Police Try To Confiscate Cell Phone Video Of Arrest

A Vallejo man says his civil rights were violated by a police officer who demanded his cell phone and then put the man in handcuffs when he didn't comply.

Lonnel Duchine was in the garage of his Vallejo home Saturday when he recorded the arrest of some juveniles in his neighborhood from his cell phone. Duchine says he and a friend were working in the garage when they heard sirens.

"Me and More..my buddy, we opened the garage and noticed that the police officers were getting some juveniles out at gunpoint," said Duchine.

Duchine turned his cell phone camera toward several police officers who were ordering four young people out of a white car. Suddenly, from the right of the frame on the video shot by Duchine, a Vallejo police officer is seen demanding his phone. "I'm going to take this phone because it's going to be evidence."

"The officer drove up and basically said he was taking my phone for evidence and I was like, well why?" said Duchine.

Rather than give it to the officer, he handed the phone to the friend who took it into the house. The officer then put Duchine in handcuffs.

"I don't think that he had probable cause to arrest me, but he did," he said.

Duchine was cited for interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duties and released. He never did give police his phone.

"This is wrong on so many different levels," said legal analyst Dean Johnson. "There's an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment here, there's certainly First Amendment implications, and there is a common misconception among police officers."

"On the surface of things, we do have some concerns about what we saw," Vallejo police spokesman Jeff Bassett said. "We are currently conducting an internal inquiry into the incident. We're prepared to take appropriate or corrective action if necessary."

"As a citizen, a law-abiding citizen, I'm a notary, I'm a mental health administrator, and I feel like I was very much violated," said Duchine.

Vallejo police said that it is unlikely they will actually formally file any charges against Duchine. As for the police action that occurred on the street that Saturday, it turns out the young people the police stopped were not the robbery suspects they officers were looking for. They, too, were released.




The Police had ZERO rights to enter that mans property - if they wanted the video as evidence, just ask him to email a copy. But I know why they went the way they did - I AM THE LAW, JUST DO WHAT I SAY.

(and I know some here on ATS will agree with the Police)

Ahh so now not only talking to someone as you walk past them is a criminal offense, so is being in your home.

This really is getting stupid.

If the police force did this in the middle east, you'd find dozens of cops beheaded in a ditch every week.

Originally posted by badw0lf
Ahh so now not only talking to someone as you walk past them is a criminal offense, so is being in your home.

This really is getting stupid.

If the police force did this in the middle east, you'd find dozens of cops beheaded in a ditch every week.

It think the police wanted to pop some caps in some arse, and needed to make sure all the incriminating evidence needed to be confiscated.

Ps I think the police force in the middle east seems to do beheadings too.
It just seems that there are to many cowards hiding behind badges theses days.

That's hilarious. He's going to take the phone for evidence? evidence of what? that wasn't a crime scene, no crime happened there, it was an arrest.

Honestly though I think most cops don't even know they are violating the rights of citizens, they just think hey are doing their job, cause they think they "are the law" but they just enforce it and they forget that part of it

Actually something very similar happened to me back when I was in grade 11. There's this cop who lives somewhere around my neighborhood, sure likes to park his SUV on our block and walk off to which ever street he lives on, and he's a real prick. He likes to actively exude his "power" and will go out of his way to start a confrontation. Case in point, like 6 or 7 years ago me and my friend were at the bottom of our street and my friend was bouncing a tennis ball off the building at the corner and catching it off the bounce. This off duty police officer walked down our entire street, fully seeing us, and as he got to the corner he walked right next to my friend, stopped, and demanded that he move. Rather than walking 5 feet to the right to walk around my friend who was at that point just holding the ball waiting for the man to pick his lane and walk by but instead he chose to walk right up to my friend and tell him to move. We both looked at each other and just laughed out SO hard in his face and told him to pick his fat ass up and take 2 steps to side and to keep going.

Now a few weeks later me and this same friend were walking down to the bottom of the street and turned on the street and right there about 20 feet from our previous encounter, this same officer some weeks later grabs a guy by the throat and throws him face first into the pavement. The guy was clearly intoxicated although I'm not sure that warrents getting thrown into the pavement, but still I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the officer, at this point. The off duty cop places his knee into the back of the guys head and leans forward. Clearly the guy is going to struggle if you do something like that and the officer was SCREAMING at the guy to stop resisting, even though he was already subdued in zipties. So me and my friend watch for a few minutes then walk on down the street and order a pizza at the corner. It should be noted that there were 2 people ahead of us (yes I remembered this detail as it holds significance) because after we placed our orders we went back outside to go check out the scence. The guy is STILL on the floor, subdued already, with the cop leaning in with his knee in on the back of this guys head. Also, this was a time when there was a lot of controversy going on in terms of the Police force here in Toronto and lots of talk about how "there's not enough resources or man power". I started to hear sirens from all sorts of directions and next thing I know 4 cruisers show up within seconds of each other. So I whip out my new Sony Ericson cell and start filming this, and there were a ton of witnesses there cheering me on and telling me to send it to the local news. My commentary was how the city was saying there weren't enough police officers yet it's because of the mismanagement of the people we have. Case in point the fact that a man was subdued by an off duty officer for more than 10 minutes, LITERALLY, and 9 cruisers ended up showing up by the time everything was said and done. And I'm not even stretching that one bit, 9 cruisers!!! Next thing I know one of the officers says "hey, that kid is filming us, grab him" and I was physically boxed in by officers. I quickly put my phone into my pocket and they told me to give it to them and I said no. They then said if I refused to give it to them they would take it by force. I told them that it's not against the law to walk down a public street and film anything on public property and they told me to "guess again" and again that if I refused they would simply take it by force. I gulped and gave them my phone.

