Contempt of Cop: What’s the Law Say About Photographing Police?
Emily Good: the name sounds like a school teacher, a virtuous heroine, and “Mitchell Crooks” surely is an evildoer. What do these two have in common? They’ve both been cited for, essentially, “contempt of cop.” They dared to photograph police officers in the act of performing their usual, apparently unremarkable duties.
The arrest — even beating — of citizens who have done nothing more than photograph police officers has been happening recently, a disturbing and potentially dangerous trend.
In my writings about the Erik Scott case at PJMedia (and in greater depth at Confederate Yankee), I wrote of the case of Mitchell Crooks (here and here) and provided this definition:
“Contempt of cop” is a play on words of the common legal term “contempt of court.” The latter refers to a judge holding someone responsible for conduct — usually in the courtroom — that is disrespectful or disruptive, that reflects blatant contempt for the law, the judge and his lawful authority. The former is similar. It refers to a cop’s reaction to the same kind of behavior by a citizen in their presence. In the best sense of the term, an officer’s attention will be attracted by someone who goes out of their way to irrationally and unnecessarily antagonize a police officer in a public setting. In such circumstances, it would be foolish for a police officer to allow that person to go unpunished lest their behavior encourage others to insult, even attack other officers.
Contempt of cop also applies to the worst instincts some police officers develop. In those cases, officers become “badge-heavy,” they begin to take matters personally. They become hypersensitive to any insult, real or imagined. They don’t consider the elements of the law, they take offense, act first and make up the rest later. Such officers are unpredictable and dangerous, not only to the public, but to their fellow officers who know that the bad will of the public is cumulative. Abuse the citizenry enough, and the officers who suffer for it — and some will suffer — will often be professionals, men and women of good will undeserving of their fates.
What kind of outrageous, threatening behavior caused the police to arrest these two people?
Hearing a helicopter circling his neighborhood at low altitude, Mitchell Crooks noticed the Las Vegas Metro Police dealing with several suspects near his home. Taking up his new, expensive video camera, Crooks stood in his driveway and filmed what appeared to be a completely unremarkable police action. Officer Derek Colling, transporting two prisoners in the back of his car, saw Crooks and spotlighted him. He stopped and approached Crooks, demanding that he stop filming.
When Crooks refused, Colling attacked, knocking his camera to the ground — it kept recording. He hit, kicked, and taunted and threatened Crooks even as he lay bloody and unresisting, crying out for help.
Colling arrested Crooks for trespassing, but after discovering that Crooks was, in fact, on his own property, he changed the charge to battery on a police officer. Crooks’ videotape revealed that Colling’s version of events was, to put it as kindly as possible, fanciful, and all charges were dismissed.
Colling apparently faced no discipline and continues to work as a Metro officer. Crooks is suing.
Seeing a traffic stop taking place on the street in front of her home, Emily Good stepped onto her front lawn and began to film the unremarkable event with her video camera. Officer Mario Masic told her to go into her home, saying that he and the other two officers did not feel safe with her there. Her video makes clear that she was on her yard, standing a considerable distance from the officers. Good explained, politely, that she was on her own property and wished to remain outside. Masic continued to argue, obviously becoming more and more frustrated that Good did not immediately obey him — telling her that she was disobeying “police orders.” After a few minutes, he arrested her for obstructing governmental administration.
Good’s video, retrieved by a friend after she was arrested, went viral, and a judge took less than a minute to dismiss the charge at his first opportunity. Good also intends to sue and to work for greater police accountability.
Can citizens photograph police while they are doing their duties? In general, yes. It is clearly established law that the police may watch, listen to, or photograph citizens without a warrant and without notice or permission in public places wherever they do not have “a reasonable expectation of privacy.” Generally speaking, if another citizen could watch, film, or overhear you in a public place, the police may too. Even if you are standing in your front yard raking leaves, can you reasonably expect that you are invisible to passersby, that they may not hear your off-key singing?
The same general rules apply to the police. When they are in the full view of the public, doing what the public pays them to do, any citizen is within their rights to observe those officers, and even to film them. In such circumstances, the police have no reasonable expectation of privacy. It can be reasonably argued that as public employees doing the business of the public, they have even less expectation of privacy than the general public.
Metro PD in LV is culturally incapable of providing even-handed and ethical law enforcement. Visitors to that city take an abnormal risk of crossing invisible lines and offending unknowable laws, at least as far as members of that agency goes. Clark county agencies are not much better. The old “Chicago Mob” that coerced collections when they built the town has now morphed into a uniformed enforcement agency
Derek Colling is clearly a sadist. And he found a job where he can conveniently satisfy those needs. You can clearly hear in his voice that he derives satisfaction from torturing his victim.
both officers should be fired yesterday, they are unfit to wear the uniform,
Well, the bad cop makes good money for the Citizen!! 42 USC 1983, et seq, 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th Amendments, supervisory negligence, and state negligence causes of actions, etc., should put the fear of loss of $$ into the cop and the supervisors and the municipality – sue the cop AND the municipality AND supervisors INDIVIDUALLY AND OFFICIALLY – makes for nice settlements AND the atty can get attorney fees ON TOP of the 1/3 fee!!
OH YOU COPS WHO THINK YOU ARE ABOVE THE LAW – BRING IT!!! Have I got a 9 page Notice of Claim and 20 page Complaint for you!!! You can find my name and phone # scrawled in the Westchester County Jail, near the phone, or call the new Mayor of White Plains – he’ll refer you to me – or call someone from ATLA – more than happy to tackle injustice!! Trial Lawyers ARE your last line of defense!!
By and large trial lawyers are motivated by what money they might reap not by a need to defend truth, justice and law. If the reward of a big money settlement is not likely, those oh so concerned and screaming BRING IT, just have no real interest. Reality bites.
We do appreciate your enthusiastic support, however, friend
You can sue them to death all you want, they will laugh all the way to the bank and hand over TAXPAYERS MONEY without a care.
Million dollars?
10 million…Yawn, whatever…its not theirs to lose, so nothing matters.
