Officer Makes Up Laws To Enforce

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions today's video comes to us from accountability media's channel be sure to check out their channel in the description below and give them the credit that they deserve this episode covers regulations versus statutes photography of military installations and outdated legislation let's dive right in and audit the audit on April 30th 2019 accountability media attempted a first amendment audit at the Joint Base myer-henderson Hall in Arlington Virginia where he was initially contacted and detained by officer Daniel of the base Police Force pending the arrival of his superior are you I'm sorry you're using me when you say stand by say again are you detaining me when you say stand by or just stay right here oh you are detaining me yes so we can I'm just reaching for my phone nothing else it is for 13 p.m. and JB mhh police officer Daniel is detaining me so do you have a reason you're videotaping an interest to military installation not one that you need to know sir so what does your ranks are okay just stand by I just during the wait MP Widman and officer Lewis arrived on scene conduct a terry frisk and attempt to question the auditor why are you filming us right honey on the public sidewalk yeah no but you this is the gate function can it can't be taken today it's not the law or is that is that with just what you're saying right now officer Lewis gives the art of their of verbal notice that he is not allowed to record the security checkpoint this is important information for later in the video it's not against federal law sir right so your regulations whatever regulations apply to you on that installation do not apply to me on this public sidewalk in order to grasp the full spectrum of legal nuance at play during this interaction it is important to highlight the distinction between statutes and regulations laws passed by the legislature are generally known as statutes often legislatures passed statutes that outline general guidelines and then within that law authorized agencies to nail down the specifics of the process and enforcement regulations are laws created by agencies and usually must be authorized by and are subordinate to statutes if a law existed which broadly prohibited photographing or video in military checkpoints in the military had created regulations to enforce that law then they would apply to the auditor and the general public in this case no such law exists I'm on public property and I'm not doing anything illegal that's pretty much the start and end of that story to eventually the acting supervisor Staff Sergeant hook arrives and makes contact with the auditor okay sir well allow me to see if I can answer your question okay so there is a congressional letter that is out I'm pretty sure you'll know which one I'm talking about the Congressional letter states that you didn't take pictures and video of a building structure and architect however you cannot take video or picture of a building access control point or an access control point to a military installation and what this is is an access control point to a military installation however with that being said you can take video of the first line which is a structure all right you can take pictures over here of the structure which is a which is a wall which is in structure however fort is that you're taking video of a access control point which is against the congressional congressional letters are not legislation and hold no legal value what staff sergeant hook is likely referring to is the operational readiness order originally issued by the US Department of Homeland Security in 2010 and reissued in 2018 this order which was disseminated to all federal protection service personnel and officers reiterates the 2010 guidance it provides clarification on the public's right to photograph publicly accessible federal facility building entrances lobbies for years corridors and auditoriums and directs FPS law enforcement personnel to maintain security without adversely impacting the public's rights relating to photography and videotaping the order clearly states that photography and videotaping absent a criminal predicate is a First Amendment protected activity however there is a clause in the order which grant an exception to areas where security regulations rules orders or directives apply pending that the prohibition is clearly posted or an actual in-person notice is given which officer Lewis did earlier in the video so a congressional letter is not a piece of legislation this is where the legalities surrounding this interaction become fuzzy and hearkened back to a similar incident in 2014 involving two journalists from Toledo Ohio the blade' newspaper on March 28th 2014 blade photographer Jetta Frazier reportedly took photos of the joint systems manufacturing center in Lima Ohio while standing in a small roadway between a public street and the guard hut at the facility's entrance when she tried to leave with blade reporter Tyrell linked Horne military police detained and questioned them confiscated their cameras deleted their photos and sent them on their way days later the newspaper filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the military police had interfered with the journalists lawful exercise of their First Amendment rights the commanding officer of the facility declared that the MPS were acting lawfully citing that it was against army regulations to photograph the restricted base but did not provide the specific regulations the only relevant statute that the journalists could find which pertained to their case was 18 US Code 795 which prohibits photographing or sketching certain military installations which the president deems vital military members often cite Code 795 has grounds for detaining civilians taking photos of military bases but the law is often misrepresented and essentially only applies to areas and equipment which are already deemed classified under no circumstances this code 795 grant the authority to create regulations which infringe upon citizens First Amendment rights to public photography the blade eventually settled their lawsuit outside of the courtroom for a sum of $18,000 and like Lee surrendered a chance to challenge the constitutionality of code 795 when it comes to access control point which is a security measure you cannot take video or pictures of a security measure the security regulations exceptions which the Homeland Security's operational readiness order refers to must be properly supported by coinciding statutes it is likely that code 795 would be the law cited to support any