Just yesterday, another community “came to its senses” when it dropped charges against a citizen because she did exactly that … she videotaped officers arresting someone in front of her property while she was standing on her own property. 

“In a joint statement, Rochester (NY) Mayor Thomas S. Richards, City Council President Lovely A. Warren and Police Chief James Sheppard commended the decision to drop the charges against Good and said an internal review is being conducted into the incident.

“‘Police officers must be able to cope with a high degree of stress while performing oftentimes dangerous duties, relying on their training and experience to guide their behavior,’ the statement said. ‘We want to make clear that it is not the policy or practice of the Rochester Police Department to prevent citizens from observing its activities — including photographing or videotaping — as long as it does not interfere with the safe conduct of those activities,’ the statement said.”

On June 13 we posted an article about the issue of videotaping the police and the court cases that have repeatedly affirmed the right of citizens to video police actions as long as they are not impeding a lawful action. Lawful societies cannot condone nor tolerate indiscriminate violation of the rights of its citizen; it is imperative that citizens know and trust that their elected “public servants” and those hired to provide public safety and municipal services will follow the laws and not violate them to serve their own interests.

Police officers have exceedingly difficult and dangerous jobs; these jobs are made more difficult if they try to violate and diminish their own citizens. And the good police officers bear the brunt of the bad decisions made by the renegades who want to make up their own laws.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read the rest of the story about the Rochester incident by clicking here. You can also read more about “possible police retaliation” here.)

Endnote: The wrongly arrested citizen has announced that she intends to file a civil suit; here is one of the many “reader comments” to the numerous articles about this instance:

“The answer is simple – require that police understand the law and have zero tolerance policies like they do for kids with scissors is school. What is most regrettable is that if the woman sues everyone in Rochester will have to pay for it – oh how I wish the officer responsible would have to pay himself – take his savings, his pension and his property (car, house, etc.). ‘Sorry kids you can’t go to college because I illegally arrested people.'”