Nothing we can do phases them in the least.
The only thing they fear are BULLETS.
The suggestion is that they be sued as individuals, which means a judgment against them will remove money from their own personal bank accounts. They’ll definitely care about that (unless their union has negotiated a contract that they be reimbursed by the government for this sort of thing.)
In both the Crooks and the Good cases, the policmen were really, really, dumb and are now going to lose major law suits for their stupidity. If the police are acting properly, they shouldn’t fear being taped. In fact, the video could actually help them in some cases. Let’s say the police arrest a person who wrongly accuses the police officers of beating him or her. If there is a citizen standing by video taping the whole event and it clearly shows that the police officers acted properly, then the police will be vindicated and the criminal will go to jail. So this really works both ways. Bottom line is, if the cops act properly, they should not be worried about being taped. Highway patrol officers have had video cameras in their cars for years and they don’t complain. So why should any other officers?
But they KNOW that the camera in their car is there, and as such, disable it or turn it away from recording questionable acts. That happened here recently in Dallas, but luckily, after civilian/media scrutiny, several officers were fired and some reprimanded.So the reliance on the officers honesty isn’t as crucial as having a widely video camera armed public, and implicit approval to use these “camera arms” so that the body public can resist the need to go to more deadly “arms”.
Most active and retired police I know are good, honest people who only try to do their jobs. It’s clowns like the ones mentioned here who make matters harder for the rest. One thing the good cops out there can do is try to police their own a little better and not tolerate outrageous behavior. I understand the “blue wall of silence”, but they do have to weed some of the animals out.
Problem is, there are more and more arrogant, obnoxious police officers showing up in the ranks. People who grew up frustrated that they didn’t make the football team, or get accepted by the armed forces, etc. Screening doesn’t seem to catch these people and there has to be a better way to clear applicants to serve the public. It’s not a new problem but it is growing in frequency and degree. That’s a dead-nuts indicator of the slipping of social standards in this nation.
I have lost faith in the ones who ostensibly are here to “protect and serve”. Too many of them are in that position because they want the power. The abuses I have seen have been directed against single mothers who have no money or power. We need one on one to watch for the “brown shirt” tendencies to manifest themselves and then speak up in support of the victim. Glad this lady had neighbors who stood up for her; we all need to be watchful.
The sad thing is, mos police officers, I believe, like most single parents, are good honest people who want to do their best for those in their care.
..btw, I am not one of the single moms mentioned; just an observer. and it was supposed to be “most” rather than “mos”
It is time for the people of this country to wake up look around and realize they are well on their way to becoming a serf/peasant class subservient to the government, witch holds them in contempt. Police, politicians, judges and bureaucrats on a regular basis in major and minor ways violate the laws and abuse the citizens with more or less impunity. incidents like this should no longer be treated as violations of civil rights but as criminal violations. the officers should be charged with trespass, aggravated assault, perjury and the supervisors with conspiracy, and aiding and abetting with real prison sentences upon conviction.
Until there is real accountability for this kind of abuse of power it will continue and worsen. These are actions born not from “job stress” but from arrogance and contempt.
I agree with you! And the so called “Patriot Act” has just put their arrogance into high gear! Folks better wake up to the fact that the SCOTUS has ruled decisively that law enforcement has no legal requirements to provide the citizenry with protection, they are there for law enforcement only. Why is it that burglary and other property crimes aren’t investigated/prosecuted as much as such crimes as drug use,prostitution,& minor traffic violations? It doesn’t make money for the legal system, that’s why! 1. 1Ti 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Sorry, didn’t mean to leave out my name.
Well of course that makes sense. The bigger the government the bigger the Police department and less rights you have. Keep voting for democrats and you will be living off of cheese and crackers begging officers to give you water.
In the neighborhood I grew up in, the only difference between the cop and the crook was very often the badge. Wish camcorders and cell cameras were around 35 years ago…
(1) Deadly danger is always possible at any time, but the overwhelming majority of citizens will never pose the slightest threat to police officers.
True, but how can an officer know which is a bystander and which is a friend of the suspect? I have run off bystanders in the past and will continue to do so because I have to control the situation at all costs because if I don’t, I am dead.
(2) There are always witnesses to everything police officers say and do; they must conduct themselves accordingly.
True
(3) Police officers are public servants who will be tempted to take things personally; they must always successfully resist that temptation.
Cops are human too. While I have never acted on it, people have said things to me while I was working that they would never say to me if I wasn’t in uniform. It is kinda like an internet Rambo, they know we can’t act on it so they provoke officers on a regular basis. I have been cussed, spit on and called the SS, a gangster, all kinds if vile things. The funny thing is if they really thought I was a Nazi they would be hiding in the corner crying, not standing up to me and yelling.
(4) Police officers do not have the luxury of allowing anger to influence or dictate their actions.
True
(5) Keeping the good will of the public is vital; the police need the public more than the public needs them.
Not true. I can take care of my family just fine, the public needs protecting from the bad guys. I have never been mugged, accosted or robbed because I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I have taken the abilty that God and the US Marine Corps gave me and use it to protect others, not just to take care of myself.
I have to take some exception to the idea that the police are protecting the public. The police have even gone as far as to go to court arguing that they do not have a duty to protect people and the courts have held that there is no duty to protect. Also the police tend to show up after the fact, how this is then construed as protecting is not much more than spin.
Face it most people are capable of protecting themselves and their families without the help of of the police. however the state has spent considerable resources to convince people they are incapable of managing their own affairs without the help of government.
And while we are at it lets be honest and admit that a good deal of police work falls into the category of revenue enhancement of the city, town ,or state and has very little to do maintaining quality of life for the citizen.
Amen, gverdi. The mighty state wants us all to be reliant upon it, even for natural functions such a protecting ourselves from harm. So the nanny state proliferates laws, and cops activities to enforce them escalate, revenue chasing included.
“(5) Keeping the good will of the public is vital; the police need the public more than the public needs them.
Not true. I can take care of my family just fine, the public needs protecting from the bad guys.”
