Police Request Buffer When Making Arrests
Austin police are requesting that people stay at least 50 feet back when officers are making an arrest. Photo by flickr.com/photos/headovmetal.
The Austin Police Department is asking people to stay 50 to 60 feet away from an arrest after a cameraman was arrested last weekend for interfering with an arrest.
APD made the request to prevent cases such as Antonio Buehler’s, who was arrested while filming another APD arrest. Police say he was interfering, but Buehler says he was simply exercising his First Amendment rights. Constitutional law professor David Anderson at the University of Texas said each case presents too many variables to make a blanket judgment.
“They or any other citizen has a constitutional right to be in a public place, as long as they are on public property, and to take pictures of what’s transpiring in the public place,” Anderson said. “The limitation on that is that neither they nor anybody else has a right to interfere with the work of the police. So the question is that are they in fact interfering with the work.”
Buehler’s arrest was filmed by another member of Peaceful Streets, a volunteer group focused on ending “institutional violence” in Austin, according to their website. Video shows the person being arrested asking Buehler to stop filming. When the police urge Buehler to stop, he keeps taping, ignoring the police request.
This is Buehler’s second arrest for videotape interference. He says his group will still continue to document APD’s arrests.
How about no?
This request does nothing to encourage police to establish what they consider to be “interference”. This remains entirely at their discretion. That is what “caused” the arrests; they could, so they did. Furthermore, the “request” takes steps to formally declare a zone of exclusion for civil rights around any police activity, again at the police’s discretion. This doesn’t make citizens safer, and it chips away at our civil rights.
The compromise we are offered is NOT the only one we can choose. Citizens need to assert themselves. If police won’t kindly adopt some reasonable and constitutional limits, then we need to write those guidelines for them and impose them upon them. Are the People even “permitted” to limit their protector’s powers any more? I’m tired of seeing our rights take a back seat for the convenience of the police. One policy I would write is that it is NOT “interference” just because an officer is nervous about being recorded doing a poor job.
I, for one, do not look forward to the day when I can be tossed into the back of a van for violating a suddenly-declared “No-Camera Zone” while carrying my camera phone, by a Peace Officer who later says he was “confused” about official policy. Police and security companies, from the bottom on up to the top, need to take a refresher course in the United States Constitution. The signs we’re getting are that they’re not too familiar with it. Or worse, hold contempt for it.