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Here's a guide on when, and when not, to record police

A Facebook video that showed an officer grabbing a woman's phone and stopping her from filming has brought up questions about when civilians are allowed to film police.
Credit: Thinkstock
Police car on the street at night

Police in Evansville, Indiana called a press conference Tuesday to complain about Facebook.

Sgt. Jason Cullum gathered media together to respond to a post that had been swirling around a small corner of the Internet. It was written by a man named Seth Lile, and it ripped into EPD pretty hard. And Cullum said it was full of inaccurate statements.

Over the weekend Seth's brother, Michael, overdosed on heroin, and police were called in to administer Narcan. It worked. They saved Michael Lile’s life.

Things went downhill from there. Here are some bullet points:

  • After he was revived, Michael ended up bolting from the house when police announced there was a felony warrant for his arrest
  • Michael was tased. A police officer turned to the rest of the group and said Michael was going to "get himself killed."
  • Seth, who was later arrested and accused of weed possession, was detained, as were several others.

Police released body camera footage of the incident to debunk discrepancies in Seth’s post, and Cullum criticized members of the public for blindly sharing content they couldn't’t confirm.

The post had only been shared 492 times as of Wednesday afternoon. That’s less than a half-percent of the Evansville population. If anything, a live-streamed press conference from police gave it more attention.

At one point, a woman in the house began filming police. When officers noticed, they grabbed the woman’s phone and stopped the video. It ended up in the phone’s trash bin. During the press conference, Cullum claimed that was accidental.

Cell phone videos of police actions are ubiquitous nowadays. They've been key in documenting national cases of police brutality against minorities and others.

Were police allowed to prohibit the woman from filming them?

In short, yeah.

“We have the right to control people’s movements and their behavior during an active crime scene or criminal investigation,” Cullum said during the press conference. “If you have someone who just overdosed on drugs, you have a crime scene.

“…The individuals who were directly involved with that incident do not have the same ability or rights to record law enforcement as a casual observer who is watching from across the street or from the next-door neighbor’s house.”

So when can you film police and when can’t you?

When you can film police

Most of the time.

If police are carrying out their jobs in a public space and you are recording as a third party, film away. A federal appeals court decision from last year solidified your right to do so.

Defense attorney Chris Eskew, while talking to the Indy Star in 2015, defined a public place like this:

“Any place you're allowed to be, or, generally, people are allowed to be in. As far as criminal law is concerned, a public place is any place the general populace is invited to go,” he said. “… Lucas Oil Stadium is considered a public place even if it's privately owned.”

There is one caveat: you can’t interfere.

Of course the definition of “interfere” is subjective. But in 2015, The Atlantic published a guide on how to record police -- and what to say if they try to confiscate your phone.

“Record from a distance, stay out of the scene, and the officer doesn’t have the right to come over and take your camera, confiscate it,” Delroy Burton, chairman of D.C.’s metropolitan police union, told the magazine.

If police do take your phone, they aren’t legally allowed to search it without a warrant.

When you can’t film police

The Lile incident over the weekend is one solid example. In Indiana, you also can’t legally take video – or photos – of court proceedings.

But another example is a tad murkier. It’s probably not a good idea to film if a police officer pulls you over, Eskew said.

“If you're holding the phone, most officers will not be OK with that. You can ask, but they'll probably say, 'Keep your hands where I can see them,'" he said.

That means, in certain situations, the only video evidence of a run-in with law enforcement will come from police. That’s why body cameras continue to be so important.

EPD uses them frequently and has gotten more open to sharing footage over the years. Other places aren’t like that.

Whether you can take video or not, you’re free to go on Facebook and air your grievances. And, as we learned on Tuesday, police are free to respond.

Contact columnist Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com.

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