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NYPD Criticizes City Bill Encouraging Laws Suits over Cops Stopping Recordings

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The New York Police Department is openly criticizing a City Council bill that encourages anyone who is prevented by an officer from recording police activity or gets their recording equipment confiscated, to sue the city.

Brooklyn democrat Councilman Jumaane Williams sponsored this proposal, which would make a city law that officially recognizes the right that citizens have to record police activity and would permit them to sue for damages and lawyer fees for officer interference.

The current laws allow cops to arrest someone for recording police activity only if the filming interferes with the officer doing his or her duties.

On Thursday, December 14, during a council hearing, NYPD Deputy Chief Emanuel Katranakis testified that the bill is not necessary because people are already permitted by state and federal law to take legal action. He said the law would merely lead do a surplus of obnoxious lawsuits.

Katranakis said, “The department does not believe that passage of this bill would add anything to an individual’s current ability to engage in this lawful conduct. It would instead create an unnecessary avenue for additional litigation against police officers, the Police Department and the city.”

The Post reports, “Cellphone cameras captured both the chokehold death of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD and the South Carolina shooting death of Walter Scott, which led to an officer being sentenced to 20 years in prison. Williams cited a Civilian Complaint Review Board report showing it received 346 complaints about police interfering with people’s ability to record them from 2014 to 2016. He said giving cops a pass would be a step backward.”

He said, “Without the cameras, without many of the videos, the progress we’ve made — which is clearly not enough — wouldn’t even be here.”

People are discouraged by the use of federal and state law, instead of local law, from pursuing a complaint, Williams argued.

Even if there is an additional city law, NYPD attorney Oleg Chernyavsky said that people’s cases would still have through state or federal court, which thy can do already.

By Rebecca Gold

 

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