What to Say When the Police Tell You to Stop Filming Them
“Photography is a form of power, and people are loath to give up power, including police officers.”
“Photography is a form of power, and people are loath to give up power, including police officers. It’s a power struggle where the citizen is protected by the law but, because it is a power struggle, sometimes that’s not enough,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
.. “In the majority of situations, an officer is just trying to intimidate you, and stop your reporting. Once you make it clear to the officer that you do know what your rights are and that you don’t intend to be intimidated, I think in the vast majority of situations, the officer will back down,” he says.
.. “We train volunteers to calmly respond, ‘I’m just exercising my constitutionally protected right to document police activity,’” he told me.
.. “If you’re dealing with a belligerent police officer, that’s a dangerous situation—police officers have a lot of power—and you need to make a judgement about the importance of what you’re doing, and about the risk you’re willing to take, versus your own sense of justice,” says Stanley.