Once the police have the ability to arrest people for videoing them, they will use it whenever they please. Then argue after the arrest whether or not it was '8 feet' or not. The person video-taping still gets put into custody and has to deal with all of the consequences of that, including a not so gentle arrest. Then, best case, if they can prove it was outside 8 feet, they might get the charges dropped, but they won't be able to sue or at least it be very unlikely to succeed. The functional result (if this bill passes the senate) is that the police in arizona can, and will, arrest anybody they want to who video tapes them. Following that will be similar bills in other states.
Being arrested is a big deal and you could be in jail for some time, even if the charges are dropped. Whereas unlawful arrest could result in consequences for officers, this law would give that arrest at least a pretext of being reasonable, all they have to say is they misjudged the distance and then are off the hook - "honest mistake".
> Once the police have the ability to arrest people for videoing them,
they will use it whenever they please.
Maybe not quite. An interesting dilemma arises. If our law abiding,
peace officers arrest someone for filming - then that media becomes
the evidence in an arrest. So they may safely arrest someone so long
as they (the police) are doing nothing wrong while the cameraman is is
"illegally" filming them.
But then why would anyone be filming police who are doing nothing
wrong?
As soon as the police are engaged in acts of violence, and people
start filming them, it would not be in their interests to arrest
anyone, unless they were prepared to follow through, destroy evidence,
intimidate detainees into silence or commit perjury.
So this idea puts the police into an interesting bind, and suggests it
would only have consequences that lead quickly to tyrannical outcomes.
> As soon as the police are engaged in acts of violence, and people start filming them, it would not be in their interests to arrest anyone, unless they were prepared to follow through, destroy evidence, intimidate detainees into silence or commit perjury.
We already see this happening. IIRC Police unions are the only people allowed to review the evidence for the first 24 hours and are free from consequence were it to get "lost".
> As soon as the police are engaged in acts of violence, and people start filming them, it would not be in their interests to arrest anyone, unless they were prepared to follow through, destroy evidence, intimidate detainees into silence or commit perjury.
This is such a naive take from someone who had never had to face police officers blatantly violating your rights and physical well-being.
Yep. They already yell "stop resisting!" at people who are clearly not resisting to prime the memories of witnesses. "You're too close!" fits right into that dynamic.
Being arrested is a big deal and you could be in jail for some time, even if the charges are dropped. Whereas unlawful arrest could result in consequences for officers, this law would give that arrest at least a pretext of being reasonable, all they have to say is they misjudged the distance and then are off the hook - "honest mistake".