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How much should you charge for a photograph?Man Attacks Girlfriend Before Recording Cops; Charged With Wiretapping
By all accounts, Fidelito Lledin of Boston is not somebody you want to piss off.
In February, when his neighbor who owed him money knocked on his door to explain some type of payment plan, Lledin pulled out a pocketknife and told him he would “take your head off.”
But then he dropped the knife and retrieved an aluminum baseball bat from his room and began swinging it at the neighbor, connecting at least once to the back of the head.
The neighbor grabbed the bat and ran to call police. Later that day, it is not clear if he was jailed, he knocked on his neighbor’s door and demanded his bat back.
When he’s not attacking his neighbor, he takes out his anger on his girlfriend. At least twice this year, including one time earlier this year and one time last month.
During last month’s incident, police arrived on the scene and found his girlfriend lying on the ground with a shattered beer bottle nearby. The girlfriend said police he had hit here.
So police handcuffed him and threw him in the back of the squad car.
Once in the cruiser, officers discovered Lledin was using the phone to video them, Dorchester District Court Judge Kenneth Desmond heard. When they told him to stop, he refused, so in addition to booking Lledin for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, they added a charge of wiretapping, under a state law that makes it illegal to make an audio recording of people without their consent.
Well, actually Massachusetts state law says it is illegal to secretly audio record people without their consent, but that has not stopped cops from using it against people who videotape in public.
So now Lledin is facing the following sentence for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon:
(b) Whoever commits an assault and battery upon another by means of a dangerous weapon shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 10 years or in the house of correction for not more than 2½ years, or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
And he is facing this sentence for the wiretapping charge:
(A person who) willfully commits an interception, attempts to commit an interception, or procures any other person to commit an interception or to attempt to commit an interception of any wire or oral communication shall be fined not more than ten thousand dollars, or imprisoned in the state prison for not more than five years, or imprisoned in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one half years, or both so fined and given one such imprisonment.
Had he only assaulted those people without a dangerous weapon, he would get off with much lighter sentence than the wiretapping.
Section 13A. (a) Whoever commits an assault or an assault and battery upon another shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 2½ years in a house of correction or by a fine of not more than $1,000.
After all, police are continually learning that a camera can be more devastating to their careers than a gun.
Comments
as much of an asshole as this dude might be, it still does not give any cops the right to manipulate the law to bully anyone!
Carlos, this doesn't belong here but I couldn't find a way to submit this to you. I don't tweet. This smacks of first amendment issues. I am not sure if there is a photography spin here.
http://sfappeal.com/news/2011/08/bart-cell-service-block-possible-but-no...
If this is true, I am curious to find out what federal legal ramifications could materialize from a local PD like BART intentionally disrupting the people's ability to communicate with one another. If I'm not mistaken, shutting down cell service to an area is well beyond the authority that we grant to the government, much less a little agency like BART.
This is a stretch. It seems like more and more this site is becoming an "anti-police" site as opposed to a photographer's rights site, and as a result is beginning to lose a lot of credibility. This guy was going to jail regardless, so its not like he was being detained strictly for the wire-tapping. The charges will most likely not stick in court as they have yet to. Yes, its absurd to twist this law, but why do we need to hypothesize this guy into being a victim of the justice system? We really need to pick our battles more wisely ( as well as write the story more wisely ) if we as photographers, want this site to have any sort of impact on society as a whole. Also, if the guy was recording the audio INSIDE the cruiser, then any conversation inside would have been a private conversation between the officer and the suspect. Therefore, you could still argue that there was a conspiracy to commit a crime due to him secretly recording. Most of the cases on this site, I completely support, but some of them are just pushing it.
Wow, you're really reading so much into this. I actually held on to the story simply because he is not the most sympathetic character.
But after yesterday's wiretapping story in Massachusetts, I decided to run it.
This guy is an asshole and they already have enough evidence on the assault and battery charges to send him away.
Adding the wiretapping charges just shows they are abusing that law, which was never meant to be used in these situations.
And as far as "anti-police". Whatever, I've heard that for years. If that's the label you want to give me, then fine.
I'm going to continue writing the truth as I see it. And you will be continued to be welcomed to leave your comments and opinions.
You're not anti-police, you're anti-criminal.
Criminal is, after all, the proper term for someone who breaks laws. The fact they are breaking their sworn oaths and doing it in uniform just makes it more reprehensible.
The other point of the story that you obviously missed is that the penalties for recording a cop in public are almost as severe as bashing a baseball bat against a man's head or a beer bottle against a woman's head.
