Texas sheriffs confront man filming in public

a reply to: sdcigarpig

He did give his dob it is just edited out for privacy reasons. You see that text in the video and even hear him say the year 87.
And I would love for you to link the law that requires a citizen not under arrest or detained for suspicion of a crime to be req to give his address name and DOB. That is a papers check

I assumed he may possess a police scanner for proper "shot placement".

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Don't see how this was clearly set up... He would have to know for a fact that the cops were going to have 2 traffic stops going to set this up.
Just recording cops when you see them is not evidence of a set up

He didn't just record this one event we see, however. He admits in the recording that he did in fact record other traffic stops the same night. Not just one, but "stops", according to the conversation. I find it difficult to believe that, in a small town, he just happened to stumble across several traffic stops, on the same night he's ohotos of all the official buildings in town - police station, jail, courthouse. What other buildings did he photograph? I am betting none. Of course, we won't ever know, because he won't reveal any of that. I have recorded cops before. Once, right beside my house, when they pulled over a drunk driver. No one seemed to care. Had I shown up at other stops, though, and had I been seen taking pics of the police station, jail, and courthouse the same night, I have no doubt someone would have noticed, and asked what I was doing. With a facility in the area like what someone else mentioned, I'd worry if they didn't question such activity.

He could have had a police scanner in his vehicle, to get to and record the traffic stops. He could have had a friend alert him as well, to keep the scanner away from the scene. Had it been the one stop, and a single picture of a courthouse, as he claimed at the start, then I might be inclined to think he didn't set it up. When the other pictures and recording are mentioned by the cops, and he admits to them, after concealing them from us previously, I smell a rat.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

So I guess we need to ignore the part where he is just walking away, but that doesn't add to the set up portion so of course you ignore that. Hard to poke the bear when you are walking away from it.
And yes he may have recorded or photographed other stops, but that does not mean that this was all a set up.
He is 100% within his right to do everything he did.
He tried to walk away before the officer escalated things, it wasn't until the officer grabbed at his arm that he really got all that defensive.
Hardly points to a set up. A set up would of had another camera man to ensure EVERYTHING got video taped.
And that facility doesn't mean squat. Do you even know how far away/how close it is compared to the town he was in? Or are you just taking the word of the other poster that it should mean something?

And he didn't need to tell us about his whole day in the begging of the video... That wasn't the point of the video...
You smell a rat because you want to, doesn't mean there actually is one.

a reply to: Mamatus
The supervising deputy thinks he's being swift by using supposed language of the Patriot Act to accuse this guy of acting suspicious. The problem here is that language doesn't actually exist in the patriot act, and what does exist only applies to critical defense and utility infrastructure which are blocked from photography anyway. This guy actually does have a case, IMHO, in that the officer committed a battery in trying to remove the camera.

According to this website:
Photography is not a crime
The supervising deputy at the end of the video is no longer with the sheriffs department, has transferred to the local police department, and the present sheriff is “looking into it”.

a reply to: Sremmos80

Someone filming the jails, courthouse and multiple traffic stops in one night, is definitively not normal behaviour. Regardless of where you are that is suspicious, and normal people do not spend their night's walking around filming cops.
It's quite conceivable that he could've been gathering information to plan some sort of an attack, by gathering information on response times, location of the precincts, number of police officers available at a certain time of the night etc. And this issue isn't helped by the fact that he refused to give his details. (Before getting enraged and attacking me over this, skip to my last paragraph for my explanation of how the cops should have alleviated their concerns along this nature, not acted lawlessly, and correctly resolved the situation).

So at this point we have someone doing nothing wrong, but certainly acting in a strange way. Insert police.

The cops completely mishandle this situation. They have every right to be suspicious (based on my previous reasoning), however, once they come and talk to the guy and here him spouting his "I'm legally allowed to do this" lines. They should realize he's just one of those folks that are ever more commonly going around filming cops and asserting their rights.

At this point the cops should have realized he is just an annoying douche and not a terrorist or psychokiller (any absurd lunatic synonym here). Any remaining suspicions should have been alleviated, as he is clearly just being an annoying douche, and they should left him alone to his annoying douche work.


Moral of it all: The police acted wrongly, however, his strange actions incited the incident, and different behaviour on his part could have avoided any incident altogether.

a reply to: RedEyes619

Ya we could go into what ifs all day about what he could have been doing. Doesn't make it anymore true.
Same chance that he really was just testing out his camera like he said which is not suspicious in the slightest.
He did not have to give anyone any info but he did with the first cop, that shows me that he was not trying to poke the bear cause he did more then he needed at the first confrontation.
He was only acting strange when you start swirling around the what ifs in your head.
If he does this all the time then it is not very strange of him right??
Public recoding from a public place of a public official is not strange.
And he did try and avoid it all, he was walking away when officer power trip stopped him, that is the moral of the story.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

So I guess we need to ignore the part where he is just walking away, but that doesn't add to the set up portion so of course you ignore that. Hard to poke the bear when you are walking away from it.
And yes he may have recorded or photographed other stops, but that does not mean that this was all a set up.
He is 100% within his right to do everything he did.