regulations which prohibit photography of a military security checkpoint from a public place if accountability media were to file a lawsuit against the officers involved in the department as a whole it would likely provide ample opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of code 795 this code is an antiquated piece of legislation which fails to account for the proliferation of visual information in the public's right to create and access that information any person with access to the Internet is able to view satellite images which display intimate details of the bases layout without ever leaving their home an exact image of the gate which accountability media was filming is available on Google Maps if challenged there's a good chance that code 795 would be ruled unconstitutional and either abolished or thoroughly rewritten sir when you are on public property you can take video and pictures of anything that you can see after refusing to leave the auditor is placed in handcuffs and put into the back of a patrol car for nearly 30 minutes where he is eventually released by Detective Mitchell you don't have a public incident report that you're gonna you're gonna file there will be police journal entry that's done in which you can do a FOIA request Freedom of Information request not sure if you I've done them before yeah okay you can do that do that if you want that's okay okay all right could I possibly ask your name again I'm not going to get that okay and do you have reasonable articulable suspicion I have committed and committing or about to commit a crime at this time though okay by myself yeah that was unacceptable I'm I'm sure that you guys are going to take corrective action against against those officers that are involved I'm sure your any doing that either guy if you believe that there was some time unacceptable action I mean a little detainment to start that would encourage you there is a Jo I'll be filing complaints I'm sure but and I might file a lawsuit but you know obviously I'm just telling you man to man clearly you guys need to get your house in order okay there again what do you mean by that I mean you need to take corrective action because you cannot do that to people who are not committing a crime you cannot pluck citizens up off a public sidewalk without any suspicion that they have committed a crime detain them for over half an hour it was probably 450 when you released me I was detained at 4:13 to clarify as soon as I saw your in custody I understood that you did that but they did release your your your police department okay your police force I assume it's not the department but a force it's a department your Police Department illegally detained me for over 35 minutes certain with no reasonable articulable suspicion I had committed was committed that I had committed was committing or was about to commit a crime that's what I'm telling you okay you know based off of water you what are you basing that off because you have told me there's no reasonable articulable sisters not mean there none of them were able to articulate anything either when I asked them they didn't tell me a crime I was being detained for okay where's the legal precedent to tell us citizen what they're being detained for yes detective Mitchell is correct it is a common misconception that law enforcement officers are required to inform citizens of why they are being arrested or what probable cause led to their arrests or detainment while it is true the officers must have reasonable and articulable suspicion that a crime has or is about to occur there is no legal precedent which has established a citizen's rights to know why they are being detained or arrested you have to have reasonable articulable suspicion that and you will need to explain that to that you generally further will take said they don't have with me reasonable they didn't they didn't say they couldn't produce the lot they said they didn't have reasonable articulable suspicion and so I'm not gonna further yeah I don't I don't need arguing with you either I'm just trying to tell you I'm going to take my own little action to follow up on this but I would highly recommend that you take corrective action as well you to overall accountability media gets an A for standing his ground and not allowing the flawed logic of the officers to infringe upon his constitutionally protected rights I sincerely hope that accountability media follows up this encounter with legal action and ultimately challenges the constitutionality of code 795 it would be great to see code 795 struck down and replaced with a more modern statute which accurately balances the right of public photography with the security of military installations officer Daniel officer Lewis and MP Whitman all get a c-minus it has become standard practice among members of the military to wield code seven nine five as a weapon to detain public photographers and these officers followed suit although they did not specifically cite the code it is fairly safe to speculate that code seven nine five was the root of why they detained the auditor none of these officers were properly informed on the laws they were using to detain the auditor however they also did not go out of their way to violate the auditors rights staff sergeant hook gets an F for completely fabricating the language of a congressional letter and detaining the auditor on the basis of a document that doesn't even exist or hold any legal merit anyone in a supervisory position should be well versed on the rights of citizens and the limits of their authority if staff sergeant hook serves as an example of the leadership among the officers of the JB mhh Police Department then it is no surprise that his subordinates are missing for detective Mitchell gets an a-minus for immediately releasing the auditor from the detention of the other officers engaging in a dialogue with the auditor and instructing the auditor on the proper channels to retrieve the information he was requesting let us know if there's a video you would like us to audit or a topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below and don't forget to Like and subscribe for more police interaction content [Music]

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 1,507,225

Rating: 4.781827 out of 5

Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: 1EZDLYPj3lY

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Someone failed high school civics classes.. You need a minimum of a masters level education in law to be a lawyer and a GED to be cop... Can't imagine where the problem is with our system.

[u/goat-head-man]

Full original video here.