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ROBBED BY A COP— AGAIN!

Posted by Nilet on Wed Feb 20 20:45:31 2008


Yet again, the police just can't seem to get enough of me my stuff. I don't have a lengthy report to give right now, and I'll have to be a little stingy with the details for now, since I'll be pursuing litigation.

Anyway, the bare facts are these:

I got off a Metro-North train at Grand Central and noticed a great photo op on the next track over, so I took out the cammy and began taking pictures. Some Metro-North workers came up and said photography was illegal. I told them otherwise; they asked for "my papers." Heh. I told them I didn't need a permit— photography was legal. Period. They said it wasn't. I asked them to ask their boss. They summoned the cops— and the military. One officer and two soldiers came down; other officers came later and I don't recall offhand exactly how many ultimately walked past in total. I'm pretty sure there was a third soldier at some point too. Anyway, one of the first things the officer did was demand that I shut off the camcorder— after the last incident, I always record the entirety of every encounter. When I asked what would happen if I refused to shut it off, he grabbed it and ripped the battery out. Ultimately, I was detained for quite a long time, and was eventually given a summons for "tresspassing." (You need a ticket to be on the platform, unless you'd just gotten off a train; I'd just gotten off a train; they demanded to see my ticket; I told them the conductor had taken it, of course, but I had the receipt, which I showed them; they didn't care to notice it.)

I got names and badge numbers from two officers— the "ringleader" who was there first and one other. I tried to get a name and serial number from one of the soldiers, but I couldn't. When I checked the camcorder some time after they'd left, I noticed that the memory card was missing, along with all the photos that were on it. Luckily, the video from the incident is unharmed; I have it safe at home on my camcorder's HDD. I'm guessing he wanted to cover up the wrongdoing on his part and didn't know that he hadn't taken the right media from the camcorder.

Since physical property was taken, as well as various damage inflicted and frivolous charges filed, I won't leave this with the CCRB and I will be suing. I've already written up a letter to the NYCLU. Since I'm going to be taking this to court, I'm afraid I can't give you a crystal-clear picture of the whole story here on a public message board, but I'll give you updates when I can.

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