How do you square this with Castle Rock v. Gonzales, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police have no duty to protect? In this case, the woman had a restraining order, but SCOTUS ruled this doesn’t create a special relationship with PD, so too bad that a**hole ex-hubby killed her 3 children. PD had no liability.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-278.ZS.html
I agree the public needs protecting from the bad guys. That’s why we have the Second Amendment.
Dear Howard:
Just so. Castle Rock v. Gonzales is only the most recent and definitive case on this issue. The state and federal courts have virtually always held that the police have no duty to protect any specific, individual citizen, but only to provide police services for the public in general. The Supreme Court merely put the cherry on top of this particular sundae with the Castle Rock decision. The best police officers act as though they are responsible for protecting individuals and feel badly when they inevitably fail.
This brings up the point that there are a great many of us and very few police officers. Criminals will always outnumber the police. The only reason that the police can be remotely effective is not because they are hyper-sensitive bullies whose bad attitudes scare the public into compliance, but because most people are decent and will voluntarily uphold their part of the social contract–they will voluntarily obey the law–almost all of the time. This remarkable fact is so because of the good will of the citizenry toward their government and its most visible representatives: The police. If this was not so, anarchy would reign.
When citizens feel that they can no longer trust their police. When they think that they are in at least as much danger from the police as they are from violent criminals (as is arguably the case in Las Vegas), there are going to be consequences, not only for the police, but for us all. Bad will is cumulative, and may come down as easily and brutally on an innocent, conscientious police officer who has never abused his or her authority as one who has. Officers who are allowed to be badge heavy are building up enormous amounts of bad will every day.
The police provide vital, specialized services, but the police need the public more than the public needs them. Anyone, police officer or citizen, who does not realize this, is missing one of the fundamental realities of American life, for the police are not responsible for any citizen’s individual safety and it is impossible for them to be, no matter how much they would like to be.
Agreed, and I think Anonymous here misses the boat on that point. Must work for an odd agency. Too bad.
I would leave Marin and move to Texas, but not until I read an assessment of law enforcement there by you.
Actually the public can do just fine without you. And likely have one less Brownshirt to deal with.
Yes, we can do better without you, bronze.
And what are you going to do if the bystander doesn’t “run off” as you put it? Are you going to beat them and arrest them when they’ve done nothing illegal? Wrong answer! If you can’t deal with people watching you and maybe video recording your actions then you need to be in a different line of work. Because that is the wrong attitude you are telling us you have.
How do you tell who is a threat? Well, it is not always easy, but I would expect most reasonable people to get it right most of the time, and I would also expect a highly trained police officer to almost always get it right– and anything in the “too close to call” category goes in favor of the officer.
But neither of the situations in this article are difficult. They are both very easy, and the police officers failed both times.
The question is “What would a reasonable person do?” The answer is pretty easy.
It is not reasonable to believe that a person with a video recorder, silently using it in plain view of the police, at a fair distance, on private property which is a single family home, and who is making no threatening movements, comments, or gestures is in any way a threat to an officer.
I doubt there are many instances of citizens quietly and openly recording a traffic stop where the citizen has suddenly turned violent against the officer. Police are trained to discern threats from non-threats. If thay are missing the mark so badly as described in the article, well, there are such things as aptitude tests.
anonymous:
“the police need the public more than the public needs them.
Not true…the public needs protecting from the bad guys”
You are high.
Pension whores are getting so fat they cant climb out of a car, never mind hop a fence, or chase someone…
“operator error”, car crashes, and fat ass heart attacks claim more boys in blue than perps do…Every year.
We dont need you, you need us, or you’d be UNEMPLOYABLE in the real world
If I am not mistaken, it was also in Nevada that a former marine officer was gunned down by 3 cops upon leaving a Walmart, after an internal security guard called 911 to complain about “a man with a gun in here”. The victim was a lawful concealed carry permit holder, and was making no threats and had his gun holstered.
Cops have a tough job, but they hate being held accountable when they get badge heavy, and that means they will revert to contempt of cop arrests until they are stopped. In Philadelphia they drew weapons on a man who was simply carrying a gun on his hip in a holster (in a lawful open carry state) and the only thing that saved the victim from prosecution on trumped up “resisting arrest” charges was his audio recording on his cell phone–which clearly implicated police were uninformed of the law and nearly ready to shoot a peaceful citizen. In the Philadelphia case, it is even clear that the armed citizen had every right to draw and fire at the cop who was ILLEGALLY ordering him to kneel and threatening to blow him away, as the citizen rightfully was fearful of dying due to the unlawful orders of the cop. What do you think the odds would be of the citizen surviving the ensuing encounter with “backup” officers ( who were requested and on the way), if they arrived to find a dead cop and a citizen with a gun?
My own view is that training is fine, and courts are fine, but the real solution to these liberty-snatchings is this: fewer laws and fewer cops, more citizens with lawful guns. Cops will get serious about policing when they are policing real threats to the citizenry out of necessity, and they will know the citizenry is armed.
It was Las Vegas Metro PD, it was outside a COSTCO, four ossifers were involved, and the video of the incident was declares “unusable” after being in possession of the cops for 60 hours.
The details of that situation and resulting death are truly frightening. I believe the author of this article has written about it. If you want to know what FUBAR is about, read that story.
Las Vegas has a real problem with their police department, and they do not seem at all interested in fixing it. More Las Vegas citizens will needlessly die at the hands of the police in that city. It is a certainty.
Dear MKKED:
I have indeed been reporting on the Erik Scott case in Las Vegas since last September. A good place to start in that case is my March update article here at PJM: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/can-one-wrong-death-bring-down-corrupt-las-vegas/
For those who are interested in delving more deeply into this ongoing case, a case that we will follow at Confederate Yankee until its conclusion, go to: confederateyankee.mu.nu and select the Erik Scott Case Archive. All of my writings, and those of my co-blogger, Bob Owens, also a PJM contributor, are there.
