There is another disturbing video of a citizen being arrested after trying to videotape police in public. Kianga Mwamba, 36, says that she was tased by police and arrested after she tried to film the arrest of a man with her mobile phone. The police took her phone, deleted the video, and arrested her. The video was later recovered from the cloud and shows an officer telling her at the end: “You a dumb bitch, you know that?” She was charged with the serious crime of trying to run over a police officer, but those charges were later dropped. However, no charged or discipline have been brought against the officer.
We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue.
The March 30th encounter is now the subject of a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Police Department, a department that has been the subject of repeated and ongoing claims of police abuse.
In the complaint below, Mwamba says that she was told to move her car but could not because there were police officers around it and then without warning she was dragged from the car and tased. She said that when she asked for her inhaler, officers laughed at her.
She said that she showed her video to an officer at booking to show that she did not try to run over any officers but that someone then deleted the video. There is not simply the allegation of an assault on a citizen but the possible use of false charges against the victim of police abuse. However, the department now insists that, even with the recovered evidence, “The video does not capture enough information to draw definitive conclusions about what transpired before, during, and after the arrest.”
The complaint names officers Stepanie Uruchima, Kelly Larson, Erick Jackson, and Marlon Koushall.
Here is a copy of the lawsuit: Baltimore Complaint
Source: Baltimore Sun
I do not believe the police arrested this woman solely on the basis for her video taping based upon what was presented in the video.
The police told her to move her car forward. I did not hear any words from the police to stop filming. In turning up the audio to a high level you can hear officers tell her that the light is green and to go forward. This was said at least twice. Though she repeatedly asks them if they are preventing her from recording their actions, their response indicated that they wish her to move her car forward to clear the lane.
I don’t know either way if she actually caused or did not cause an officer to nearly be run over, but I have questions about the amount of force used. I see no evidence to suggest this woman acted with any criminal intent or malice in intending to commit a vehicular assault against the officers. If there was criminal negligence or recklessness that might be one possibility but I don’t see the use of force being necessary in that situation unless it was prevent her from further harming anyone in an aggravated manner.
As for the erasing of the video from the phone, if that occurred at the hands of the police then in my view it would constitute destruction of physical evidence, a criminal offense.
I do have a bone to pick with police unions. In Wisconsin it was the Police Unions that were exempted by Act 10. Why, I wonder. It is also police unions that protect cops who have no business being cops. We’ve heard all the bashing of teachers unions and unions being implicit in retaining bad teachers, but why the silence on police unions? Why the favoritism shown to police regarding collective bargaining in Wisconsin?
If you are going to be intellectually honest you have to be ready to punish people on your side who break the law. I am sure that Michael Haz would agree with me that if the cops did this they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I am sure Professor Turley would agree.
I await the day when liberal apologists for criminal, terrorists and lying false rape victims have the integrity to denounce them in no uncertain terms.
I just won’t hold my breath because that will not happen. We will just hear excuses.
Her father is a veteran officer with the Maryland Capitol Police. Even off duty police or the families of police are not immune to police brutality.
Michael,
Not every criticism of police is from “police haters”. Anymore than people who defend police actions are police apologists. Just as there are people that don’t like police no matter what they do, there are some that would defend their actions for shooting a white man for saying good morning.
But there’s no question there are bad officers. Much of it comes from the top that isn’t willing to fire an officer who would taser an innocent woman, destroy evidence, and then arrest her on false charges. These officers need to be fired at a minimum and likely jailed. Start doing that, and you can start separating the actual haters from the people that want justice applied equally.
So Haz are you saying Professor Turley is a cop hater for regularily posting these police abuse videos?
@Michael Haz ~ Here is a good story for once about a police officer with heart. There are alot of good cops on the beat, but the bad apples get the press.
Here is a feel good story that most networks won’t run. It’s about a grandmother caught stealing eggs and thankful to the officer who helped her out because he bought the eggs for her. Then later this cop and the whole police department brought her groceries and still do. It made me cry and saddened me that she had to steal 3 eggs to feed her family.
http://youtu.be/jiOljF1gxuU
This story of Kianga Mwamba makes me sick. I watched the video and the woman was just sitting in her car with her phone videoing the incident. The officer should have just ask the woman to go about her business. They are claiming she hit a cop with her car, but it didn’t seem that way or maybe she didn’t see him if she did. To arrest her and delete the video was wrong. I haven’t heard much about county sheriff’s deputies but alot about city cops.
