A Youtube video is going viral showing an Inglewood (CA) man, Avel Amarel, confronting police officers who were demanding to enter his home without a warrant. He recorded the encounter with his cellphone and the incident captures the growing concern of some regarding police powers. It also reveals the level of animosity that can arise in such cases between officers and citizens.
On the video below, one of the officers orders Amarel to turn off the camera. The officer says that they are searching for a wanted felon who allegedly beat his girlfriend nearby. The officers demands Amarel’s name and he refuses and says “I don’t have to tell you that.” He then demands three forms of identification since they could be “anybody dressed up in a uniform.” That leads one officer to respond “You want to play games? I’m gonna drag you out if you . . . ” Ameral tells the officers to get a warrant if they want to search his house.
Nonetheless, the officer repeatedly asks “Will you allow us to check your house?” Ameral repeatedly says “Get a warrant.” Finally, the officer leave with a “thank you.”
A news report quotes Ameral as having some very anti-police views from his Facebook page, including
Police think they can do whatever they want nah not today not with me I’m never ignorant of The law tawmbout they gone drag me out my house making empty threats to a boss! You gotta kno ya sh*t out here cause these devils scanless out here
And another entry later saying “F*** the police… they give us no peace.” A third entry on September 1st reportedly says that he will be “shooting back” if the police shoot at him “like they did Mike [Brown]” in Ferguson, Missouri.
Neither side comes out necessary well in the video and its aftermath. It is an illustrative video of these types of confrontations.
@rafflaw, I agree with respect to the camera, and even then they threatened to ‘pull him out’ (I would even suggest that is a potentially actionable threat)
@david, even with a video the danger still exists of prejudging the case because exceptions to getting a warrant are typically based on some type of exigent circumstance. The video still may not reveal what those exigent circumstances might be. Of course, this particular video hints that the police are there because the victim pointed them in that direction and given the reactions of the police to the homeowner, its pretty obvious they didn’t see the suspect flee into that premises. Nevertheless, the danger of video is limiting the inquiry into the field of vision of the camera.
I only read this article because it was, apparently, authored by Johnathan Turley, someone who passes for a constitutional lawyer on TV.
So, I was disappointed that he didn’t weigh in on the legality of the police demands and on the righteousness of the citizens actions, as measured against legal standards. A low-level beat reporter could have written this article reporting facts just as well.
LF
David Walters – you can upload cell phone movies and protect it in real time so the police cannot destroy it even if they take your phone and try to erase it. BTW, all of your attacks against Prof Turley have been addressed in other threads. You are coming late to the game.
The resident did the right thing in demanding a warrant. I believe that the officers might not have been so “cordial” if the camera wasn’t running. I also find it hard to believe that the alleged victim did not give a description of her “boyfriend” who allegedly beat her. I think the officers were being less than honest.
Well, that’s true, Nick, but look at what a broken camera would do to the credibility of a police officer on the witness stand, particularly in the face of a charge of excessive force. Should the federal government pay for them? No, but the technology exists and can be employed in a way that allows us to peer into police/citizen interactions. I’d tend to say its a no brainer. In this circumstance here, this guy is obviously just using his own phone….
I saw Claire McCaskill pontificating on the need to help cops by having the Fed Govt. pay to provide body video cameras for every cop in the country, hundreds of thousands. I almost pissed my pants laughing. Those cameras would “break” and “malfunction” in epic numbers. I am generally a supporter of cops. But, they have a huge problem adjusting to the ubiquity of cameras in our culture. I hope their temper tantrums end soon because it is hurting their support.
Nick – the show Franklin and Bash included a segment where the cop who was harassing them turned his dashcam off, oooops.
His home, his castle, the home owner comes off as slightly less than well educated, but he’s right, absent some exigent circumstance, where’s the exception to not getting a warrant. If the probable cause is sufficient, take the time to draft up an affidavit, wake the judge up while you sit on the home and then enter the residence armed with a warrant. Its not supposed to be convenient, its supposed to be inconvenient.
