February 24, 2022February 24, 20221067

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On Monday, the Arizona House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would make filming police on the job illegal in some cases. 

House Bill 2319 was proposed by Fountain Hills Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, a former police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The bill, which passed Wednesday on a 31-28 vote, would make it unlawful for citizens to record police from up to 8 feet away while officers are engaged in “law enforcement activity.” 

If passed into law, the bill would make it illegal for a person to “knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity, including the handling of an emotionally disturbed person, if the person does not have the permission of the law enforcement officer” and is within 8 feet of the cop. The bill initially stipulated that it would be a crime to record within 15 feet of an officer, however Rep. Kavanagh changed the distance in an amendment. 

Anyone who is ordered by police to stop filming but continues to do so would face a class 3 misdemeanor and up to 30 days in jail. 

An amendment added by the House Appropriations Committee allows people to film their own interactions with police, as long as they are “not interfering with lawful police actions, including searching handcuffing or administering a field sobriety test.” 

The amendment also allows passengers in a vehicle to film as long as they don’t interfere with “lawful police actions.” 

Constitutional experts and civil rights advocates say the proposed law would be blatantly unconstitutional.  

“Courts have upheld that people have a constitutional right to videotape police activity, and now to say that it is illegal is just idiotic,” Dan Barr, an attorney who specializes in media and First Amendment cases, previously told the Arizona Mirror. “This would make the recording of the murder of George Floyd illegal.”

Kavanagh said he doesn’t feel the bill is unconstitutional because it only limits when police can be filmed instead of banning it entirely. 

“It distracts the cop against the person they are making enforcement against,” Kavanagh has said of people videotaping law enforcement. “If I ban videotaping, then it would be unconstitutional.” 

The bill now heads to the Senate.

A former Wilmington police officer has been indicted on excessive force charges after he was caught on video slamming a man’s head into a plexiglass panel during an arrest in September. 

Former police officer Samuel Waters, 27, has been accused of felony counts of perjury and tampering with public records, along with misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault, official misconduct, and falsifying a business record in connection with two separate incidents that took place in September. He faces up to 13 years in prison if convicted on all counts. 

The first incident related to Waters’ indictment occurred during a domestic violence call in September. During the arrest, Waters allegedly pressed his nightstick against the back of a man’s neck while another officer tried to handcuff him. Prosecutors said the suspect was bent over the back of a vehicle with his hands behind his back and was not being combative or violent with the arresting officers. 

Nine days later, on Sept. 21, Waters confronted Dwayne Brown at a convenience store in south Wilmington after police received a call from a nearby day care facility saying a man had repeatedly harassed employees. Police were told the man had been in the day care several times, yelling and making sexual comments to the staff.

Surveillance cameras inside the store show Waters approach Brown and briefly speaking to him, before grabbing his arm, and slamming his head into a plexiglass panel two times before they both fall on the floor. 

Waters was fired from the police department effective Jan. 5.

Brown has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Waters, whose attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss.

According to the lawsuit, Brown was not being “combative, physically aggressive, actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.”

The suit also claims Waters never identified himself as a police officer and that he did not give a warning that use of force would be used as the department directive requires. 

According to the lawsuit, Brown was taken outside the store where Waters continued to use excessive force. During this time, Brown feared he would end up being killed, according to the lawsuit. 

Brown’s lawsuit also accused Waters of using the “N-word” during the arrest. Brown, who is Black, also charged that Waters, who is white, has a history of “inappropriate behavior in dealing with other members of the Black community. He is widely known and feared as a bully.”

“The evidence in this case shows a clear and disturbing pattern of violence and deception,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a statement Monday. “The defendant repeatedly abused a position of trust and authority and then subsequently lied about it. 

“We don’t tolerate this kind of misconduct by anyone – let alone from someone who swore an oath to protect his community – and we will prosecute his crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”