But we're supporting the Mayor who did next to nothing his first two years in office to bring the SPD under control? McGinn didn't get serious until the DOJ stepped in. Yeah, Murray may not be a great candidate but we already know the fuck up McGinn has turned out to be

We've already gotten rid of the 4th Amendment, so why not the 1st?

Awesome post. Thank you.

This quote in particular: “A police officer is not a law unto himself; he cannot give an order that has no colorable legal basis and then arrest a person who defies it.”

Time after time here on Slog when issues like this come up we get all sorts of folks with little legal understanding chiming in with: "do what you're told". People in general, and law enforcement officers in particular, really need to understand this. You do not have to do what you're told in many circumstances. And this is a great example.

@1, the SPD hasn't been under control for decades. While McGinn certainly hasn't been sterling on the issue, where the hell was Seattle's "progressive" political community been all this time?

I used to believe in "Serve and Protect" but too much has happened to make me anything but frightened of police.

@4: Seriously! Everyone's now noticing SPD because it fits into their political agenda. No one remembers that there have been problems for a long time. The height of racial disparity in drug arrests? Paging Norm Stamper, white courtesy telephone please. Lot's of excess use of force unpunished? Gil Kerlikowske, table of one, right this way sir.

This should be required reading for all Seattle/King County cops. It is ridiculous that cops don't have even a basic grasp of 1st Amendment rights. This should be part of basic police academy training.

I'm sure it hurts their fee fees to be filmed sometimes, especially if they're acting like dicks. But they can't just discard the 1st Amendment because they're pissed.

Why isn't it a bigger deal that Erica C. Barnett was pepper sprayed in the face for taking a photo of the police tackling a protestor on May Day? Is she persona non grata at The Stranger so you're pretending it never happened since your intern Ansel left?

If this continues, it won't be long until a police officer kills a reporter for legally taking photos using "less lethal" weapons like pepper spray (which causes over 10 deaths in the US a year through asphyxiation, appears to be carcinogenic, and is a banned chemical weapon in warzones).

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

@10) Hey, raku. We published a story about the incident at the time, which you linked to, but that was more than three months ago, and I'm not sure there's anything new to cover. If there is an interesting new development, we'll write about it.

I actually don't think the issue is that these cops don't know the First Amendment rights of everyday folks, it's that they simply don't want folks observing them on the street and critiquing them as they carry on doing business as usual, which in many cases results in harassment and excessive force of folks of color or poor folks for doing nothing more than being where they are expected not to be, or for something incredibly minor. In other words, they rely not so much on most folks' ignorance of their rights in these situations, but on most folks' fear of being detained, arrested, or just generally fucked up by a cop to get folks to move along. They are used to that working, so when someone actually holds space, they can't deal, and so they escalate, to reassert their authority as they see it. Happens all the time at nonviolent protests, or just folks watching cops (like Dominic was).

I still remember an encounter years ago when I attempted to observe a police encounter with a person of color, and almost immediately got targeted and harassed myself for trying to stay and watch. I even asserted that I had a legal right to do so, and though the SPD cop didn't threaten to arrest me, I think he was pretty close, and so I left. (I'm African American, and was with my then-partner, who was white, and I wonder if that played any role in how that encounter played out.) But I definitely got the message that asserting your rights doesn't get you respect from cops, but is seen as a threat to them. So it's not about them knowing the law, it's about them following the law. And until we have some accountability system that can lead to genuine consequences for cops who don't follow the law (the police guilds are great obstructionists on this), nothing's going to change. It's not about training or "rudeness" as some of the higher-ups in King Country and SPD have asserted, it's about punishment and accountability.

12: Thanks! It would be interesting to hear if anything happened - if there was a complaint filed, any official response, etc. It would make sense to ask Publicola, but I feel like they don't want to rock the boat...

I also think it's worth mentioning in these stories, since it shows a serious recent pattern of the SPD repressing journalists specifically. What happened to you is a serious grievance, but what happened to Erica is some truly authoritarian shit.

ATF and Federal Protective Service staff need better training on First-Amendment-protected rights as well.

Training implies they don't already know that threatening a person for recording them is against the rules. We don't need more training, we need more consequences. In any other profession you would be out on your ass for flouting rules like the KC sergeant here did. Break the fucking police union and put in place real punishments for shit like this and things will change very quickly.

@4,7 Hopefully they'll go back to not caring. That way we can continue to do nothing.

Hipster activism is stupid. Grow up.