Police Detain Drone Pilot For Filming Protest

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers drone laws faa regulations and reasonable suspicion and is brought to us by the gilbert bystanders channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve on september 24 2020 the gilbert bystander who i will refer to as mr bystander was flying his drone around the intersection of south gilbert road and east warner road in gilbert arizona where weekly protests had been occurring in the wake of george floyd and brianna taylor mr bystander was documenting the protest from a nearby location when he was confronted by officer gehan officer strickland and officer nunez of the gilbert police department how are you doing today good i don't really want to talk to you guys too bad i'm also strickland with goodwill police department the reason i'm contacting you today is you're flying a drone block above our operation let's find it on the above the the side of the street okay well per ars 13-37 it's a unlawful operation of a model from an aircraft okay above a police operation you are that is a police operation i have video i was do you have id with you sir i don't have id perfect i can write it down it's hard to hear you guys are making me really nervous what's your first name you guys are making me really nervous are you failing to identify yourself hold on i want to talk to you guys first let's find talk to us so what you need to say i have video that it wasn't above a police if you officer to write me a ticket i'll show you on court all right well what's your first name then you need to identify yourself though so what if you're able to identify yourself you will be arrested okay i'm weighing my options here okay let me help you out state law says when you're being detained by a police officer under suspicion of a possible crime you have to you have to identify yourself using your name and date of birth okay i would i don't agree that there was any crime broken i know that doesn't matter that's for the courts to decide unlicensed with the faa um you guys don't have any control over air space you do have control over ars and yeah well yeah i just quoted i wasn't above um any police operation that the whole intersection is a police operation right now and you're unwilling to show us that you weren't as the use of drones becomes more prevalent more states are debating the regulations and legislation surrounding their use and much of that legislation is warranted given that there are over 1.1 million recreational drones registered with the federal aviation administration since 2013 at least 44 states have enacted laws addressing drones and an additional three states have adopted resolutions arizona is no exception and the code that the officers are referring to arizona revised statute 13-3729 provides a brief outline of the legalities surrounding drones in the copper state subsection a2 of the code states that it is unlawful for a person to operate a model aircraft or a civil unmanned aircraft if the operation interferes with a law enforcement firefighter or emergency services operation there are no sections of the code that specifically state that drones cannot be flown over a police operation it should be noted that subsection a1 of the code essentially authorizes arizona officers to enforce faa regulations and i was unable to locate any faa regulations that specifically pertain to flying a drone over a non-emergency police operation considering that the police operation that officer strickland was referring to was taking place in public it is highly unlikely that it would be off limits to being filmed by a drone so long as the drone does not directly interfere with the operation you guys are making me nervous why are you nervous because you guys are surrounding me you guys have been hassling me for days can i get your name and badge number please it's right here so you talked about how i um won't show you how i'm flying my drone legally and i don't want to be a jerk and i mean this respectfully it's not my job to prove that i did something illegal it's your it's your job to prove it's your job to prove that i did something illegal this is a public space yes i do have line of sight on my drone because i was flying i see the intersection i was flying it from right over here and you can see you can see clear all the way over there this is my boss here what's your name badge number sir jimmy waddy 438 um thank you um um i i first i want to talk to you about something really quick okay what's your name so i know who i'm talking about you can call me a good citizen for right now no i'd like your name not a good citizen i just i j i just want to know which law that i broke because i'm i wasn't above directly above anybody the rule says that you can't interfere with the police activity which i absolutely did not do you have your pilot certificate or your uas certificate i do um your guy says that it's illegal to be above a police activity that's not true it's illegal to interfere with the police activity right something i did not do uh faa rules no state or city law says that you can't fly above people yes what do you think he says you cannot fly above people unless you're part of that group the faa's regulation of drones began in 2012 with the faa modernization and reform act which approved non-commercial flights under 400 feet if they followed advisory circular 91-57 which was the operating standards for model aircraft that was published in 1981 the modernization and reform act also set a deadline of