Officer Seizes iPad and Threatens Arrest After Being Filmed in Public

This is yet another video of a citizen confronting a police officer about his taking her iPad because she was using it to film him in the course of a stop or arrest. The officer tells her that she can pick it up tomorrow and that she is risking an arrest by continuing to confront him.

What I found the most interesting about this video is that the officer is citing the fact that this is a public area as the basis for threatening arrest for the woman yelling and disturbing the peace. It is the very fact that it is public that gives her the right to film so long as she is not physically interfering with the stop or arrest.

The officer does not explain what authority allows him to seize a citizen’s property and force her to drive down to the police station to retrieve it. It sounds more like a parental scolding than police action.