If you have a teenager with a cellphone you know how much they love to use their devices. They love to talk on them and text on them. And, if they see something they think is interesting, they love to take pictures or video clips with them to show to their friends or post on Facebook.
Sixteen year old Khaliah Fitchette of Newark, New Jersey doesn’t seem much different. While she was riding a city bus, two Newark police officers boarded the bus to deal with another passenger believed to be drunk. Fitchette, cellphone in hand, began to take a video clip of this interesting event in her life. There is no assertion that the police were acting improperly in dealing with the passenger. But, they were not amused that young Khaliah was recording the action.
She was pulled off the bus by one of the officers. The video on her cellphone was erased. Though she was eventually released with no charges filed against her, she would spend two hours handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser.
Some believe that the video recording of police activity is dangerous because it potentially has a chilling effect on officers taking action in the course of their duties. Others believe, that with 280 million cellphone subscribers in the U. S. alone, it has become a fact of modern life that anything done in public is likely to be recorded. Both of these opinions are expressed by spokespersons for different law enforcement organizations, demonstrating a split on the issue within the law enforcement community.
Some law enforcement agencies train officers to understand that they will be video recorded and to tolerate it so long as the person is committing no other crime. Other law enforcement agencies have lobbied for laws outlawing the video recording of police activity. Proposed anti-video laws have been opposed by civil rights and civil liberties organizations who argue that the possibility of being recorded helps hold public officials with great power over the lives of individuals accountable.
Khaliah Fitchette, even though she was not charged with any crime or accused of doing anything illegal, says she wouldn’t do it again. Out of fear that what happened to her once might happen to her again.
More on this story at NPR .
Contributor, aka tidbits. Retired attorney in complex litigation, death penalty defense and constitutional law. Former Nat’l Board Chair: Alzheimer’s Association. Served on multiple political campaigns, including two for U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). Contributing author to three legal books and multiple legal publications.