The apt or home dweller was perfectly correct in what he did in view of what the police are doing today and have been doing undercover of or most probably ignored by the media for decades and decades. It is they who are the problem and they must be stopped and the guilty among them should be sent to prison. I am not a supporter of long prison terms for almost anyone and the number of activities the authoritarians label crimes should be reduced. The prisons themselves are pretty much torture chambers and the number of innocents sent to prison is increasing and it seems to be deliberate policy based on biases due to class, race, and gender status of accused citizens on the part of police, prosecutors, and judges. The police should have withdrawn immediately and not escalated the incident by useless talking in the face of no warrant. Sure, this time they didn’t taser or shoot but others would have without blinking an eye. Just as the computer has allowed the larger public awareness of the crimes of leaders on all levels it has captured the police committing crimes as well. The danger to us and to all peoples around the world is that the authorities will go to police power to the power of ten instead of doing the right thing and taking a look at themselves and the dystopian world they have made and realizing almost anything could be different and less violent than it is today if they controlled themselves and were not driven by bias and paranoia. But power and its companion violence are stimulants worse than any drug and authorities everywhere don’t want to give them up.
I am going to side with the resident. He does not have to come off well since he is the victim in this case. Being threatened by the police would set up hackles up. The police have a right to ask and he has a right to refuse. The police did not have to take it further than that.
JBH PhD etc:
Just a suggestion, collapse your prose into concise sentences.
I sense there is something interesting you are actually trying to say, but the round about, meandering, desultory method by which you emit your sentiment is so hard to re-parse back into something meaningful is too hard to even try.
typo, or Freudian slip? I had intended to use “enables” twice, however, perhaps I can improve my second one-sentence paragraph:
Was, with typo, “What enablers some, but not all, people to believe that they can decide what I did and why I did it, without their having any semblance of valid understanding of me, or of my life?”
Improvement? “What enablers enable some, but not all, people to believe that they can decide what I did and why I did it, without their having any semblance of valid understanding of me, or of my life?”
That’s because Mr. Ph.D., P.E.
People (as a mass, general rule) tend to be snide and petty;
instead of considerate, kind and of open mind.
What enables some, but not all, people to become authoritarian-aggressive?
What enablers some, but not all, people to believe that they can decide what I did and why I did it, without their having any semblance of valid understanding of me, or of my life?
Concur Mr. Fleischer;
Abuse happens, due to the fact that we permit it to transpire; most times without such resistance.
While I find the social networking advocacy of escalating premeditation of violence a cause for concern; this persons stance and taping of such – is commendable.
Wonder what happens when an over zealot officer;
meets with the man wishing to do George Zimmerman one better?
Especially if its another case of racial divide!
I’m just sayin…..
This homeowner/renter was unnecessarily confrontational with the officers. He should have closed the door after the first statement of they had no warrant. That said, these officers really come off badly and poorly trained. Going to drag someone out of their house? Cmon now, I’d hope there’s not a single instructor in law enforcement academies that is teaching that. “Turn that off, I don’t know what it is?” It’s a cell phone, get a grip. The chances you’ll find a cell phone gun are probably about the same as any random person being Osama’s brother.
Police are going to have to accept they will be videotaped from now on. They have to accept there isn’t going to be blind acceptance of their authority. A simple request to someone to lower the camera so you can talk to someone’s face and not the lens is reasonable. Not an automatic “shut that thing off”. But go to police boards and you’ll find that these kind of videos are teaching police (or at least the commentators there) the wrong lessons. The grumbling about ungrateful citizens and wannabe activists is shocking when you realize that these are the people that are supposed to be protecting us.
There is going to be more physical confrontations between police and citizens recording them until the current generation of police leave the streets and make room for the next that doesn’t have a problem with being on video.
We all need to learn how to handle aggressive cops.
Who decides who decides who has authority?
Who decides who decides when who decides who has authority is tragically and absolutely wrong?
He was being about as calm as can be expected, especially after the one cop says he would “drag him out”. Notice how they ask him to step out of his apartment? Then they get to claim he was resisting arrest and beat him or tase him for being mouthy?
The only ones who came off badly are the cops. This guy was helping them and answering their legitimate questions and it was the cops who were trying to pressure him into getting into his house.
No, he doesn’t come off well, but then he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to be a fine upstanding model citizen to be entitled to the protections provided under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A “bad attitude” or “having a bad day” or simply being “impolite” does not constitute probable cause or exigent circumstances.
The police may not come to your home to demand “your papers”, nor may they enter it for any reason without probable cause or exigent circumstances. This man knew that, kudos to him for standing up for his rights; the officers knew it as well, kudos to them for backing down (even though threatening him).
Bad form to get all ghetto about it on your Facebook page though dude!
This citizen is a national hero.