I didn't say you WERE anti-police, I said that it seems that the site is headed more and more in that direction. Perhaps unintentionally. I completely understand the point you were making. I just think that this isn't the type of story that you want being used to defend this cause, and there could have been more of an effort toward the end to once again reiterate the distinction between what you are defending. This isn't because I cannot comprehend this, it is because there is a large scope of people that read these posts, including law enforcement, lawyers, judges etc and if as photographers, we want the support of society, then stories like these need to be handled in an overly delicate manner. Its easy to write about someone being harrassed and charges trumped up on them. Peoples' natural emotion is to help that poor innocent person. When you write a story about a disgusting human being, you get a mixture of confusing emotion out of people that can cause things to be misinterpreted or cause people to rally against photographers as a nuisance. I know this may sound like nitpicking but its the reality of how the general public reacts. I mean after all, is this blog here just for a bunch of photographers to bitch and moan to each other about "the man", or is it to hopefully change the course of actions being taken against us on a daily basis? I didn't OBVIOUSLY miss anything, I just pointed out weaknesses in the delivery of this story.
I'm sure we're all free to submit all those stories floating around about police supporting photographer's rights.
If we stop spreading these accounts around in the media, does that mean they didn't happen? Or are they just easier to ignore that way?
Seasoned photog, the privacy of the conversation is irrelevant. The law is that he cannot record in secret. The recording was plainly apparent to the officer, which is why he asked him to stop. The man should not have been charged with wiretapping.
I will raise one question though, and perhaps others have already raised this issue:
If people are getting arrested for wire-tapping, can't the police be charged as well? They record audio and video on their dash cams. If one is ignorant of police procedure, they would be unaware of this. To tap someones phone (wiretap) requires a court order. So if the law was designed for this intent, wouldn't they also require a court order to record you in public? ( if we first assume that the police's distortion of this law is just? ) I guess that they could argue that when you commit a crime you forfeit some of your rights, but the camera also records victims and bystanders.
You would have to read the specific law but from what I have seen these wiretapping laws are being misused and not standing up in court if it gets that far. For example, some of these wiretapping laws contain the word "intercept" So if you and I are speaking then you are the intended receipient of my conversation and you are tape recording me with or without my consent and/or knowledge how can that possibly be intercepting? You are not intercepting anything you are the intended receipient. If someone is physically and visibly in range of our conversation, then we are aware that there is no expectation of visual or audio privacy. Our overheard conversation would be penetrating their space not the other way around. I am responding to your post but if someone else reads/copies this response are they wiretapping?
There are loopholes in the law that allows them to do this.
Here are the listed exemptions.
D. Exemptions.
1. Permitted interception of wire or oral communications.
It shall not be a violation of this section—
a. for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of any communication common carrier, whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of service or to the protection of the rights or property of the carrier of such communication, or which is necessary to prevent the use of such facilities in violation of section fourteen A of chapter two hundred and sixty-nine of the general laws; provided, that said communication common carriers shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.
b. for persons to possess an office intercommunication system which is used in the ordinary course of their business or to use such office intercommunication system in the ordinary course of their business.
c. for investigative and law enforcement officers of the United States of America to violate the provisions of this section if acting pursuant to authority of the laws of the United States and within the scope of their authority.
d. for any person duly authorized to make specified interceptions by a warrant issued pursuant to this section.
e. for investigative or law enforcement officers to violate the provisions of this section for the purposes of ensuring the safety of any law enforcement officer or agent thereof who is acting in an undercover capacity, or as a witness for the commonwealth; provided, however, that any such interception which is not otherwise permitted by this section shall be deemed unlawful for purposes of paragraph P.
f. for a financial institution to record telephone communications with its corporate or institutional trading partners in the ordinary course of its business; provided, however, that such financial institution shall establish and maintain a procedure to provide semi-annual written notice to its corporate and institutional trading partners that telephone communications over designated lines will be recorded.
http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/S...
Sections c and d seem to be the relevant ones governing police dash cams and the like. Note that if recording audio in public is actually wiretapping, rather than a misapplied law, then police doing so without a warrant is a crime, just as it would be for a private citizen intercepting communications (the exemption only applies to lawful recordings, after all).
The problem is, if the police break the law, and the prosecutors break the law, and the judges break the law, who do you call to have them arrested? The police?
I just hope the level of injustice reaches the crisis point before the People are so disarmed they can't make use of Jefferson's Reset Button.
Yeah, the whole things is absurd, but my main point is, that if the court assumes that the cops are right and photographers are violating the law, then that would also mean that THEY violated the law by use of dashboard video/audio.
"This is a stretch. It seems like more and more this site is becoming an "anti-police" site as opposed to a photographer's rights site, and as a result is beginning to lose a lot of credibility."