These officers should be fired. There should be one rule above all others. Do not bully, threaten, belittle, harass or harm (taser) any ordinary citizens. Apparently some get into the business in order to act exactly that way. We need to quickly weed out those with that attitude. Zero tolerance.
“the police need the public more than the public needs them”
Now that’s an interesting observation. Police only protect citizens in the abstract. Fear of arrest may stop law abiding people and perhaps a few criminals from offending but not many. Real criminals benefit from a revolving door justice system that sees the same people offending again and again. In reality, the police are always five minutes away when you really need them or they are merely by-law enforcers, collecting taxes for the city/state as they act all hard-a$$ed tough and harass ordinary citizens for petty offenses. In my town, when not at the donut shop or parked with a radar gun, they mostly drive around in their cruisers. They leave the truly bad drivers alone unless they collide with something and ticket those who drive a little fast or abuse an orange light. Things they regularly do themselves. I think we’ve all seen and all hate that.
We need to carry with us a printout of the laws that allow us to photograph police. Can anyone post those laws here?
I am most interested in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Thank you
Carry printouts of the laws? That is even WORSE Contempt of Cop. You’d be lucky to survive unharmed.
I am second generation law enforcement, now retired. “Anonymous” and others above observe that they can take care of themselves and their families just fine. I agree: I avoid trouble and if it comes I’m on the spot and willing and able to do what needs to be done. I think it’s called being a grownup and not relying on the nanny state for everything.
All institutions are currently in disrepute, and a lot of it is from people utterly failing to live up to their obligations. Who and what do you trust anymore? It’s called “legitimacy”, and it takes a LONG time to earn it–and a short time to lose it. A failed war on drugs, police abuse such as this, and petty harassment don’t help a bit. As noted, that’s pretty rough on the good, professional officers.
I wasn’t perfect in my day, and my wife says I’m still not. But it’s been a long time since I assumed that all LEOs are good guys with good ethics and servants, not masters. It’s a bit of a creepy feeling. If, God forbid, this country were to deteriorate into a tyranny, what percentage of today’s officers would refuse to do its bidding?
Hint: WWII’s history provides some insight; in Germany and almost all occupied countries most persecutions were enthusiastically factilitated by that country’s police establishments.
Reminds me of the ’60′s when rich college kids were rioting and throwing rocks at the blue-collar cops, and then got royally indignant when the cops finally pushed back. How dare they!
Kent state… I used to think the cops/national guards were right to shoot but not for quite some time now. Just a poor decision by a poorly trained person in a situation he had never been intended to be in at all.
Yeah, in that case it was stupid for the kids to throw rocks but the National Guard were kids too; nervous kids who should NOT have had live ammo. That was just effed up on too many levels.
At Kent State, the Guardsmen were fired on first! Someone, as most all mobs do, had someone in the group with a gun & fired on them first! Just like the cowardly terrorists in the middle-east using women & children to hide behind, knowing that if the troops return fire they’ll be villified! But years of smear tactics and obfuscation have erased the facts about Kent State, like the sandstorm from G*d erased Tanis in The Raiders of the Lost Ark!
reading between the lines of most of the comments so far, its fairly obvious the comments were made by folks who have an axe to grind with police. Probably because they were acting stupid and got caught. Granted, there are cops who should not be wearing a badge, just as there are folks who should not be allowed to reproduce.
“Probably because they were acting stupid and got caught.” This sounds like Obama saying, “I don’t know all the facts, but the police obviously acted stupidly acted stupidly.” It is arrogant and judgmental of you.
Good people get outraged when they see injustice done, especially when it is done by those responsible for justice. They do not need to have had run-ins with cops. When there become so many incidents of outrageous behavior by cops, folks naturally get upset. People have a sense of “fair-play”. They know when it’s not right, and they take umbrage. This is the natural reaction of good people, not bad people. Yes, there are bad people who cynically are outraged at police, but they are a minority.
“just as there are folks who should not be allowed to reproduce.”
Please, enlighten us as to who should or should not be allowed to breed? Prithee, tell us who makes that determination? You? This is more arrogance on your part. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps YOU yourself should not be allowed to breed, you insufferable ass.
May God help us all if you are wearing a badge OR reproducing.
Actually rich, you just made a connection that I have been pondering since reading this article, though I am sure that it was entirely inadvertent on your part.
There are people out there who sincerely believe some people should not be allowed to reproduce. Many people say such things but would never actually support legislation to make such a thing happen. However once upon a time there was a very large segment of American society who not only supported such a thing, but went the extra step of legislating it. It was called Eugenics. It was roundly supported by progressives, and very much included physicians and nurses, not to mention social workers who snatched children under the auspices of the state and had them sterilized for the crime of being poor and rural and southern. It was not until 1960 that something approximating today’s informed consent was instituted, and not until 1972 that the law was broadened to ensure physicians were explaining risk and benefit in such a way that patients could understand what the heck they meant. The National Research Act was not put into place until 1974, done to prevent egregious examples like the Tuskegee experiment. The right to not be kept on a vent or force fed would not come until later. What exactly has this got to to with police officers?
The point is that those same type of people who believed they knew so much better than you that you didn’t even have control of your own body, are the same people who believe you don’t have the right to defend yourself, that you must wait for the police to do so. And anyone who disagrees obviously just has an ax to grind with the police. The reality is that the police are there to enforce the laws of the state, they are not there to protect individuals. The truth of that however, doesn’t make much good TV.
In regards to the Las Vegas PD, for those who are not familiar, they basically executed a West Point graduate in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses. The man’s crime, a store employee noticed the gentleman had a gun tucked into his waist band when he bent over to load merchandise onto his cart as he shopped with his girlfriend. The police were called and when he walked outside with his girlfriend after paying, he was confronted by the police and shot down in cold blood. This man had a concealed carry permit and was not acting in any suspicous manner. Simply murder. I recently read that his family has filed suit against the LVPD and I wish them luck. Such a waste of life.
