Citizens recording police have been arrested damaging the movement for greater transparency of police activities. The International Documentary Association has now petitioned the Justice Department to intervene to protect citizens who document police violence. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 25, 2016, by Shahid Bukttar)
Several citizens across the country have been arrested recently including Chris LeDay who uploaded a video of the Baton Rouge Police shooting of Alton Sterling in July. LeDay spent 26 hours in the county jail and lost his job at the local air force base and $4000 in wages before getting his job back. Abdullah Muflahi, a store owner where the Sterling shooting took place was detained by police for hours and his store’s security footage confiscated. (BuzzFeed News, August 10, 2016, by Mike Hayes)
The letter to the DOJ reads in part, “We, the documentary community, call upon the Department of Justice to investigate a troubling pattern of abuse of power: the pervasive harassment of citizens who use cameras and social media to document and distribute footage of law enforcement. Whether they identify as citizen journalists, activists, or civilians, it is vital we defend the rights of these individuals to use video as a means of criticizing unjust police activity. We ask for a full investigation into any and all actions taken against them by police departments, and the larger pattern of abuse that has emerged on a federal, state, and local level, and the threat it poses to free speech and a free press.”(International Documentary Association, August 9, 2016, by IDA editorial staff)