Much Ado About An Annoying Videographer

Virginia prosecutor Ken Lammers has a few interesting things to say about a video taken by a some kid who’s a political operative visiting the opposition camp. I’m going to disagree with Ken over this—oddly enough, I’ll be defending the cops—but first you might want to view the video. Or not.

In case you skipped the video—it’s nothing spectacular—it starts with a political rally at which some politician named Rossi is speaking to a bunch of off-duty cops. Then a few security guys start arguing with the kid taking the video and hustle him out of the room and onto the sidewalk. A uniformed cop asks him for ID, and then goes to talk with the off-duty cop who brought him out. The kid walks up to the cops, and they order him to get away. Then the video ends.

I’ve seen this video before, and I was planning to ignore it, but in light of Ken’s comments, I’ll just make a few observations.

First of all, as far as I can tell, the videographer wasn’t being disruptive. He just quietly filmed the proceedings, along with members of the media, until the security guys started messing with him. If this Rossi guy is afraid of being videotaped by the opposition, he’s kind of a pussy. Once he’s elected, he’ll be fair game for lots of media, so if he can’t tolerate it, he’s got no business in office.

On the other hand, when you’re on private property, the people controlling the property have the right to tell you to leave. The videographer kid probably entered legally on the grounds that—as Lammers quotes the statute— “The premises were at the time open to members of the public” or he “reasonably believed that the owner of the premises, or other person empowered to license access thereto, would have licensed him to enter or remain.” But once he was asked to leave, he pretty much had to leave.

(There’s some question of whether he was told not to enter before the video began, but I’m just going on what we see in the video.)

Once the confrontation begins, Ken and I both agree that the videographer turns into a whiny jackass, saying “I’m not doing anything” over and over. That may have been true, but it’s kind of beside the point. It’s their property. They don’t have to have a reason to kick him out.

My first disagreement with Ken is about what happens when the kid goes over to tape the cop he was just talking to:

To top it all off, when the officer called to the scene walks down the street to talk to the complainant (off duty officer) and the kid follows right behind them filming it crosses over into harrassment.

Nope. Taping a police officer going about his duty in public is a perfectly legitimate newsgathering technique. It may annoy the cop, but that’s a small price to pay for a free press. Also, the cop has an easy remedy, which he used: He ordered the kid to step back.

Please note, I didn’t say he broke the law; people are obnoxious all the time without breaking the law. This kid is doing what we’re all starting to see over and over in the age of YouTube, he is doing his best to provoke in a manner which will allow him to claim innocence.

Maybe, but it’s still a legitimate thing for a reporter to do. And it doesn’t matter that he’s not a “real” reporter either. Freedom of the press isn’t just for the fair and balanced press.

The second place where Ken and I differ is with how the cops handled all this:

As for the police officers, I don’t think they handled the situation well either. Not because they went overboard, but because they tried to handle it in what I’ll call a “middle-way.” They were faced with a number of ways to handle this and they tried to talk it down. Personally, if I’m in an encounter with police I’d prefer that they use this method. However, in this case talking it down just plays to what the kid is trying to do; he gets a wonderful little thing to put up on YouTube.

From what I saw, I thought the uniformed cops did a terrific job. They were respectful and courteous to a fault, and not once did they tell the kid to stop rolling video. Unlike Rossi, they’re not afraid of people seeing what they’re doing.

In addition, no charges were filed. It’s clear they eventually diffused the situation, reducing strife and conflict in their city without wasting taxpayer dollars with an unnecessary arrest. A job well done.

There were two ways to handle this better (if we solely look toward the possibility of YouTube publication). One would have been to ignore the kid and let him film. Of course, that’s not the natural reaction of an officer who has given a warning and is seeing someone blatantly ignoring it and breaking the law.

Agreed.

The other would be to grab the kid, hustle him outside – as they did – and immediately arrest him, taking the camera and turning off the video right after stating “You are under arrest for trespassing after having been given notice not to come on this property” or something similar. It would have devalued the film and probably made it too short to be very interesting. They had probable cause and a whole bunch of credible witnesses to the trespassing; I’m pretty sure the charge would have stuck. But, hey, they tried not to be too big of jerks and consequently gave the kid his day on You Tube.

Here I strongly disagree: Preventing the kid from having his day on YouTube is not a legitimate police function. I’m guessing that the cops probably would have done about the same thing if he hadn’t been filming them. Why should the camera make them more aggressive?

Besides, wouldn’t an arrest have made this mess ten times bigger? The opposition media would be using every step through the legal system to revisit the incident. Now it’s just going to die a quiet death here in the blogosphere.