What he did was legal, yes. I don't dispute that, and I stated so already. However, his behavior was still suspicious, and enough to warrant them asking what he was doing. His attitude added to the issue, also, since he was very defensive. Yes, he had a right to record them, but he didn't have to be defensive about it to the first cop, who was very polite. The way he responded, coupled with the fact that he had been recording other traffic stops AND photographing official buildings, made him suspicious.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
He tried to walk away before the officer escalated things, it wasn't until the officer grabbed at his arm that he really got all that defensive.
Hardly points to a set up. A set up would of had another camera man to ensure EVERYTHING got video taped.
And that facility doesn't mean squat. Do you even know how far away/how close it is compared to the town he was in? Or are you just taking the word of the other poster that it should mean something?

The cop grabbed his camera, not his arm, and he admitted that after the cop corrected him. yes, grabbing the camera was wrong, and I already said the second cop was out of line. Note, too, that as he walked away, he stated that he was still recording "in case" the cops gave him trouble. It sounds like he expected them to, because, oh, yeah, he had been recording them previously, which he didn't admit to till they said something about it. yes, it's pretty close; more than a third of the way from Amarillo to Pampa.

As for the plant, Yes, it's close; more than a third of the distance from Amarillo to Pampa. Here is some info - link, and here is a map, so you can see:



Note that the plant is about seventeen miles out of Amarillo, which is more than a third of the driving distance from there to Pampa. So, yes, that's a reason to be concerned when some stranger is photographing all your official buildings at night, and recording multiple traffic stops.

A set up wouldn't necessarily have another camera, either, especially if he actually had some other reason, besides simply baiting the cops, to be doing what he was doing. His actions were definitely suspicious, and in that location, even more so.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
And he didn't need to tell us about his whole day in the begging of the video... That wasn't the point of the video...
You smell a rat because you want to, doesn't mean there actually is one.

We aren't talking about his "whole day"; we are talking about him recording multiple traffic stops, and taking photos of the courthouse, the jail, and the police station in a small town, all in the same night. With the location, and his attitude, yes, he was very suspicious.

That doesn't mean the second cop wasn't out of line, because he was. However, this guy knew exactly what he was doing, and I strongly suspect t he location was deliberate as well. he wasn't from there. Why be there taking pictures not just of a courthouse, which might be picturesque, but a jail and a police station as well, which most likely are NOT? His excuse doesn't hold water. Out in the middle of nowhere, in West Texas? No, I don't buy it.

Just because a cop makes an error, that doesn't mean the person involved is innocent.

originally posted by: RedEyes619
a reply to: Sremmos80

Someone filming the jails, courthouse and multiple traffic stops in one night, is definitively not normal behaviour. Regardless of where you are that is suspicious, and normal people do not spend their night's walking around filming cops.
It's quite conceivable that he could've been gathering information to plan some sort of an attack, by gathering information on response times, location of the precincts, number of police officers available at a certain time of the night etc. And this issue isn't helped by the fact that he refused to give his details. (Before getting enraged and attacking me over this, skip to my last paragraph for my explanation of how the cops should have alleviated their concerns along this nature, not acted lawlessly, and correctly resolved the situation).

I agree completely. His behavior is exactly the sort someone would display that was checking out the local police, and their responses, schedules, etc. Everything he did could be part of a fishing expedition, and that he's discussing his rights doesn't necessarily remove all suspicion on that, at least not for me. If some one did plan such a thing, making the cops wary of approaching anyone doing what he did ould be pretty clever planning.

originally posted by: RedEyes619
At this point the cops should have realized he is just an annoying douche and not a terrorist or psychokiller (any absurd lunatic synonym here). Any remaining suspicions should have been alleviated, as he is clearly just being an annoying douche, and they should left him alone to his annoying douche work.

I'd say they need training on how to properly handle something like this in the future. He could simply be as you describe, but he could be a front man as well. They need to know what to do if this happens again, within legal boundaries.

originally posted by: RedEyes619
Moral of it all: The police acted wrongly, however, his strange actions incited the incident, and different behaviour on his part could have avoided any incident altogether.

I agree. They need more training in what is legal and allowed, and how to handle legal behavior that IS suspicious, as his was. His actions, I believe, were deliberate.