6 ms·

When a journalist steps beyond being a journalist and turns into an activist, of course they’re going to get arrested if they break the law. Just because someon

When a journalist steps beyond being a journalist and turns into an activist, of course they’re going to get arrested if they break the law. Just because someone is a journalist does not give them a pass from breaking the law.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> Just because someone is a journalist does not give them a pass from breaking the law. I’m entirely on the side of real journalism so it was interacting to see some people that thought a press badge meant they didn’t need to also follow police orders.
- pas 6y ago
  Not following police order is grounds for arrest, not for getting a riot shield bashed into one's face.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    I don't know about the US, but here in Canada not following police orders is not by itself grounds for arrest. It has to be a lawful order, not whatever the police fancies at the moment. The police cannot for example say "stop filming or I will arrest you" and be able to legally justify that arrest in the court of law. https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-escalator-handrail-ruling/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-es...
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      It was a dispersal order to leave a riot so the crowd can be controlled, not an order to stop filming. There’s no other legal and humane way to deal with rioters amongst a crowd. Even if you aren’t being violent or breaking anything, you have to leave when told to do so.
      - pas 6y ago
        Let me copy my comment here too - sorry for the spam. "In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job." The professional way is to identify the instigators/leaders in the crowd and extract them one by one. Also to constantly move the crowd street by street - toward less narrow places. > You have to leave when told to do so. And if you don't they might arrest you. Standing there is no cause for smashing faces. They can simply grab the closest persons to the police line, bring them behind the line, arrest them. No need to lash out. This gets the message across. If the crowd starts to escalate, sure, water jets. But even that's usually completely unnecessary. Just pick up the trouble makers one-by-one, usually that means less than a dozen people. Because if there really is an organized fanatical crowd then the police would likely withdraw, like they did in Seattle "zone".
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      It's not, which is why you see people arrested this way getting released without charges. It's an intimidation tactic, and the officers face zero consequences for employing it. "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" and all that.
      - smnrchrds 6y ago
        Toronto police did very similar things during the 2010 G20 Toronto summit protests. Then chief of Toronto Police is now a cabinet minister. I don't want to insinuate that this kind of behaviour does not happen in Canada. It certainly does, but it doesn't make it right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX0BbLc_PIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX0BbLc_PIk
    - pnw_hazor 6y ago
      Same in the US. But, people are required to obey police commands, unlawful or not, and then seek remedy from the courts afterwards. And, there is usually a narrow self-defense exception. One can lawfully resist if the police are unlawfully trying to kill you.
      - pas 6y ago
        In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job.
  - passerby1 6y ago
    Can officer give some absurd order just as cause to arrest someone?
    - pnw_hazor 6y ago
      Generally, yes. Victims of this tactic are required to obey the absurd orders and then seek remedy from the courts afterward. There are exceptions related to orders to break the law, put oneself or others into danger, and so on. For example, if you resist arrest, the underlying charge may get dropped for lack of evidence but the resisting arrest charges may remain. Though, the resisting arrest charges (or obstruction charges) may get dropped too depending on the prosecuting agency's policies.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  It depends on the police order. Order someone to step to the side for public safety? Probably alright. Probably. Unless it's obvious that what they really mean is "Step so you can't see what I'm about to do." Order someone to stop filming? Spot-check your First Amendment training and get back to me. Or give that order again, on camera.
smnrchrds 6y ago
Breaking the law like filming police violence for example: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/29/minneapolis-protests-omar-jimenez-arrested-newday-vpx.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/29/minneapolis-protest... Watch the video and tell me how that arrest was justified.
- manfredo 6y ago
  What was the person filming arrested for? I know many in Seattle were arrested for violating curfews or dispersal orders, and proceeded to claim that they were arrested for filming. They weren't arrested for filming, they were arrested because they harbored ill-conceived views that declaring oneself a journalist exempted them from curfews and orders to disperse and proceeded to violate them.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    > Jimenez could be seen holding his CNN badge while reporting, identifying himself as a reporter, and telling the officers the crew would move wherever officers needed them to. An officer gripped his arm as Jimenez talked, then put him in handcuffs. > Police told the crew they were being detained because they were told to move and didn't, one member of the CNN crew relayed to the network. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arrested/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arres... If you can simply not imagine the police arresting someone for no reason, or for challenging their unlawful assertion of authority, or so they can beat up protesters more effectively away from the watchful eyes of the press, no amount of evidence is going to convince you otherwise. But please, consider that police misbehaviour is at the very least a possibility.
    - manfredo 6y ago
      > Police told the crew they were being detained because they were told to move and didn't, one member of the CNN crew relayed to the network. Right, they were violating an order to disperse or a curfew. Again, being a journalist doesn't bestow some special rights that lets you ignore the police when they issue an order to disperse or set a curfew. When people are looting and burning stuff down, the law has provisions to let the police say "this is out of hand, the only way we have to restore peace is to tell everyone to get out of the area". And when people ignore those orders they're violating the law and subject to arrest. And so are CNN's journalists. Being a journalist doesn't bestow any special rights. You can disagree with whether it was appropriate to order people disperse in this situation. But what is certain is that your previous comment was spreading falsehood: they weren't arrested for filming police, they were arrested for ignoring an order to disperse or a curfew. I'd come off as a lot less deceptive if you were transparent about the real reason for the arrest in your previous comment. It's 40 minutes old at the time of my writing this so you have at least an hour to edit it.
pas 6y ago
Yes, well, of course, indubitably, those pesky activists with press passes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pti6ZiH7dQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pti6ZiH7dQ The age old crime of filming crime.
PeterisP 6y ago
This argument would be valid if the arrested journalists were in fact breaking the law, but it's not the case - the vast majority of the arrests ended up with prosecutors declining to press charges as the detainees were not breaking any laws. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/protests-lawsuits-arrests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/protests-lawsuits-arre... has some overview, of course the actual pdf linked in the original article has more detail as well.
jerry1979 6y ago
How many of the arrested journalists "stepped beyond" their duty? It appears that the police harmed journalists during the journalists' regular course of duty: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journalists-blinded-injured-arrested-covering-george-floyd-protests/5299374002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journa...
ska 6y ago
The implicit assumption here is that those journalists who got arrested did so because they broke the law, not because of misbehaviour on the part of the police. There seems to be at least enough evidence of the plausibility of the latter that the assumption is far too strong to offer without evidence.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