Some officers act like their word is the law. My downstairs neighbors were on vacation when a drunk hit their parked car and pushed that car into their truck. After calling 911, I took pictures with my digital camera. The officer who arrived told me I couldn’t take pictures! Public street, public sidewalk, and my own property and I can’t take pictures? BS
Most times I recommend contacting the shift supervisor/watch commander by phone in cases like these to report an officer’s stupidity/officiousness, but with this particular issue I think for your protection I would go directly to the chief – with a copy of the message to the mayor/city manager. There’s got to be an attitude adjustment coming from on high on this one, and I think the duty sergeant should have already seen it coming, thus might be part of the problem.
The trouble arises from a fact of life. The police force attracts people who like power. Most police officers are honorable men and women who do a thankless job that most can’t or won’t do. But now and then the wrong sort of person becomes a police officer and then the problem is just waiting to happen.
I lost a lot of respect for the police the day a woman knocked my 7-year old son off his bicycle with her car, and the police officer who responded did his best to intimidate *me*. I have never regarded the police the same way since and I never will. My son is now 24, and when I encounter a cop, instead of respect, my first reaction is resentment, and I suspect it always will be.
Just a reminder:
http://www.nleomf.org/newsroom/news-releases/alarming-rise-in-2010-law.html
Washington, DC– The number of U.S. law enforcement fatalities spiked by 37 percent in 2010—an alarming increase that follows two years of declining deaths among our nation’s policing professionals.
A total of 160 federal, state and local law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 12 months, according to preliminary data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF). This represents a dramatic increase over the 117 officer fatalities in 2009, which marked a 50-year low.
Fifty-nine officers have been shot and killed during the past year, which is a 20 percent increase over the 49 killed by gunfire in 2009. Ten of the officers shot to death this year were killed in separate multiple-death incidents in Fresno (CA), San Juan (PR), West Memphis (AR), Tampa (FL) and Hoonah (AK). “A more brazen, cold-blooded criminal element is on the prowl in America, and they don’t think twice about killing a cop,” observed NLEOMF Chairman Craig W. Floyd.
“Our law enforcement officers are being asked to do more today with less, and it is putting their lives at risk,” declared Mr. Floyd. “In addition to their conventional crimefighting responsibilities, our law officers are on the front lines in the war against terror here at home. Yet, there are fewer officers on the street and other precious resources, such as training and equipment dollars, are also being cut as a result of the economic downturn,” he explained.
Traffic-related incidents remained the number one cause of death among our nation’s law enforcement officers for the 13th consecutive year. Seventy-three officers have been killed in traffic-related incidents this year, compared to 51 in 2009, representing a 43 percent increase. Of the 73 traffic-related deaths this year, 50 occurred during automobile crashes, 16 officers were struck and killed while outside of their own vehicles, six died in motorcycle crashes and one bike patrol officer was struck by a vehicle.
In addition to the officers killed by firearms or in traffic-related incidents, 19 officers died as a result of job-related illnesses, two were beaten, two drowned, two officers suffered fatal falls, two died in aircraft crashes and one officer died in a boating accident.
During the past year, more officers were killed in Texas, 18, than in any other state; followed by California with 11; Illinois with 10; Florida with nine; and Georgia with seven. The two law enforcement agencies with the most deaths in 2010 were the California Highway Patrol and the Chicago (IL) Police Department, each with five. Eleven of the officers killed nationwide in 2010 served with federal law enforcement agencies. Six female officers died in 2010, compared to only one in 2009. On average, the officers who died in 2010 were 41 years old and had served for 12 years.
The report, “Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: Preliminary 2010,” is available at
http://www.LawMemorial.org/ResearchBulletin.
I could not agree more that these officers ought to be fired immediately.
Having said that, I would like to point out there are 800,000 police officers in the US. Before we paint with a brush, I encourage a ride-along. You would not believe the verbal abuse and cop-baiting that goes on as a routine.
I am not a policeman. I have been on 3 ride-along jaunts and know for certain I would not want to face that day in and out.
No they don’t need fired they need to be prosecuted and incarcerated and then fired.
As for your 800000 officers and broad brush, this is the there are only a few bad cops but most are being unfairly tainted excuse. however those poor unfairly tainted cops look the other way or worse actively help excuse the wrong doing of your “few” bad officers. If your a look out for a robbery and someone dies you are considered equally culpable in the eyes of the law as if you had killed them yourself. this is the approach needed in dealing with police abuse.
Maybe you are not a cop but I would bet dollars to donuts that your wife, brother, father or son is a police officer.
“I am not going to insult your intelligence by suggesting you actually believe what you just said.” WFB
This is correct. When they form that “blue wall of silence”, when they look the other way, when they shade things and help cover things up after the fact, they are just as guilty.
The real problem is how they teach police to view the public. It starts in police academies. Also. police have an amazing ignorance of the law they are supposed to enforce. Many of them are good people corrupted by the system. Maybe it is not really their fault, but that is no defense. It does not matter if they were corrupted before or after. Rotten is rotten. I have met many cops in my life. I have never in my life met a likable cop. Never. Not one.
Were you on a ridealong when a half dozen narcs served a mistaken identity warrant on me for something someone else may or may have not done, smacked me around interrogated me for 2 hrs. without reading me my rights, tore up my apt., stole stuff and threw me in probable cause then didn’t charge me til after I moved out and then re-arrested me 11 years later so I had to go back to jail, miss work and money and have the charges dropped?
It’s fun to sit hand cuffed on the edge of your own bed with a garbage bag over your head and be hit on the forehead with the spines of your own thick paperback books and told vulgar things that will be done to you in prison, including racists slurs although one of them was black. I never even thought of suing – the less I had to do with these Li’l Abner douchebags the better. They kick their dogs when they get home.
Sounds familiar. You don’t live in Prince Georges County, Maryland, do you? Did they shoot your dog? PG cops love to shoot dogs. In terms of cowardice and corruption, they make the LVPD look like the Girl Scouts.
The police should read these comments. SERVE THE PUBLIC and worry about CRIMINALS! That is what you are paid to do.
99% of the citizenry ARE NOT CRIMINALS. Stop treating everyone as if they are.