september 30th 2015 for the agency to establish regulations to allow the use of commercial drones in early 2015 the faa began experimenting with news agencies to determine the efficacy of the use of drones for news gathering and on june 21 2016 the faa released part 107 which required commercial drone operators to obtain a remote pilot certificate the special rule for model aircraft within part 107 governed the recreational use of drones and allowed hobbyists to fly an unrestricted airspace below 400 feet without a license and with few limitations on october 5th 2018 president trump signed the faa reauthorization act of 2018 which applied slightly more stringent rules to operating recreational drones many of the rules established in the reauthorization act overlap with the standard set forth in part 107 but the new laws of the reauthorization act banned flying drones over groups of people who were not participating in the drone's flight the language of the laws were relatively vague and did not offer a specific definition for what exactly constitutes a group of people so it is debatable whether mr bystander actually flew over a group of people at any point and he assured me that he took precautions to avoid flying over anyone all that said the faa does advise against flying over public events but i was unable to locate any specific language in the bill that outlaws doing so while the faa may advise against flying over public events it appears as though there are no legally binding statutes that reinforce that recommendation without the actual footage from the drone it is impossible to verify whether mr bystander did or did not fly over anyone and we will discuss whether the officers had reasonable suspicion to make contact with mr bystander in a moment and and you are interfering because we have our own drone we're trying to fly above this operation you're not finding that it doesn't matter we can't deploy it if you're up there flying around yeah yeah but what i wouldn't be able to do is interfere so you putting your drone above there is interfering us from deploying ours if you want um you said that on camera i would be careful what you say is the law i'm just be careful what you say is the law because i know the rules very very well okay and i know that you guys don't like me why why do you say that because um you've hassled me before you've talked about halfway when have i hassled you why you should like why you shake i understand why you're so nervous because you guys i'm engaged in a lawful activity and you guys come up and surround me and ask me a bunch of questions make me think that i'm breaking the law try to convince me that i'm breaking the law even and i'm not i decided ars that's all i did you cited it incorrectly it's not it's not it's not directly from it's not illegal to fly above a police operation it's illegal to interfere with the police operation it is unlawful for you to fly it over where other people are at and where you're flying you're talking about the sidewalks and the intersection there are people there i have video that i did not fly above anybody directly i did some circles above you can see me going but there's no state law that says you can't fly above anybody that's an fa regulation and if you want to report me to the faa that's the information to do it we are investigating what we believe is not lawful activity and which crime would it be we think that you were flying that where you shouldn't have been flying it okay that's why we're contacting you you're investigating the users have already explained to you that under arizona revised statute if somebody has violated the faa laws that that is a criminal offense which uh that's i'm explaining things to you before you end up in handcuffs okay okay what would i end up in handcuffs because we have a town ordinance that says when a police officer is investigating potential criminal activity or even civil violations if a person does not comply with the request for identification they are guilty of a misdemeanor and can be arrested mr bystander provided me with his drone's flight path that sparked this interaction and it does show his drone flying over the event although mr bystander may have been careful not to fly directly over anyone the fact that he flew so close to the event may have granted the officers the reasonable suspicion necessary to make contact with him if the officers witnessed the drone flying near a group of people and legitimately thought that the drone had passed over them then the officers would be within their authority to investigate whether or not a crime was committed arizona revised statute 13-24-12 states that it is unlawful for a person after being advised that the person's refusal to answer is unlawful to fail or refuse to state the person's true full name on request of a peace officer who has lawfully detained the person based on reasonable suspicion that the person is committed is committing or is about to commit a crime and that a person detained under this section shall state the person's true full name but shall not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of a peace officer the sergeant also refers to section 42-180 of the gilbert code of ordinances which contains very similar language to ars 13-24-12 if mr bystander were to challenge the legality of the stop there is a good chance that the officers would be entitled to qualified immunity considering that the laws and faa regulations surrounding the use of drones are extremely new and courts have granted officers qualified