Baltimore Cops Threaten to Arrest Citizen for Filming, Despite City's Claimed "Absolute Right" to Film Police

InformationLiberation
Feb. 13, 2012

Via Carlos Miller:

Less than 24 hours after Baltimore police received a general order that they must allow citizens to record them in public, officers threatened to arrest a man for doing just that.

But they insisted that it wasn’t the act of video recording that would have landed him in jail.

It was the act of loitering.

Scott Cover was standing across the street from the officers who were standing over a handcuffed man early Saturday. When they spotted him, they told him to get lost. One of them approached him with handcuffs in her hand.

Cover began to walk away while reminding them of the newly issued general order.

But even as he was halfway down the street, four officers stormed up to him, continuing to threaten him arrest.

The 7-page general order states that citizens have the “absolute right” to record cops in public but it also states that citizens cannot "violate any section of any law, ordinance, code or criminal article" while recording police.

So these officers obviously believe they found a loophole that would allow them to prevent citizens from recording them.

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