When the Symbionese Liberation Army was on a rampage, they threatened to do physical harm to anyone who “attempts to witness” one of their actions. A widespread police reaction to the Rodney King case and other videotaped disasters is to prevent any such recordings, not to make sure that any videotaped actions are legal and necessary.
“(5) Keeping the good will of the public is vital; the police need the public more than the public needs them.”
I’ve ticked off a few officers by pointing that out. (Online only, not being a fool.)
Come down to it, garbage collectors are a bigger necessity than police. It’s one of those mind boggling facts of life that organized crime has been able to take over such a vital function. (Garbage collecting is also much more dangerous than police work, but garbage men are not allowed to shoot the source of their danger.)
Come on, PH, you know better than that:
That’s a clever way of misstating an issue. Substitute “hazardous” for “dangerous” and you are both technically and literally wrong. Officers aren’t as subject to back and limb injuries, but are much more at risk for life-threatening trauma so please don’t sugarcoat an issue to make blog commenting points. Officers that think they don’t need the public’s support are just wrong. Let’s agree on that and not try to rate who needs what type of municipal worker more. I’d much rather be able to safely walk out of my house to an overfull garbage can than be threatened by some idiot out on the street shooting off a rifle.
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When the garbagemen go on strike, garbage piles up. Rats and flies breed. Look up what the death rate for various epidemics was back before 1800 or so. Consider the probably death rates from crime from the same period. What criminal action kills a quarter of the people in any city during a single year? (Not even rebellion or invasions killed as many people as disease back then.)
Also go to http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html and take a look at the number of people killed by their own government, often enough the murderers are police, and the armed forces preventing starving populace from leaving for areas with food are police.
What jobs are dangerous? Check here:
http://dangerous-jobs.findthedata.org/
I should call a garbageman when I need a cop? As silly as calling a cop when I need a garbageman.
Fools spouting off without basic information. It’s not what you think.
Makes sense in principle. Unfortunately, you could easily encounter some maniac with a rifle because maniacs (and criminals) don’t care about the police. If the maniac shot you, the police would come along eventually and take some pictures of your perforated corpse. That is literally all the good the police would do you in that situation.
Police literally ARE garbage collectors. They collect human garbage – some alive, some dead – and ensure that it is deposited in the appropriate receptacles – the prison or the morgue. They do not “protect” any of us in any meaningful sense.
What they really do is enforce the law. That’s not the same as protecting us, either.
Garbage collection is *quite* hazardous. You never know what somebody is going to throw away. It might be sharp, it might be unpleasantly chemical, it might be a biohazard. Whether it is more or less hazardous than police work probably depends on the community.
*Yawn*
Oh, you’re being serious. Can’t figure out if you’re ignorant or lying.
Well….According to the 8/2010 report released by the Bureau of Labor statistics Law Enforcement DOESN’T GET A MENTION. That’s right; Law Enforcement not only doesn’t make the top 10 dangerous jobs in the US by either raw numbers or as a percentage, THERE’S NOT EVEN ENOUGH TO GET LISTED AS A SEPARATE LINE.
Take a look for yourself:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
When I was in High School,the step-father of a friend of mine,who was a Detective, told me that “in all the years as a patrol officer and detective” he only had “to pull out my weapon twice,& use it once.” It didn’t strike me as being as hazardous a job as TV and the movies portrayed it then or now. If LEO’s did their jobs to enrich the public, like they enrich their department/legal system, they wouldn’t be facing nearly as much hostility from that same public!
As a college degreed investigator I can assure people that this is not uncommon. Contempt of cop is rampant and even as an investigator I received instances of the same, for having the temerity to do my job legally. Cops were more oftne than not more of a problem than the criminals I was investigating. Both cops should have been fired immediately, but in Vegas thats laughable. The other city should take note. As we slide towards anarchy, and cops get more brazen this way, average citizens will begin to fight back, eventuallt with lethal force against crimes committed against them under color of law. Cops should remember there are a lot more of US out here then them.
Phillep, you are an idiot. Maybe some day you will really need a cop. First, call the garbage man and see what he tells you. Then call a cop.
Call for a pizza and a cop at the same time. See which one arrives first. 99.9% of the time it won’t be the cop. And FYI, the waste management profession does not attract sociopaths and megalomaniacs the way law enforcement does these days.
A couple of reforms are required to break this cycle and bring the cops to heel. First, restore the old British common-law doctrine that a cop attempting to make an unlawful arrest — that is, without warrant or probable cause — is no better than a mugger or rapist, and such unlawful arrest can legally be resisted with deadly force. Unfortunately only 12 states recognize this right of self-defense against official violence; every state needs to do so.
Second, the police profession must be off-limits to former military personnel, or to those currently in the reserve or National Guard. Soldiers are trained to shoot first and not even bother to ask questions, which is the exact opposite of the mindset a cop needs to properly do his job. Militarization of law enforcement has caused huge damage and must be reversed.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? . . . The [Security] Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers … and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!” — Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
When *I* really need a cop is BEFORE some thug robs me at gunpoint, not after. Cops enforce the law. They do not respond to people’s needs.
I called a cop, once. It took about twenty minutes for the car to get there. I admit, garbage men take longer.
No officer of the law has ever been drafted into service. Every cop volunteered for the job. Do your job. Can’t do your job, get out of the business.
Generally speaking, cops are squared away, redneck jarheads who act like you are drafted into their army the minute you come into contact with them and not only do you occupy the lowest rank and them the highest but you are on K.P. and a slave/dog too.
Have you seen the YouTube about “Officer Bubbles?” It’s a laugh riot.
“Oh, no, bubbles, my eyes!!!!! Arrrrrrrgggggh. I’ll get you for this!!!”
Please don’t insult rednecks. We are people too.
What the author and many of the posters here fail to understand is that the rise of this attitude is both deliberate and encouraged both locally and Federally. Fast and Furious, Gun-walker, and Castaway all are the latest iterations of a government that more and more views the public at large not as those who are to be served but as peasants whose respect is to commanded and whose potential revolts are cause for eternal vigilance.
