Lights, Action, Camera - You're Under Arrest

Via The Agitator, we are alerted to a story concerning a young man by the name of Brian D. Kelly, a young man with an interest in film making.  Unfortunately, Mr. Kelly has had a run in with the law.

Brian D. Kelly didn’t think he was doing anything illegal when he used his videocamera to record a Carlisle police officer during a traffic stop. Making movies is one of his hobbies, he said, and the stop was just another interesting event to film.

Now he’s worried about going to prison or being burdened with a criminal record.

Kelly, 18, of Carlisle, was arrested on a felony wiretapping charge, with a penalty of up to 7 years in state prison.

Think about both the injustice of this, and the two faced attitude cops have regarding being filmed.

Cops love to be filmed, well as long as the filming is being done by a teevee show such as COPS, or the cancelled teevee show Armed & Famous.

Are the cops pressing charges in Mr. Kelly’s case because they do not have editing rights to Mr. Kelly’s filming?  And just why is there a law prohibiting the filming of cops as they perform their duties?  Are the cops concerned about being filmed by passerbys due to past actions such as the beating of Robert Davis in New Orleans, which was recorded on film by a simple “citizen” with no directing credentials?

And what about the attitude taken by the First Assistant District Attorney involved in Mr. Kelly’s case, who spouts off with the following comment.

First Assistant District Attorney Jaime Keating said case law is in flux as to whether police can expect not to be recorded while performing their duties.

“The law isn’t solid,” Keating said. “But people who do things like this do so at their own peril."

Yeah, “To Protect and To Serve,” is the standard police motto, which you see plastered on many a cop car, but not on film, unless you’re associated with a big time teevee network or Hollywood, otherwise you may be in peril.

The complete story regarding Brian D. Kelly can be read here.

Posted by on 06/13 at 07:30 AM

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