immunity for much less in the past and i am now informing you if you do not identify who you are to us you are going to be arrested for failure to obey a police officer do you understand that i understand that um now that you're accusing me of uh and now they're suspecting me of a specific crime of which i still don't know um i told you i'll tell you that you were flying over people where you shouldn't been flying over people i'm glad i don't know how much clearance i'm glad you said that um that flying over people is what you're suspecting me of doing the video abruptly ends there but i managed to get in contact with mr bystander to give his account of what happened after the video ended so i had provided my name to the sergeant who was talking to me i provided my date of birth i let them know that i'm giving both of those pieces of information under duress and that i'm not providing any information consensually i felt that that was a good idea to say on camera the sergeant then vaguely suggested to me that they would be reporting me to the federal aviation administration for what i don't know um the sergeant then asked me if i had let air traffic control of the nearest airport know my plans to fly the drone in this area i let the sergeant know that i was flying in uncontrolled airspace meaning it is not within five miles of an airport the sergeants basically asked me if i'm aware that the if the intersection of gilbert road and warner road is uh 4.8 miles from chandler airport and i let him know that i i don't know anything about specific distances of the intersection but what i do know is that i'm flying in uncontrolled airspace per faa maps they were basically ready to let me go they said you have any other questions i asked them is this going to be an issue every time i'm flying my drone are you guys going to come bother me every time you see me flying they basically said if we believe that you're flying above people yes we will be seeing you i walked away went home and have not seen them since overall the gilbert officers get a b-minus because although they may have had reasonable suspicion to make contact with mr bystander the officers continually accused mr bystander of a series of escalating infractions that were not necessarily accurate and maintained relatively unprofessional behavior throughout the encounter first the officers accused mr bystander to flying over a group of people then they accused him of not having line of sight on his drone then it was interfering because they couldn't fly their drone there are no regulations that prevent two drones from occupying the same airspace so it is difficult to understand how mr bystanders drone would have impeded the officer's ability to fly their own the officers also made no effort to de-escalate the encounter and establish a positive relationship with mr bystander and instead chose to make snide remarks and accuse mr bystander of lying all that said the officers were within their authority to make contact with mr bystander and force him to identify himself the gilbert officers also chose not to cite mr bystander even though they certainly could have but whether or not that citation would have held up in court is debatable in an interaction that could have simply amounted to the officers informing mr bystander that he needs to be more careful about where he flies his drone the officers decided to force mr bystander to identify himself and threatened him with arrest although the officers were within their authority to conduct an investigation simply making consensual contact with mr bystander and informing him that what he was doing was dangerous would have likely rendered the same result but without the unnecessary intrusion into his privacy officer discretion played a major role in this interaction and much of the tension of this encounter could have been dissolved that the officers had made more of an effort to be friendly and understanding mr bystander gets a b plus because although he was not aware that the gilbert officer retained the authority to enforce faa regulations under ars 13-3729 he maintained a calm and collected demeanor throughout the encounter corrected the officer's misrepresentation of the code and eventually complied with the officer's request to identify himself once he understood that they did have reasonable suspicion it is difficult to fault mr bystander for being nervous and defensive considering how the officers approached him and the fact that he has had several negative experiences with the gilbert police department in the past but mr bystander may have benefited from invoking his right to remain silent and complying with the officers sooner nonetheless he did a good job of maintaining his composure and explaining that he believed his actions were lawful as mentioned before it is impossible to speculate on the legality of his flight without the drone footage mr bystander told me that he did not want to include the footage in the video for legal reasons mr bystander also informed me that he filed complaints against all of the officers involved in this encounter it will be interesting to see the outcome of those complaints and i recommend following the gilbert bystanders channel for more updates on his story let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe for more police interaction content you

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 319,809

Rating: 4.8608661 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: XlTjwRlvWWE

Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2020