airport security get into Us Weekly?!) The officer accused Frischling of hiding and concealing his camera, then detained him, and then another plainsclothes TSA employee in some unidentified capacity showed up — which is when Frischling speed-dialed the TSA communications office.
Less than 20 minutes after I was told I was being detained and that I was not free to leave the terminal the TSA agent approached the State Trooper, whispered something in the Trooper’s ear and I was quickly apologized to … with that both the TSA agent and the Trooper quickly leaving me alone.
The TSA has a major image problem right now, if you hadn’t heard. They’re already treading on a perilously thin line, quickly heading into invasion-of-privacy territory. So you’d think they’d train their officers, employees and the state police that work the airports of their clearly stated photography regulations. And maybe then those TSA personnel could instead focus on feeling up passengers.
The students of Berkeley in California are outraged by a proposed 8% hike in tuition cost and decided to protest it. This is where the police come in. Not only were they refusing to allow people into the public meeting but they were using excessive force (pointing guns at unarmed people) as well
Have you ever wondered who are the ones watching the watchmen?
Well, it’s people like Jacob Crawford of CopWatch in San Francisco, who learn the hard way that the watchmen do not like being watched and will do anything to blind your prying eyes.
Such as this unidentified female officer who attacked and unlawfully detained Crawford for videotaping her and asking questions that she refused to respond to but is legally obligated to answer. The officer also claimed, “You can’t film people who don’t want to be filmed,” after Crawford was handcuffed, lying face-down in the street, and surrounded by other cops.
Just so you know, former undercover officer, we can film you—and people like Jacob Crawford are going to continue watching you with their cameras. So get used to your newfound viral glory because our cameras are everywhere—actually protecting and serving the public.
More important, your actions were criminal, and if you weren’t a cop, you would be spending the night in jail with the other criminals.
Here’s Crawford’s account of what happened:
“On November 18th I was assaulted by Plain Clothes Officers. We started off our shift at 16th in Mission in Sf by seeing several strange people. I assumed them to be plain clothes officers because I could see vests under their shirts. When they refused to identify themselves I wondered whether indeed these were “on the job” cops. Many cities around the country are known for having rogue units that take the “law” into their own hands, or are involved in organized crime. As I questioned a woman on her involvement she grabbed my camera and ran at me. From all directions came men who neither identified themselves as cops or gave orders. I assumed I was getting attacked, and I was unsure of by who. As I ran into 16th street two cops cars pulled up with lights on, it was at that point that I stopped and let the arriving officers take me down. Within seconds they could see that the move was faulty, and they released me with no charge[.]”
A fish rots from the head down. Especially in the New Haven (CT) police department. That’s where Assistant Chief Ariel Melendez ordered the arrest of Luis Luna for filming an altercation with his iPhone one early morning in September. Luna, 26, says police took his iPhone, erased the video he took of officers breaking up a fight outside a bar, and then charged him with interfering with police. He spent the night in jail.
Assistant Chief Melendez noticed Luna and approached him “in a very intimidating manner,” Luna recalled. He asked what Luna was doing.
“I said, ‘Filming,’” Luna recalled. “He grabbed my phone and walked away.”
Melendez ordered officer Kristen Fitzgerald to arrest Luna for interfering.
“I just could not believe it,” Luna said.
Apparently this isn’t the first time police in New Haven have been caught harassing and even confiscating camera phones in the recent past. But still, Police Chief Frank Limon claims that he knows filming police is not illegal.
Assistant Chief Melendez didn’t get the memo though, despite 31 years on the force. He doesn’t mind using jackbooted tactics to enforce nonexistent laws. Know why? Because he knows he’ll get away with it.
boywithgrenade.org 