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Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you!
Dr. Q
Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you!
Those are the words that UMass Lowell student Brendan Brown heard shortly after he trained his cell phone camera on several campus
police officers last Saturday.
Brown told me that he was leaving a friends house when he noticed a big brawl taking place outside an apartment. When police
appeared on the scene to break up the fight, Brown stood a reasonable distance away from the action, took out his cell phone, and
began documenting the activity. In less than a minute, the officers turned to face Brown and one asked him, You all set over there with
the camera?
Yeah, Im all set, Brown responded.
Yeah, who are you? the officer asked.
While Brown explained to the police that he was merely observing what was going on, an officer began walking toward him. Thats
when the officer threatened to assault Brown.
After being threatened by the officer, Brown decided to comply with his demand rather than to be possibly beat up and thrown in jail.
In the case Commonwealth v. Hyde, a musicians felony wiretapping conviction was upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court after he recorded police during a traffic stop, however, Hydes conviction stemmed from the fact that he made a secret audio-
recording of police with a hidden tape recorder.
0:00 / 0:56
UMass Lowell Police Officer Threatens Bystander
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Openly recording police officers like Brown was doing is not a crime. As the SJC observed in Hyde, Hydes arrest and
conviction could have been avoided if, at the outset of the traffic stop, [he] had simply informed the police of his intention to tape record
the encounter, or even held the tape recorder in plain sight. Had he done so, his recording would not have been secret, and so would not
have violated the wiretapping statute.
More recently, a federal appeals court ruled that openly recording police officers in Massachusetts is an activity that is protected by the
First Amendment and police officers may be sued for interfering with people who record them.
In fact, its legal to audio and video-record police virtually everywhere in the United States. The only major exception is the state of
Illinois which currently has an eavesdropping law that criminalizes even openly audio-recording ones own interactions with police
officers without their consent. Despite the fact that recording police is generally legal, there have been hundreds of documented cases of
police harassing, threatening, assaulting, and even arresting people for recording police activity in recent years.
But just because its become all too common for police to interfere (oftentimes violently) with people who record them does not mean
that its acceptable. The officer who threatened Brown wasnt simply disrespectful or unprofessional. What he did is a crime and he
deserves to face consequences for it.
That officer deserves to lose his job. No person who believes he has the right to threaten to assault other individuals for something that is
not only legal, but is protected by the First Amendment, has any business being a police officer. When you commit a serious crime like
threatening someone without provocation, you dont deserve a second chance with the badge.
The officer in the video should also be facing criminal charges. If Brown had approached a police officer and threatened to hit him, you
can bet he would have ended up in jail. Police officers who make criminal threats dont deserve to be treated any differently.
Brown agrees that his rights were violated, but told me that he has no plans to seek accountability from the campus police over the
incident because he was unable to identify the officer who threatened him.
If I had correctly identified the officer who made the threat, I would want him to be held entirely accountable and face whatever
repercussions are given for this type of behavior. However since that is not the case, the awareness brought by this video is satisfying
enough for people and especially UMass Lowell students to know what is going on and how business is being conducted by these public
servants, he told me.
However, Brown did say that the schools student trustee, whom he described as a good friend, was aware of the video and was
considering discussing it with the UMass Lowell Police Chief.
I decided that before I publish anything about the video, it would be fair to get a comment from the UMass Lowell Police Department so
I sent in an email that included a link to the video and some related questions. I quickly received a response from UMass Lowell Police
Chief Randolph E. Brashears.
Chief Brashears did not respond to any of my questions, but assured me that his department take[s] citizen complaints seriously.
Though he did not comment on the departments policy with respect to recording police activity, he did say that The students involved
have nothing to fear from our agency as I did not see any violations of the law on their part from the short video clip. He said he will get
back to me when he finishes investigating the incident.
I suggest contacting the UMass Lowell Police Department to let them know that the behavior of the officer in the video is unacceptable.
You can contact the department on their non-emergency phone line at 978-934-2398. You can email the department at
police@uml.edu or you can email Chief Brashears directly at Randolph_Brashears@uml.edu.
I will post an update on this case as soon as more information becomes available.
Update (10/17/2011): The Lowell Sun, a Lowell-based newspaper, picked up this story. You can read their coverage here.
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Tags: Campus police, Freedom of expression, Freedom of the press, Harassment, Lowell MA, UMass Lowell
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 7:00 amand is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry
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12 Responses to Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you!
"Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you!" | Cop Block Says: October 11th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
[...] article was cross-posted at Massachusetts Cop [...]
Reply
Morning Links | The Agitator Says: October 12th, 2011 at 9:34 am
[...] Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you. [...]
Reply
Juice Says: October 12th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Minor nitpick. I believe that the officer DID assault the man. From wiki: In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear
violence. The term is often confused with battery, which is the actual touching.
Reply
Dr. Q Says: October 12th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Juice, as I understand it, that varies from state to state. I believe that in some states, simply threatening someone is considered an
assault. I am not sure if thats the case in Massachusetts. However, unless otherwise noted, when I use the term in my writing, I
am using it in the lay sense, not the legal sense.
Reply
Yassuh Says: October 13th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
No, while the precise elements of the crime established by statute may vary from state to state, the cops
behavior does constitute the commission of a common law assault everywhere in the good ol US of A.
Reply
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John C. Randolph Says: October 14th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
That officer deserves to lose his job.
That is an inadequate remedy for someone who violates another persons civil rights under color of authority. The cop should be
fired, lose any pension benefits hes accrued, and spend at least a year in custody.
-jcr
Reply
Dr. Q Says: October 15th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
John, did you read the entire article? I went on to say that the cop should be facing criminal charges in addition to being fired.
Reply
Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you! | GrassrootsHeadlines.com Says: October 17th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
[...] article was cross-posted at Massachusetts Cop [...]
Reply
Amused Says: October 20th, 2011 at 9:15 am
The cop probably did not commit an assault by merely saying he would slap the student, as he made no gesture consistent with an
attempt to slap him, or creating an imminent enough fear of a battery. However, Massachusetts does have a statute punishing
threats to commit a crime against another, and the officers statement is clearly within the ambit of that statute as construed.
If the student wanted to sue, the inability to identify the officer would be no real impediment. He could sue the officer as a John
Doe and conduct a deposition of the dispatcher and whoever receives the reports of police officers, and from those depositions,
he can get the names of all the officers at the scene.
Reply
University refuses to disclose disciplinary information about campus police | Cop Block Says: December 6th, 2011 at 9:00 am
[...] October, I wrote about how a UMass Lowell student was threatened by a campus police officer for video-recording him.
[...]
Reply
Sally Says: January 16th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
great post Im a massive Big Brother watcher
Reply
Dont Film Me, Bro! - The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education - FIRE Says: May 18th, 2012 at 11:53 am
[...] protections for recording police officers apply on university campuses as well. In fact, in an incident at University of
Massachusetts Lowell last year, a campus police officer attempted to stop a student from recording a campus police [...]
Reply
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