We are the enemy of an ever-more socialist state who chafes ever more loudly at the bonds that keep them from dealing with us as a master with a sullen slave: with the lash, the shackle, or the grave.
Unless We The People become aware of this impending tyranny we are doomed to suffer the same fate as the people of the former Soviet Union under Lenin and those who followed him.
Good point. It doesn’t help, either, that most agency upper ranks are more interested in making political points than keeping the peace.
I wonder if I’m the only one in this thread who’s ever actually had a police officer draw his gun and point at me? After the patdown that officer gave me back my club and told me if I ever needed to use it I should swing for the knees.
I don’t know what I’d do if a cop took exception to my videotaping him while he’s working a traffic stop. If I felt the need to do so I don’t think I’d make a point of letting him know it.
The proliferation of laws and the police state should alarm anyone who doesn’t draw a paycheck related to it. When I was a kid, our little town had one cop, most of the small towns had none. Now, the town hasn’t grown but there are five, and every town around is the same.
More laws and more law enforcement is not the answer if the question is, “how do we defend our liberty.”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865
It sounds like Colling should be charged with assault and battery. He should serve time in prison. An apology just does not cut it.
I have had video conferencing for nearly 2o years. I am not a lawyer but courts use taped depositions as testimony. They are different than transcripts. If a cop is working, he stands a risk of wrongful accusation. Accused of hurting a minority, planting evidence, racial slurs. A tape can protect a good cop.
And how long will it be before people start taking revenge on the cops who have acted this way? Just hope they get the right house. They probably stand about the same chance of that as the cops do when they serve a warrant. But know one thing. My revenge is monetary. My wife and I used to visit L.V. quite frequently, stay in a hotel/casino and generally waste our money there. Doesn’t happen any longer. Won’t either. We stay out of L.V., driving far out of our way to avoid even the freeways there, as we travel past, not through, L.V. frequently avoiding Nevada altogether.
A pox on them all. The cops are total jerks and so are the people who started all this.
If they file and win their lawsuits, it won’t be the cops who pay, it’ll be the citzenry, who had nothing to do with it, who pays. That makes Crooks and Good kind of dirtbags in my book.
Besides, neither Crooks nor Good look like model citizens to me. Last time Crooks was filming the cops, he ended up getting busted for FTAs on a DUI and a petty theft beef. This time around, he started out by lying to the police (saying that he didn’t live at the place he was filming from even though he did), according to an article I read in the San Jose Mercury News.
Good is some kind of protestor type who got arrested awhile back for confronting the cops when the police were trying to evict someone from a house after the owner defaulted on their loan. Good belongs to some group called “Take Back the Land” which apparently believes that folks shouldn’t have to pay their bills, and are entitled to keep property they didn’t pay for.
IOW, both Crooks and Good like troublemakers who don’t mind engaging in illegal activity themselves, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for them.
Unfortunately, many law ‘enforcement’ officers have been relegated to “hall monitors” rather than paid-by-the-citizens-to-protect the citizens POLICE.
The worst part is, the “political correctness” code that is now instilled means that Buffy will get a ticket for not wearing her seatbelt or talking on a cell-phone while “Jerome” and “Juan” make a clean getaway from a store robbery.
Until police are allowed to ‘profile’ again…this country’s ‘police’ are pretty pathetically hobbled by rules that make NO sense.
This “diplomacy” is coming from the “top”.
From Obama on down, there’s a “statesmanship” that the government and it’s employees are the arbiters of the people.
Their decisions are ultimate and final, and the people have no recourse. Their “unions” back them up all the way to Washington D.C.
Until we get more officials like Joe Arpaio, who will stand up for the citizens and take his oath seriously, it will not get any better.
The affirmative action laws forced departments to lower their standards.
The popularity of ‘Cops’ brought us the skin headed, bulked up glory hounds.
The ever expanding war on drugs produced more and more criminals.
The unconstitutional seizure laws produced more incentive for financial gain.
The unions got the power to decide if or to what degree, a cop could be punished.
The paramilitary SWAT teams were both encouraged by and financed with federal money.
Judges write no knock warrants based on paid informants’ word only.
The citizens became convinced that more cops equaled more safety.
Cops adapted the ‘us versus them’ mentality making all citizens enemies.
All these seemingly unrelated things led us to a situation where any sane person would never willingly involve a cop in his life. Except for filling out police reports for insurance purposes and traffic control, I have never seen the need for one. They make a pretense of ‘investigating’ any crime that’s not going to get them some headlines of some more federal grant money.
If there’s one class of people other than criminals I’d consider disarming, it would be cops.
Sorry, cops. You always have and always will represent the all knowing, omnipotent faction of our society–the government–who ignores most peoples’ needs and tries to cram their version of what is good and right down our throats.
If I had to wait for a police officer to save my ass, and I have had to on more than one occasion, I wouldn’t be typing this comment.
For the most part the police are worthless revenue generating thugs. I only wish that more people would use shotguns instead of cameras to blow these idiots away.
I lost all my respect for the Law and Order, Protect and Serve, morons when I called them to arrest a person who had entered my home and assaulted me. Five days later they threatened me with arrest because I called the the man a kaffir to his face in my own home after he had left me bleeding. The agency was the Alameda County Sheriff’s office (CA). I don’t remember the deputies’ names.
I finally had to go to civil court to get a restraining order against the black mofo because the cops weren’t going to do a thing to secure my safety or my wife’s.
It’s the last time I will ever try 911. From now on it’s .357 and it will be in the head or the knees, and probably aimed at out the ten-minute-late cops.
I finally had to go to civil court to get a restraining order against the black mofo because the cops weren’t going to do a thing to secure my safety or my wife’s.
And how’s the piece of paper – the restraining order – working out for you? Despite your apparently reasonable reservations about the police, I really don’t see why a guy who is apparently not too concerned about the police is going to be frightened of a restraining order….
