Leemonster>Police Violence On Skateboards/City Seeks Photography Permits

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Police Violence On Skateboarders:

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Bobby Southard
641 Malvern Ave.
Hot Springs, Arkansas 71901
COPWATCH.COM
POLICE THE POLICE.
Articles:
Copwatch.comforum article
Wreg articles
"By JON GAMBRELL
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:49 PM CDTLITTLE ROCK, Ark. -
Hot Springs police have placed an officer on administrative leave while
they investigate an Internet video that appears to show him choking
three skateboarders near the city's famed Bathhouse Row,
the resort city's mayor said Tuesday.Mayor Mike Bush said investigators
have talked with passers-by and business owners who saw Officer Joey
Williams stop the skateboarders on a city sidewalk Thursday.
A YouTube video posted Monday shows Williams apparently choking one of
the youths after forcing him to the ground, while later chasing and wrestling
two others while holding them in a headlock."Unfortunately, the video shows
it pretty good," Bush said. "I don't condone that sort of stuff and I tell
everybody that calls me, we don't know where he was before and during
and after this video."When asked about the officer's conduct, Bush called Williams "
one of 100 best and finest we've got" in the city's police department.Williams did not answer
a request through the department for an interview and did not respond to a phone message
left at a home number in his name.Police spokesman McCrary Means identified two of those arrested
as Matthew Jon McCormack, 21, and Skylar Nalls, 19, both of Hot
Springs. Means said McCormack faces a misdemeanor battery charge
after allegedly pushing or striking a 67-year-old city employee during the
melee. Nalls received a citation for skateboarding and faces misdemeanor
charges of fleeing and obstructing governmental operations.Means said
four juveniles involved in the incident also face skateboarding citations
and resisting arrest charges.The YouTube video apparently was taken
without Williams' knowledge by a camera fixed to a belt. It shows the
youths along Hot Springs' Central Avenue, an area where a city
ordinance prohibits skateboarding. Voices in the background can be
heard asking Williams why he was arresting the youths.
"When I tell you to stop and you tell everybody to keep going, that's fleeing, that's disorderly conduct,
that's a violation of city ordinance," Williams said.
Williams later threatened one of teens laying on the ground that he'd spray him with pepper spray if he moved.Hot Springs, located 43 miles southwest of
Little Rock, markets itself as a tourist city. Eight bathhouses that figured prominently in the popularity of Hot Springs as a resort town in the first
half of the 1900s are lined up along Bathhouse Row in the city's downtown."(Linked to the articles below... if the act for photography/
video is passed..will people be able to record and have proof of police
brutality incidents like this!?)

City seeks photography Permits:

Ny Times
"June 29, 2007
City May Seek Permit and Insurance for Many Kinds of Public Photography
By RAY RIVERA

Some tourists, amateur photographers, even would-be filmmakers hoping to make it big on YouTube could soon be forced to obtain a city permit and $1 million in liability insurance before taking pictures or filming on city property, including sidewalks.
New rules being considered by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance.
The same requirements would apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment.
Julianne Cho, assistant commissioner of the film office, said the rules were not intended to apply to families on vacation or amateur filmmakers or photographers.
Nevertheless, the New York Civil Liberties Union says the proposed rules, as strictly interpreted, could have that effect. The group also warns that the rules set the stage for selective and perhaps discriminatory enforcement by police.
"These rules will apply to a huge range of casual photography and filming, including tourists taking snapshots and people making short videos for YouTube," said Christopher Dunn, the group's associate legal director.
Mr. Dunn suggested that the city deliberately kept the language vague, and that as a result police would have broad discretion in enforcing the rules. In a letter sent to the film office this week, Mr. Dunn said the proposed rules would potentially apply to tourists in places like Times Square, Rockefeller Center or ground zero, "where people routinely congregate for more than half an hour and photograph or film."

The rule could also apply to people waiting in line to enter the Empire State Building or other tourist attractions.

The rules define a "single site" as any area within 100 feet of where filming begins. Under the rules, the two or more people would not actually have to be filming, but could simply be holding an ordinary camera and talking to each other.

The rules are intended to set standards for professional filmmakers and photographers, said Ms. Cho, assistant commissioner of the film office, but the language of the draft makes no such distinction.

"While the permitting scheme does not distinguish between commercial and other types of filming, we anticipate that these rules will have minimal, if any, impact on tourists and recreational photographers, including those that use tripods," Ms. Cho said in an e-mail response to questions.

Mr. Dunn said that the civil liberties union asked repeatedly for such a distinction in negotiations on the rules but that city officials refused, ostensibly to avoid creating loopholes that could be exploited by professional filmmakers and photographers.

City officials would not confirm that yesterday. But Mark W. Muschenheim, a lawyer with the city's law department, which helped draft the rules, said, "There are few instances, if any, where the casual tourist would be affected."

The film office held a public hearing on the proposed rules yesterday, but no one attended. The only written comments the department received were from the civil liberties group, Ms. Cho said.

Ms. Cho said the office expected to publish a final version of the rules at the end of July. They would go into effect a month later.

The permits would be free and applications could be obtained online, Ms. Cho said. The draft rules say the office could take up to 30 days to issue a permit, but Ms. Cho said she expected that most would be issued within 24 hours.

Mr. Dunn says that in addition to the rules being overreaching, they would also create enforcement problems.

"Your everyday person out there with a camcorder is never going to know about the rules," Mr. Dunn said. "It completely opens the door to discriminatory enforcement of the permit requirements, and that is of enormous concern to us because the people who are going to get pointed out are the people who have dark skin or who are shooting in certain locations."

The rules were promulgated as a result of just such a case, Mr. Dunn said.

In May 2005, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian documentary filmmaker, was using a hand-held video camera in Midtown Manhattan when he was detained for several hours and questioned by police.

During his detention, Mr. Sharma was told he was required to have a permit to film on city property. According to a lawsuit, Mr. Sharma sought information about how permits were granted and who was required to have one but found there were no written guidelines. Nonetheless, the film office told him he was required to have a permit, but when he applied, the office refused to grant him one and would not give him a written explanation of its refusal.

As part of a settlement reached in April, the film office agreed to establish written rules for issuing permits. Mr. Sharma could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Mr. Dunn said most of the new rules were reasonable. Notably, someone using a hand-held video camera, as Mr. Sharma was doing, would no longer have to get a permit."

Repost this so others can see it and believe it instead of thinking that it's "crazy or bullshit" for anything like this to happen.
Just one more step over the line..Oppose this act and let them know we are not going to take any more of their shit.
Freedom,I want it.