> Just because someone is a journalist does not give them a pass from breaking the law. I’m entirely on the side of real journalism so it was interacting to see some people that thought a press badge meant they didn’t need to also follow police orders.

pas 6y ago
Not following police order is grounds for arrest, not for getting a riot shield bashed into one's face.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  I don't know about the US, but here in Canada not following police orders is not by itself grounds for arrest. It has to be a lawful order, not whatever the police fancies at the moment. The police cannot for example say "stop filming or I will arrest you" and be able to legally justify that arrest in the court of law. https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-escalator-handrail-ruling/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-es...
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    It was a dispersal order to leave a riot so the crowd can be controlled, not an order to stop filming. There’s no other legal and humane way to deal with rioters amongst a crowd. Even if you aren’t being violent or breaking anything, you have to leave when told to do so.
    - pas 6y ago
      Let me copy my comment here too - sorry for the spam. "In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job." The professional way is to identify the instigators/leaders in the crowd and extract them one by one. Also to constantly move the crowd street by street - toward less narrow places. > You have to leave when told to do so. And if you don't they might arrest you. Standing there is no cause for smashing faces. They can simply grab the closest persons to the police line, bring them behind the line, arrest them. No need to lash out. This gets the message across. If the crowd starts to escalate, sure, water jets. But even that's usually completely unnecessary. Just pick up the trouble makers one-by-one, usually that means less than a dozen people. Because if there really is an organized fanatical crowd then the police would likely withdraw, like they did in Seattle "zone".
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    It's not, which is why you see people arrested this way getting released without charges. It's an intimidation tactic, and the officers face zero consequences for employing it. "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" and all that.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      Toronto police did very similar things during the 2010 G20 Toronto summit protests. Then chief of Toronto Police is now a cabinet minister. I don't want to insinuate that this kind of behaviour does not happen in Canada. It certainly does, but it doesn't make it right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX0BbLc_PIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX0BbLc_PIk
  - pnw_hazor 6y ago
    Same in the US. But, people are required to obey police commands, unlawful or not, and then seek remedy from the courts afterwards. And, there is usually a narrow self-defense exception. One can lawfully resist if the police are unlawfully trying to kill you.
    - pas 6y ago
      In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job.
- passerby1 6y ago
  Can officer give some absurd order just as cause to arrest someone?
  - pnw_hazor 6y ago
    Generally, yes. Victims of this tactic are required to obey the absurd orders and then seek remedy from the courts afterward. There are exceptions related to orders to break the law, put oneself or others into danger, and so on. For example, if you resist arrest, the underlying charge may get dropped for lack of evidence but the resisting arrest charges may remain. Though, the resisting arrest charges (or obstruction charges) may get dropped too depending on the prosecuting agency's policies.
shadowgovt 6y ago
It depends on the police order. Order someone to step to the side for public safety? Probably alright. Probably. Unless it's obvious that what they really mean is "Step so you can't see what I'm about to do." Order someone to stop filming? Spot-check your First Amendment training and get back to me. Or give that order again, on camera.

