Man With Asperger's Arrested for Using Tape Recorder

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It sounds like an unfortunate misunderstanding between Mr. Ballance and the Greenacres police department. I am not sure if either party is wholly to blame here, but I do not think Mr. Ballance should be treated like a criminal. We should remember that Asperger Syndrome is no indicator of a person's character.

If he's informing people, it's not illegal. End of story.

For the cops, who usually SIGN UP for shows like COPS, to tell him they don't want to be recorded, or act like a recording device is a treat is bull. Everything a cop says SHOULD BE public record, as they only inform you of the law. Their opinion should not come into play, though it often does.

The law on the matter only prohibits recordings where people have reasonable expectation of privacy.
Police officers have video recorders in their patrol cars during stops. I dont see how they can claim their
recordings are legal and his are not.

Its not that he wants to be a reporter his lawyer just claiming that he has a right to record conversations between himself
and government officials in performance of their official duties.

Cops have opinions. Cops are people too, despite the uniform. They do a lot more than just informing citizens of the law. They have the right not to be recorded if they don't wish to be. Respect the men & women in law-enforcement who put their lives at risk to serve & protect your sorry a$$es.

Actually, they do not have that right in any greater degree than you or I. There is no expectation of privacy in a place that provides no privacy.

Oh, I see. So the police should not have complained about being tape-recorded? When mirandizing a suspect, does that code apply to the police officers as well? As a civilian I have the right to silence and will be informed that anything I say can be used against me in a court of law.

Of course the police are at all times accountable for what they say and do as law enforcement professionals. But should they submit to this kind of audit by civilians? Ballance had his reason for doing what he did, but what happens when the next guy pleads a different case for tape-recording the cops?

Personally, I cannot think of any moral justification for the police to arrest him the way they did in the video.

The police made a mistake because the force they used was excessive, but I believe it was an honest misunderstanding. Had they understood Mr. Ballance better, the incident would not have happened.

Hahahaha! I watched as cops stood and watched a woman drowning in her car. The cops did nothing to serve or protect her a$$, to afraid of being sued or some lame sissy excuse. A few co-workers and pedestrians jumped in and saved her against the cops better judgment.

A$$holes that will stand around and watch you die because they're afraid of being reprimanded by some superior officer or some stupid crap don't deserve respect. A$$holes that bully and harass and play childish games with a law abiding man who is weaker than them physically but stronger in every other way don't deserve respect either.




1. No they shouldn't have. Letting it get to them seems rather unprofessional. They should have done their job and left. There is no law against recording an official performing their duties, no reason to get upset about it either unless they've got something to hide or it somehow in some miraculous way interferes in their duties.

2. With great power comes great responsibility. If there is no responsibility there is abuse. And you go on to admit that they are accountable. And I for one am happy that this man didn't lay down and take it up the A hole, like you apparently think all civilians should.



You can bet your a$$ they should.



Oh I don't know. How about the stupid(Because they never learn) cops tackle the voice recording perp(Oh my! Scary.) and repeat the whole stupid(Because it is so easily avoided) process again? Bunch of childish hoodlums.

Correct.



The police officer neither has the right to silence nor to privacy in the course of his/her work as a public servant. In their lives outside of their duties they have the same rights as everyone else.



They certainly should. Otherwise there really isn't much of a mechanism to hold them accountable. When a police officer and a civilian give different accounts of an incident there's a systemic bias favoring the word of the police officer.



I don't think there's any legitimate legal or ethical case one can make that cops should be exempt from being recorded while on the job. Perhaps you could give an explicit example of the problems a case comparable to this one may cause?

He handled it very well.

"The audio recording is not about you. It's about me listening to me."

PROTECT?

How many times have you been arrested?

Cops do not protect me. They are as horrible as any criminal I have ever seen.

If you think that cops are the good guys, you've been sitting in your armchair too much.

Cops are animal brutes, jerking their egos off all over people, all day long.

Cops become cops to be @@sholes, and only for that reason. They become cops so they can be 'above the law'.

Cops don't care about you, or someone who is Autistic.

I have had plenty of dealings with cops. Harford, Ct, USA has many criminals; none are worse than the Harford Police.

I have personally seen several white cops chase down a black man, who was running (if you;re balck in Hartford, and cops are chasing you, you'd better run; simple fact) and who, I could see, was terrified and only trying to find out what to do where he was least fkt. The lead cop yelled at him to stop; he stopped, knowing not what else to do ... and the vey fact that he stopped indicated quite well to me that he hadn't done anything, but he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, for if he was actually guilty, he would have kept running, and would have ended up out-running the cops. The cops yelled for him to get on the ground. He dove to the ground, spread-eagle, with his face in the dirt (that's what you do when you're black and the Hartford Police tell you to get on the ground ... it's not pamper-time, you don't have any rights, your word is worthless in a court of law) ... and these several cops took out their clubs and beat this black guy, screaming, to a bloody pulp.
If I had a gun, I would have killed those rabid animals. They have the guns, however.
If I have an A/V recorder, ummm... yes ... I would have recorded them. they did what they did exactly because no-one was recording them.
What do you think they would have done, if I were recording this event, and they saw me?

