Atlanta Police Department won't hinder citizens who videotape cops

[Liberal_in_LA]

ADP won't hinder citizens who videotape cops

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Faced with complaints from a citizen watchdog group, Atlanta police will stop interfering with people who videotape officers performing their duties in public, an agreement reached with the city Thursday says

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The agreement resolves a complaint filed by Marlon Kautz and Copwatch of East Atlanta, a group that films police activity with cell phones and hand-held cameras. The group has volunteers who go out on patrols and begin videotaping police activity when they come across it.

Last April, Kautz said, he pulled out his camera phone and began recording Atlanta police who were arresting a suspect in Little Five Points. Two officers approached him and said he had no right to be filming them, Kautz said. When Kautz refused to stop, one officer wrenched Kautz's arm behind his back and yanked the camera out of his hands, he said.

"I was definitely scared," Kautz, 27, said.

Kautz said that when he asked to get his phone back, another officer said he'd return it only after Kautz gave him the password to the phone so he could delete the footage. When Kautz refused, police confiscated the phone, he said. When police returned it, Kautz said, the video images had been deleted, altered or damaged.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/apd-wont-hinder-citizens-834521.html?cxtype=rss_news

[Lindsay]

1. I hope the police

will honor the agreement.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. It's written down on paper!

;-)

[ohheckyeah]

2. .......

"We commend the city for resolving a long-standing problem of police interfering with citizens who monitor police activity," the group's lawyers, Gerry Weber and Dan Grossman, said.

Commend them? They only resolved it because they got sued. It is our right to film police in a public area as long as we don't interfere with their duties.

[XanaDUer]

4. Things that make you go hmmmmm

like, cops who don't allow themselves to be taped or photographed by the people whom they serve?

[Marblehead]

5. they don't serve the people

anymore