One thing I’m amazed at about the majority of cops is their detachment – their ability NOT to get emotional themselves when dealing with out-of-control people. And God knows, the area where I live has more than its share of underclass, dysfunctional, free-falling, actors-out of every emotion that pops into their heads. So how does a cop remain professional and do his job in an atmosphere of emotional chaos? Do they teach him special techniques in cop school?
I don’t know why a police officer goes from detached professional to enraged prima donna. There are probably a lot of cops who don’t belong in the job – they’re not emotionally equippped for it. That’s one reason I never considered being a cop myself. Others – who knows? Some of them may be salvageable, others need to be removed from authority.
By now, the fact that it’s NOT illegal to photograph cops should be pretty well-known. The fact that these photography incidents keep occurring makes me think there’s some sort of unwritten law going around in the “cop culture.” Citizens who photograph cops are trying to entrap them, turning every traffic stop into a Rodney King incident, so cops have to fight back. Cops fighting back and getting away with it sets a dangerous precedent.
I don’t mean to broad brush every cop as I am sure there are good ones, but my entire personal experience from child hood has been “bully with a badge.” Even the reporting of a car being stolen was a horrid experience as I was “interrogated” accompanied by flippant attitude upon departure.
I’ll say it again. It isn’t the cops keeping a thug from kicking in your front door at this minute. It’s the thought in every punk’s mind giving thought to kicking in your door, that behind that door is 20 gauge shot gun held by someone who knows how to use it. I am completely convinced of that.
I’m afraid that cops and judges rank at the bottom of my preferred occupation list. And in my own hometown, the police union has now decided to vocally and politically tie themselves to local Dimocrats – the final nail in the coffin.
It isn’t the cops keeping a thug from kicking in your front door at this minute. It’s the thought in every punk’s mind giving thought to kicking in your door, that behind that door is 20 gauge shot gun held by someone who knows how to use it. I am completely convinced of that.
I’m not convinced of it at all. I’ll tell you why.
I’m Canadian and we have pretty strict gun control here. We have nothing comparable to your Second Amendment in our laws. Yet most people in this country do not become the victims of home invasions or violent crimes and most are not afraid of those things happening to them. I think very few of the criminals in this country fear encountering lethal weapons and people who know how to use them in this society.
So what deters the criminals? I truly don’t know. But it’s not fear of homeowners with guns.
By the way, I don’t want to give you the impression that this country is free of crime; it’s not.
It takes a while for a new attitude to spread through the criminal underworld — because most criminals just copy each other (they are not deep thinkers). Take a look at what happened to the crime rate in England over the last several decades as it became ever more difficult for ordinary English citizens to own and use guns to protect their property.
I’m not sure your Canadian analogy to my home state of Oklahoma is a good one because here we dutifully exercise our 2nd Amendment Rights and have a “Make My Day Law.” And there’s no tactful way to say this – the demographic quite different. There’s been a few “unfortunate” individuals dropped recently, including one making national news – a pharmacist who is going to prison for defending himself. Made the mistake of reloading with five lethal shots after winging a thief in the head with the first shot and only “incapacitating” him. We should be putting medals around his neck. That was in a place of business.
But Henry, I have to admit I have no statistics to back up my claim.
However, one thing I know for sure – it’s certainly not fear of our police force. They’re far too busy hiding in the weeds to generate traffic tickets, planting drugs and taking kickbacks (there’s a huge scandal here that just concluded), and pandering and groveling for more money under threat.
…any citizen is within their rights to observe those officers,
and even to film them.
In Illinois a citizen is committing a felony when they film;
At least one citizen has been charged under the law -
don’t know how that case turned out.
The reason the State, and its servants, are so sensitive about this
is that they expect to do more and worse in future as the economy
crashes, and video recordings destroy their ‘plausible deniability’.
Their latest move is to confiscate video recorders as evidence;
The next move after that will be to call it ‘evidence tampering’
when the video is released to the public.
Part of the problem is that police seeing a citizen filming them expect only bad things as a result, which naturally will tend to create a negative, hostile feeling. If it’s a problem officer, he will act on those feelings.
What you can do: film a police officer doing something well and professionally, and send it to his superiors with an appreciative comment, asking them to let the officer know. Send the film to a local media outlet, newspaper, etc. if it is at all newsworthy.
If a citizen filming an officer is more likely to be sending a commendation than a criticism, the police will have an entirely different attitude about it, and there will be a lot less pressure to prevent it. Right now, my impression is that for an officer to be filmed is almost certain to be perceived as a potential personal threat.
Bad apples won’t like it anyway, but as long as they are outnumbered by good apples, they will get no traction.
Do a good deed today. Let your local police chief know an officer did a good job.
Yeah the police beat the crap out of people due to low self esteem, if only the public would pat them on the back more often. Mary I suggest you should at least watch the videos these people took, and then explain how making them feel better about themselves is going to make a difference.
If your suggestion is just to build pr for a numbers game then you are really and truly pathetic.
Get this in IL it is illegal to video tape the police even if they have pulled you over. The courts rule it violates IL’S laws about recording phone conversations, both parties must consent. Now if the police want to tape you that’s fine and dandy your consent is unnecessary.
Put another way the person who recorded Rodney King’s beating would have been arrested in IL.
I am in agreement with the comments here about the police being way out of control, I want to make that clear. But in reference to the Rodney King case, that was one of the instances that looked like excessive force on film but wasn’t. I think it’s important to have the facts, and anyone who takes the time to research that incident will see that King was a big tough doped up thug who wouldn’t submit to arrest after leading the cops on a long high speed chase through densely populated areas. He was at that particular time immune to pain, even to the taser. It is truly freaky dealing with someone like that. Fifty years ago they would have shot him, or literally busted his skull.
Police keep talking about how they need more “power” and less restrictions because their lives are on the line every day. To som esmall extent their lives are on the line. The fact is though it is far far more dangerous to be a fireman and the most dangerous job out there is to be a convenience store clerk. They are far more likely to be killed by a “bad guy” than any policeman.
Good to know about Vegas. I will avoid the place.
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