Connecticut Cop Arrested After Pulling Gun On Cop Who Photographed Him
Fellow officers thought it would be funny to photograph David Davis, a Connecticut railroad police officer, sleeping at his desk while on shift.
They probably didn’t expect Davis to wake up, pull out his gun and point at the officer who had just taken his picture.
“No one’s taking pictures today,” Davis told John Freeman.
According to the Connecticut Post:
Freeman yelled at Davis to put the gun away, but Davis continued to track his movements with the gun pointed at Freeman’s head and his finger on the trigger, police said. After Freeman yelled at Davis a second time, Davis put the gun back in its holster, police said. Freeman then left the office.
Police said Freeman reported the incident to MTA Internal Affairs. Following an investigation, Davis was suspended for two weeks. However, Freeman subsequently pursued the matter and the case was turned over to Bridgeport police.
The incident took place in February. He was arrested Friday.
Davis, 51, a Metro-North Railroad police officer, is now facing first-degree reckless endangerment charges.
Officer Freeman. If you are reading this, please send the photo to the email below, so we can all get a laugh.
Please send stories, tips and videos to carlosmiller@magiccitymedia.com.
Illinois Judge: Law Barring Recording Police Is Unconstitutional
March 3, 2012 Posted by Phantom Report
Source: Ars Technica
In Cook County today Judge Stanley J. Sacks declared Illinois’ eavesdropping law—which is one of the toughest in the nation—unconstitutional in his ruling in the case of Christopher Drew, who was charged with the felony crime in 2009.
The eavesdropping law prohibits citizens from making audio or visual recordings of others without every recorded person’s explicit consent. Sixty-year-old artist Drew audio-recorded his interaction with a police officer who was arresting him for selling art patches at the side of the road. A police officer found the tape recorder and Drew found himself with a Class 1 felony charge, which carries up to 15 years in prison. “That’s one step below attempted murder,” Drew said in a January interview with the New York Times.
A citizen’s right to record police has certainly been a contentious topic of debate recently. The First Circuit US Court of Appeals has considered whether making recordings of police with the recording device in plain sight is considered a secret recording or not, and a Miami photojournalist was arrested and had his videos of police activity deleted while he was detained.
In this particular case, however, Judge Sacks seemed to declare Illinois’ law unconstitutional not because it’s a citizen’s right to record interactions between the police and the public, but because the law was too far-reaching.
“The Illinois Eavesdropping Statute potentially punishes as a felony a wide array of wholly innocent conduct,” noted Judge Sacks in his opinion, according to the Sun-Times. “A parent making an audio recording of their child’s soccer game, but in doing so happens to record nearby conversations, would be in violation of the Eavesdropping Statute.”
Judge says recording police stop OK in NH
Citing a federal appeals court ruling, a Goffstown District Court judge dismissed a charge of unlawful wiretapping against a Weare man who used his cell phone’s voice mail to record a traffic stop by a police officer.
Chicago Woman Groped By Cop Found Innocent of Eavesdropping
Although she was acquitted last week, Tiawanda Moore, 20, remains a casualty of an upside-down justice system that treats alleged victims of sexual assault like criminals—and a media that subtly reinforces this dynamic.
Moore’s transformation from a private citizen into an accidental symbol of systemic failure began last July, shortly after an explosive dispute with her then-boyfriend at his apartment on the South Side of Chicago. Her boyfriend called police and reportedly requested that they help eject Moore from the unit. However, by the time two patrolmen arrived, the couple had reconciled. Police rightfully interviewed Moore and her boyfriend separately. But during Moore’s interview, which took place in the couple’s bedroom, the officer allegedly groped her breast and gave her his home phone number.
In August, Moore filed a complaint about the officer’s conduct and agreed to meet with Internal Affairs at police headquarters. According to activists close to the case, she arrived with her boyfriend, who intended to serve as a witness, but IA officials immediately told him to go home or wait for Moore at McDonalds.
During the meeting, IA authorities insisted that she drop her complaint because the officer in question was “a good guy.” Frustrated, Moore pressed “record” on her BlackBerry and captured the officers’ stonewalling. “I think this is something we can handle, without having to go through this process and even have you come in…” an officer says on the recording. “If all you want is to make sure he doesn’t bother you again, we can almost guarantee that given that we’re going to be able to speak to his superiors.”
When investigators realized that Moore was recording, they arrested and charged her —for eavesdropping. In Illinois, which has particularly stringent eavesdropping laws, recording a police officer without his or her consent is a Class 1 felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Read the article. They go on to discuss how the media paints her image as a former stripper, something irrelevant to it all. A young black woman, with a former adult industry past and sexual assault against white cops in Chicago. The end of the article has some decent q & a about race, class, and gender too.
(via riellevobi)