Until we come to grips with the fact that the raw power of human nature is the same today as when man first walked the earth, then this will get worse; not better.
A suit, a uniform, a lapel pin, a badge, an oath; human nature is not changed by any of that. It’s the behaviors we teach, enable or allow that determine the character of the person in the suit or uniform.
Four cops in Baltimore did a stupid thing. And the cop haters want to (again) tarnish all cops with it. Very predictable.
This kind of thing, however, seldom gets much chatter on blogs.
The Bloods have vowed to kill more Jersey City cops to avenge the thug the police shot dead this week after he executed a rookie officer, The Post has learned.
The violent street gang has threatened to “kill a Jersey City cop and not stop until the National Guard is called out,” a senior law enforcement source revealed.
Police are even being warned that violent Bloods gang members may be traveling from out of state to target officers in New Jersey, according to an internal New Jersey State Police advisory obtained by The Post.
“New Jersey State Police has received credible information from the Jersey City Police Department about specific threats toward Jersey City police officers and law enforcement,” the advisory read.
Link to full article here.
What about filing a 1983 action?
That addresses the legal fee issue and gets the proceeding out of state court.
Paul:
Right, I linked to an article on that in my above post.
The article I saw yesterday on this mentioned that Illinois has a solution to all this bad police behavior being videotaped…make it illegal to videotape a police office. Problem solved.
Popehat said it well:
“Apparently we’ve decided that we won’t tolerate broken windows any more. But we haven’t found the fortitude to do something about broken people. To put it plainly: just as neighborhood thugs could once break windows with impunity, police officers can generally kill with impunity. They can shoot unarmed men and lie about it. They can roll up and execute a child with a toy as casually as one might in Grand Theft Auto. They can bumble around opening doors with their gun hand and kill bystanders, like a character in a dark farce, with little fear of serious consequences. They can choke you to death for getting a little mouthy about selling loose cigarettes. They can shoot you because they aren’t clear on who the bad guy is, and they can shoot you because they’re terrible shots, and they can shoot you because they saw something that might be a weapon in your hand — something that can be, frankly, any f***ing thing at all, including nothing.
What are we doing about this? Are we pushing back against unwarranted uses of force and deprivations of rights, to prevent them from becoming self-perpetuating norms?
No. We’re not pursuing the breakers of windows. If anything, we are permitting the system steadily to entrench their protected right to act that way. We give them second and third and fourth chances. We pretend that they have supernatural powers of crime detection even when science shows that’s bull***. We fight desperately to support their word even when they are proven liars. We sneer that “criminals have too many rights,” then give the armed representatives of our government stunning levels of procedural protections when they abuse or even kill us.“
JT said:
“Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue.”
And those consistent rulings should continue, unfortunately even though the public backs the right to record police, the powers that be are still trying to push back, and enact finer (actually more ambiguous) laws to criminalize it:
See what they are doing in Illinois:
http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/illinois-bill-to-ban-unlawful-recording-police/
I myself am very concerned about this kind of official view against documenting bad and illegal behavior, as I have recorded CPS workers breaking every rule in child protection prosecutions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIsnbUxAPhs
Because it is legal, I was able to do this and let the world know.
Felony tampering with evidence.
Let’s see if they are charged. :-)))
I do not understand why there is not more public outcry over these instances. If she would have died, would that have resulted in more outcry? Is it because it hasn’t been fueled by media? This is one of the many pretty much cut&dry cases of bad police force. The lady is lucky she didn’t die. We have massive demonstrations over law enforcement encounters that are clearly arguable, but this one seems not to be. Help.
This is why we must send a copy to the cloud. The President wants cops to wear body cams but they do not want to be videoed by civilians. I just do not understand this.
Baltimore is one step above Albuquerque Police in the corruption department.
Nothing will change until police believe they will be held accountable for their actions. And right now, they know they won’t be except in rare cases. Departmental policy cannot replace the criminal code for the actions of police officers. Not if they care about public trust.