The one officer took my phone and went off while the others that boxed me in kept me right there and took down my information and began questioning me. I got my phone back a while later and the officer went through my phone and deleted a bunch of videos that were on my phone, not just the one that I had filmed right then and there. After I got my phone back and realized they deleted a bunch of stuff I demanded the officers badge number who had gone off with my phone and all the other officers told me that they wouldn't give it to me and that I would have to go to the officer directly to get it even though he was no where to be found. I was so frustrated and my friend was waiting with our pizzas in hand that I said # it and just decided to go home. Started walking up our street and halfway up, one of my friends father was out watering his lawn. He owns a business right in downtown Toronto so he has to deal with a lot of sketch people sometimes and thus knows and has to deal with the police force often. So we decide to tell him what just went down and he couldn't believe it. Next thing we know, one of the cruisers pulls up at the bottom of our street and starts heading up. Being the guy that he is he tries to flag them down as they're driving up, at this point I'm standing behind him so the cops in the cruiser can't see me at this point. They start slowing down and as me and my friend step out from behind my friends father, the cops literally floor it and take off down our street and as they passed by us one of them shouted out that "I better have learned my lesson". All 3 of our jaws dropped...

That's not the only bad encounter I've had with cops, and I can't even be like "they're racially profiling me" or some bs like that because I'm freaking white. idk but cops just #ing hate me I guess and I can't say that I don't like them too much either.

One day I'll get my revenge on those #ers... always at tim hortons pigging out on donuts

I like how the whole time he is recording there is silence and then as soon as the officer arrives the dog or dogs go nuts I love how dogs can sense and judge character in an instant and they are the only animal I know that acts apon instinct in a one track kinda mind and is always correct when it comes to sensing bad character or good character.

fuc**^g pigs i hate them so much, i would have immediately kicked him in the nuts, grabbed his throat and said "mother fu**er your on my property"

god dammit that video has made me angry

I know that we have Lawyer(s) as well as LEO here, so my question to you such members to which I am very curious to know the answer to is: does this officer RIGHTFULLY have the authority to confiscate this citizens camera in this incident, and/or similar incidences? And if not, what may a person in such a position say to such an officer to refuse such a request in a civil and professional manner?

I am just curious on this one.

Thanks.

Originally posted by badw0lf
Ahh so now not only talking to someone as you walk past them is a criminal offense, so is being in your home.

This really is getting stupid.

If the police force did this in the middle east, you'd find dozens of cops beheaded in a ditch every week.

And you know what?

Unless the *huge* majority of law abiding, honest and good people working as policemen and policewomen, actually get off their butts and root out these bad cops themselves, i see something like what you suggest would happen in the ME, happening on the US streets.

It's one thing to 'look after your own' as it were, but cops everywhere need to understand that whenever an arsehole of a man or woman, abusing their positions as police pull this kind of crap, ALL of them get tarred by the same brush, and *if* a tipping pint does come, where the public start to organise and fight back by deliberately targeting the police for assassination, the good will be targeted along with the bad.

It's in their own interests to clean their house, and get rid of the dirt, before they all become contaminated by it.

Originally posted by meathed

Originally posted by badw0lf
Ahh so now not only talking to someone as you walk past them is a criminal offense, so is being in your home.

This really is getting stupid.

If the police force did this in the middle east, you'd find dozens of cops beheaded in a ditch every week.

It think the police wanted to pop some caps in some arse, and needed to make sure all the incriminating evidence needed to be confiscated.

Ps I think the police force in the middle east seems to do beheadings too.
It just seems that there are to many cowards hiding behind badges theses days.

Too many cowards in every aspect of controlling us man, sadly.

Oh I was just thinking back to the old Ogrish days when you'd see dozens of iraq cops in a ditch beheaded and shot by militants.. some people call the militants freedom fighters, but have no stomach to view their atrocities.

Oh or it's the CIA... can't say bad about insurgents.

oops!

Originally posted by spikey

Originally posted by badw0lf
Ahh so now not only talking to someone as you walk past them is a criminal offense, so is being in your home.

This really is getting stupid.

If the police force did this in the middle east, you'd find dozens of cops beheaded in a ditch every week.

And you know what?

Unless the *huge* majority of law abiding, honest and good people working as policemen and policewomen, actually get off their butts and root out these bad cops themselves, i see something like what you suggest would happen in the ME, happening on the US streets.

It's one thing to 'look after your own' as it were, but cops everywhere need to understand that whenever an arsehole of a man or woman, abusing their positions as police pull this kind of crap, ALL of them get tarred by the same brush, and *if* a tipping pint does come, where the public start to organise and fight back by deliberately targeting the police for assassination, the good will be targeted along with the bad.

It's in their own interests to clean their house, and get rid of the dirt, before they all become contaminated by it.

100% !

But they won't as it'd imply dirt on the floor of an externally open clean house.

Yessir, you obey the law or you obey a boot!