I disagree with that and say this post is valid and relevant. This guy is an incredible asshole and douche bag and deserves to be put in a cage. The wiretapping charges in this case are bad news because this guy is such a douche they might stick, setting a bad precedent. Look at Ademo and Pete, the cop block guys. The judge didn't dismiss the wiretapping charges, they got off because the jury found them not guilty. They pointed out they were peaceful people and had harmed no one and it resonated. Think Mr. ball bat is going to get any sympathy from a jury? I don't. I think they are going to see him for the violent asshole he is and want to keep him in a cage for as long as possible, which means NOT dismissing the wiretapping charges. I don't think anyone here thinks this guy should not have been arrested, but the wiretapping charges are bad news that most likely will set bad precedent, offsetting the good precedent set by Ademo and Pete as well as Simon Glik.
Fair enough, but the bad precedent has already been set. If a judge allows the charges to stand, then the precedent is already set. A Jury is supposed to be impartial and examine each charge seperately (if you don't believe that, take a look at the Casey Anthony trial.) This is not a circumstantial charge where a jury could use his behavior and other crimes/guilt to render a verdict of guilty. It is cut and dry. He had a camera recording, the main argument will be whether the jury accepts the twisted interpretation of this law or not. This is why Ademo and Pete were found not guilty. However, again, in that case, the judge let the charges stand, and therefore the precedent has already been set. The more times a jury acquits someone of these charges can actually HELP stop this absurdity.
Precedent is set by the outcome of a trial, not just the fact that there was a trial. I agree with you it would be a good thing if the jury found him not guilty on the wiretapping charges. Juries are people and they don't always vote logically. This guy engenders NONE of the sympathy Ademo and Pete did, what I am afraid what may happen is the jury may decide based on his character to screw him as much as possible and find him guilty on all charges. This could happen and if it does it will set BAD precedent offsetting the good precedent set by Ademo and Pete and Glik. The best solution would be to get a referendum or bill passed making it crystal clear that filming public officials in public places is a RIGHT in the state of Mass and is NOT covered under the wiretapping law. Unfortunately I don't see any such movement in Mass, the pols are much more interested in figuring which taxes they can jack up to squeeze more $$ out of the taxpayers and there is no photographer group big enough (or even interested as far as I know) to push it through as a referendum.
I get what you are saying. I didn't mean "legal precedent" as in, other court cases would use this as the benchmark. I simply meant that the precedent has been set for how other municipalities handle this supposed "crime". Its clear that cops use it to cover their buts not only legally but to prevent bad PR. Judges, do not usually share that same motivation, and therefore I find it troubling that they are not always striking down these charges when looking at it from a judges perspective. The other possibility with this case, is that even if he is acquitted, it may not help much in terms of raising awareness of this issue because his other offenses will over shadow this one. Which is part of the problem with using this guy as a poster child for fighting this issue.
I think the general population has trouble sifting through the static a lot of times.
I realize this thing lags and I keep duplicating. I apologize.
lol, it happens...
Whoops this was a duplicate
I think Carlos is RIGHT ON with these Police harassment posts. They may be considered 'off topic' to professional photogs, but to me they are exactly where Carlos' emphasis should be. The Police thugs are consistently trying to hide the fact that ( most of them ) have zero respect for our rights and are trying to systematically repress, beat, rob and imprison us. The cameras are incidental, in a way; the real issue is they want to continue in their sick, sadistic torture of the general population. Cameras are one of the few remaining tools for proving their incompetence and brutality. It is bad enough as it is, but is compounded by the fact that this goes on, is recorded and posted in full view of millions on Youtube and the like - and NOBODY does anything ! Look to the poor folks in Libya, or Egypt, or Syria. Those people are fighting for their very freedom, facing machine guns! At least in this country the thugs aren't quite so blatant. Not yet, anyway. We should be damned thankful that Carlos has the Cajones' to stand up to some of the most fascistic thugs in one of the most fascistic states, Florida, and the tenacity to post it all here.
Thanks, Carlos! Keep up the good work.
And JohnnyLaw and other cop apologists can kindly go away. We got yer number. You want carte blanche to run the world, as you see fit, and to be the ones who say what is right and what is wrong. And to change the rules on a whim.
I came across an interesting post at FreeKeene.org that has stuck with me and won't get out of my head:
"Don't talk to police. Don't interact with them at all. Do not ask them for help, do not offer them help. Refuse to deal with them at all times. Answer no questions, ever.
Of course, not talking to them might get you in jail, but talking to them might also get you in jail. You will never gain anything by speaking with them. They hate you."
Pretty sad statement for a country that is supposed to be "free". All the sadder that, I am afraid, it is good advice.
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