This stuff doesn't just happen on the TV on the news channel in Los Angeles. This is reality. Reality is not the show COPS. It is not the news on TV or the Internet.

It is EXACTLY because of cops that I recently bought a $299 Samsung FlipShot cellphone with the very best 3 Megapixel video camera capabilities.
I can download, through the phone's Internet connection, videos to my server.
That's so they can't take the cellphone, and destroy the video; haha! it's far away in a webserver.
They will be recorded doing their brutal, criminal, animal things and then taking the cellphone recorder from me by force ... exactly how they do such things.
It will only be the fact that I uploaded the video to the server while they were trying to get the cellphone from me that will save my life.
I have learned how to protect myself and others from cops.

I cannot even begin to tell you how incorrect this naivety is.

I have personally been the victim of police abuse.

Cops are as bad as any criminals. I have far too many stories about cops to even begin to tell here.

I have been arrested for walking away from an argument with my own wife in my own home. I was physically assaulted by cop, I was tortured in the back of a police cruiser by cops ... because I walked away from an argument, and left my own home to have some peace.

There is nothing more to the story. I simply walked away. I did nothing. They never asked me a single question. I was simply assaulted (exactly because they were NOT being recoorded) - not even arrested (as they were NOT being recored, and so didn't tell me I was under arrest, nor read me my rights) - but "arrested" me anyway, and they tortured me (exactly because they were NOT being recorded) in the back of a police cruiser, using the handcuffs around my wrists as medieval torture devises (exactly because they were NOT being recorded).

A cop in unifom HAS NO PERSONAL RIGHTS. Everything they do can be recorded ... and it should be recorded. A cop off duty and not in uniform has personal rights not to be recorded. Everything a cop does while in uniform is public domain.

They put their lives in danger to 'protect'???

No, they kill people they don't like by beating them to death when there is no-one around to record it.

Get out of your chair from behind your computer and go into the world as I have done; then you won't have any mercy for cops, then you won't be under the illusion that they actually care one iota about the law, then you won't be under the delusion that they are 'good' and actually can be allowed to have any rights.

Go out into the world and you will learn - the very hard way - that the ONLY thing you really need to be afraid of ... are cops.

Your personal experiences with law enforcement reflect how you feel about law enforcement. I suspect you don't get along with police because you've done some bad things and they have gone after you for it. No, not once have I been arrested. And I don't plan to change that. I think this is really all about authority and problems dealing with authority.

Are there dirty cops? Sure there are!

Do some cops abuse court-appointed powers? Sure they do.

But others are actually decent people and honest in their dealings with the public.

Every uniform on the planet doesn't deserve your vitriol, especially the ones you don't know and have never seen in action. To claim police have no personal rights is pretty excessive.

People on this board would have me believe that all authority figures, cops, doctors, priesthood, teachers, autism experts, are evil sadistic Nazis. If you can't stand authority or to have another human being pull rank on you ... it's called ODD. Opposition Defiance Disorder.

Well... blind submission to authority for the sake of submitting to authority isn't exactly ODD. Public servants are there to serve the public and to work for the public good; they are ultimately responsible to those they serve, and in the case of police and other officials granted the authority to make arrests and enforce laws, it's absolutely crucial that they are responsible to civilians for their actions, because the system doesn't work otherwise.

Police officers are selected precisely because they have the sort of temperament that leads to them not questioning rules and laws. If Kohlberg's theory of moral development is valid, they'd be stage 4 individuals, but in some cases they overstep their boundaries and the authority granted to them by law--this is one of those cases.

GreatCeleryStalk, I would not advocate blind obedience to authority. The authority of any individual has limits. I can't think of anyone to whom I would submit my absolute unquestioning obedience, not even my parents. No human being should have absolute power over another human being. The relationship between cult leaders and their followers is an illustration of this.

But as citizens, I believe we are all obligated to obey the law and those who enforce it. The law is meant to be the same for everyone, but there are always exceptions. Given that this is a human system of laws, enforcers, and subjects, it is inherently flawed. Human beings cannot make a perfect system because we ourselves are woefully less than perfect. If law & order could be a perfect system in which no law was ever abused, no freedom was ever thwarted ... this hate-the-cops thread would not exist.