(Updated) Rep. Kavanagh Bill To Make It A Crime To Record Police Misconduct On A Cell Phone Passes House Committee

Last week MSNBC’s Joy Reid reported on a Black teen handcuffed by police at mall while white teen was scared of what could’ve happened (MSNBC Video. YouTube requires an account to sign in to view this video).

“Z’Kye Husain, the Black teenager who was pinned to the ground and handcuffed by police at a NJ mall while the white teen who also fought watched, describes his experiences to Joy Reid with his father Jihad Husain, and their lawyer Benjamin Crump.”

This is the most recent example of cell phone video of police misconduct against an African-American male while treating a white male with white privilege. This is an example of cell phone video of police misconduct that our Troll Boy, Rep. John Kavanagh, wanted to make a crime in order to coverup such police misconduct.

Troll Boy would like you to believe that his amendments to his onerous bill to make it a petty offense now makes it OK, but media organizations beg to differ.

The Associated Press reports, House panel OKs revised ban on videotaping police:

An Arizona House committee on Monday approved a proposed law that would make it illegal to make video recordings of police in many circumstances after the Republican sponsor made changes he said were designed to address constitutional concerns.

The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission.

Kavanagh said the amendment he offered that was adopted by the House Appropriations Committee Monday lowers the distance to 8 feet. It also allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.

He said the 8-foot limit was based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case involving abortion protesters.

“I think this fully conforms with constitutionality and weighs officer safety with the citizens’ right, the public’s right, to see law enforcement officers in action,” Kavanagh said.

Media groups including The Associated Press said the measure raises serious constitutional issues. They signed onto a letter from the National Press Photographers Association in opposition to the bill.

“We are extremely concerned that this language violates not only the free speech and press clauses of the First Amendment, but also runs counter to the ‘clearly established right’ to photograph and record police officers performing their official duties in a public place,” the letter said.

Letting an officer decide on the spot what First Amendment-protected activity should be allowed would be problematic in many situations, the letter said.

If enacted with the original 15-foot limit, some of the people who video-recorded former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck in 2020 might have been affected. The recording was key evidence that led to Chauvin’s conviction on second-degree murder and other charges.

Kavanagh’s bill makes a violation a petty offense, the lowest-level Arizona crime that can bring a fine but no jail time. Refusing to stop recording when an officer orders it would be a low-level misdemeanor subject to a 30-day jail sentence.

The Appropriations Committee voted 7-5 on party lines, with no Democratic backing to approve the bill. It now goes to the Rules Committee for a routine constitutional review and then to the House floor.

The Arizona legislature routinely passes unconstitutional bills – they provide full employment for constitutional law attorneys. This bill is unnecessary, unconstitutional, and should be rejected.

UPDATE: Authoritarian Republicans in the House did it anyway, naturally. House Republicans approve bill to restrict who can film cops and when:

The people who took video of police killing George Floyd and Eric Garner would have faced criminal charges in Arizona under legislation that won approval in the state House of Representatives with only Republican support.

The brave people who filmed the police murders of George Floyd and Eric Garner would have faced criminal charges if this law were in place for them. https://t.co/ThhU5bnX9g

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) February 23, 2022

A bill proposed by Fountain Hills Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, who spent decades as a police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, would make it unlawful for someone to film police from up to 15 feet away while officers are engaged in “law enforcement activity.”

Constitutional experts and civil rights advocates say the proposed law would be blatantly unconstitutional.

“Courts have upheld that people have a constitutional right to videotape police activity, and now to say that it is illegal is just idiotic,” Dan Barr, an attorney who specializes in media and First Amendment cases, previously told the Arizona Mirror. “This would make the recording of the murder of George Floyd illegal.”

House Bill 2319 says that anyone who police order to stop filming but continues to do so would face a class 3 misdemeanor and up to 30 days in jail.

The bill passed out of the Arizona House of Representatives Wednesday on a 31-28 vote, with Republicans supporting it and Democratic lawmakers in opposition.

An amendment added by the House Appropriations Committee allows people to film their own interactions with police, as long as they are “not interfering with lawful police actions, including searching handcuffing or administering a field sobriety test.”

The amendment also allows passengers in a vehicle to film as long as they don’t interfere with “lawful police actions.”

And who determines that? The officer engaged in misconduct who does not want to be filmed engaging in misconduct.

This is the Philando Csstille case. Philando Castile shot 5 times, killed by officer during traffic stop:

Philando Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria worker, was shot five times by a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer during a July 6, 2016 traffic stop after Castile informed the officer he was armed.

“Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me,” Castile said.

Before Castile finished that sentence, Yanez began pulling his weapon out of the holster. Yanez said, “OK. Don’t reach for it then.” He told the driver twice more not to pull out the weapon and then started firing into the car. After the firing ends, he screamed, “Don’t pull it out!”

The shooting gained widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car with her then-4-year-old daughter, livestreamed its gruesome aftermath on Facebook.

[Castile was bleeding heavily in the Facebook video but managed to say he wasn’t reaching for his gun, which he had a permit to carry. His girlfriend said Castile was reaching for his ID in his back pocket when he was shot.]

Officer Jeronimo Yanez testified that Castile was pulling his gun out of his pocket. Yanez was acquitted of second-degree manslaughter.

[He also was acquitted of two counts of intentional discharge of firearm that endangers safety.]

Note: Diamond Reynolds was definitely “within 8 feet,” Troll Boy. She and her 4-year-old daughter were in the car and could easily have been struck by a bullet fired at the driver. Not that you care. She would have been charged with interfering with this officer for filming under your bill.

The amendment also limits what couldn’t be filmed from closer than 15 feet: questioning a suspicious person, conducting an arrest, issuing a summons or “enforcing the law,” and “handling an emotionally disbturbed or disorderly person who is exhibiting abnormal behavior.”

Kavanagh said he initially got the idea to run the bill because he had seen stories of “groups” of people going around filming police. He said the legislation didn’t originate with any police union or advocacy group, though he later told ABC15 [he lied] the idea came from a Tucson cop.

[F]ilming of police has played an integral role in helping journalists and researchers learn the breadth of how law enforcement use “cover charges” to justify the use of excessive force.

The term is often used by defense attorneys to describe the charges used by police to cover up bad behavior or explain away the use of excessive force. In Chicago, it was found that two out of every three times the Chicago Police Department used force since 2004, they arrested the person on one of these types of charges. And a 2021 ProPublica investigationfound in Jefferson Parish, La., 73% of the time someone was arrested on a “cover charge” alone, they were Black.

The bill now heads to the Senate.