smnrchrds 6y ago

Breaking the law like filming police violence for example: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/29/minneapolis-protests-omar-jimenez-arrested-newday-vpx.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/29/minneapolis-protest... Watch the video and tell me how that arrest was justified.

manfredo 6y ago
What was the person filming arrested for? I know many in Seattle were arrested for violating curfews or dispersal orders, and proceeded to claim that they were arrested for filming. They weren't arrested for filming, they were arrested because they harbored ill-conceived views that declaring oneself a journalist exempted them from curfews and orders to disperse and proceeded to violate them.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > Jimenez could be seen holding his CNN badge while reporting, identifying himself as a reporter, and telling the officers the crew would move wherever officers needed them to. An officer gripped his arm as Jimenez talked, then put him in handcuffs. > Police told the crew they were being detained because they were told to move and didn't, one member of the CNN crew relayed to the network. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arrested/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arres... If you can simply not imagine the police arresting someone for no reason, or for challenging their unlawful assertion of authority, or so they can beat up protesters more effectively away from the watchful eyes of the press, no amount of evidence is going to convince you otherwise. But please, consider that police misbehaviour is at the very least a possibility.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    > Police told the crew they were being detained because they were told to move and didn't, one member of the CNN crew relayed to the network. Right, they were violating an order to disperse or a curfew. Again, being a journalist doesn't bestow some special rights that lets you ignore the police when they issue an order to disperse or set a curfew. When people are looting and burning stuff down, the law has provisions to let the police say "this is out of hand, the only way we have to restore peace is to tell everyone to get out of the area". And when people ignore those orders they're violating the law and subject to arrest. And so are CNN's journalists. Being a journalist doesn't bestow any special rights. You can disagree with whether it was appropriate to order people disperse in this situation. But what is certain is that your previous comment was spreading falsehood: they weren't arrested for filming police, they were arrested for ignoring an order to disperse or a curfew. I'd come off as a lot less deceptive if you were transparent about the real reason for the arrest in your previous comment. It's 40 minutes old at the time of my writing this so you have at least an hour to edit it.

pas 6y ago

Yes, well, of course, indubitably, those pesky activists with press passes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pti6ZiH7dQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pti6ZiH7dQ The age old crime of filming crime.

PeterisP 6y ago

This argument would be valid if the arrested journalists were in fact breaking the law, but it's not the case - the vast majority of the arrests ended up with prosecutors declining to press charges as the detainees were not breaking any laws. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/protests-lawsuits-arrests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/protests-lawsuits-arre... has some overview, of course the actual pdf linked in the original article has more detail as well.

jerry1979 6y ago

How many of the arrested journalists "stepped beyond" their duty? It appears that the police harmed journalists during the journalists' regular course of duty: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journalists-blinded-injured-arrested-covering-george-floyd-protests/5299374002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journa...

ska 6y ago

The implicit assumption here is that those journalists who got arrested did so because they broke the law, not because of misbehaviour on the part of the police. There seems to be at least enough evidence of the plausibility of the latter that the assumption is far too strong to offer without evidence.