The danger of documenting the atrocity
by digby
I certainly hope that this doesn’t portend more retaliation:
Kevin Moore, the man who filmed Freddie Gray’s brutal arrest, has now himself been arrested following “harassment and intimidation” from Baltimore police.
Moore was arrested at gunpoint last night along with two other members of Cop Watch, agroup dedicated to filming and documenting police work.
His video of Gray’s arrest was shot shortly before the man suffered spinal injuries while in police custody that led to his death.
Moore claims that despite having co-operated with two detectives in the Baltimore Police Department’s Office of Internal Oversight and given them the video, police posted his photo and told the public that he was “wanted for questioning”, asking people to identify him.
“What is so important that you have to plaster my picture over the Internet? I’ve already spoken,” Moore said, suggesting that they posted it simply to intimidate him.
He was released a couple of hours after the arrest.
It’s hard to tell what the timeline is from these reports. It’s possible that the “wanted for questioning” notices were put out by the same police from Internal Oversight who eventually spoke with him. But it sounds as the notice may have been put out by other members of the police for different purposes. Who knows why they will say they arrested him? I’m sure they’ll say they have a reason.
In any case, there a many examples of police retaliating against those who film their actions. Some jurisdictions have tried to outlaw the practice. We often see cops trying to confiscate or destroy cameras. This one happened here in Southern california just the other day:
The woman in the video, Beatriz Paez, was apparently out for a walk when she came upon what appeared to be a massive federal operation in her neighborhood involving local bikers.
The video shows Paez standing away from the law enforcement officers, wearing tactical vests emblazoned with the word “POLICE,” holding her phone up as she records the scene and occasionally speaking to the officers.
At one point, a bald man in a tactical vest, safety glasses and a large gun slung over one shoulder runs up to the woman and grabs for her phone, wrestles it away from her, throws it on the ground and kicks it at her.
The smartest thing that the fellow who took the video of the murder of Walter Scott did was come forward and make himself a household name. It undoubtedly would have been very dangerous if he hadn’t done it.
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