NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday denounced New Yorkers who stand too close to police officers while practicing their first amendment right to film cops.
Adams demanded New Yorkers keep a wide berth from officers while they make arrests during a speech unveiling the return of a controversial plain clothes anti-gun unit that was a fixture of the stop-and-frisk era.
“If an officer is on the ground wrestling with someone that has a gun, they should not have to worry about someone standing over them with a camera while they’re wrestling with someone,” said Adams during his address at the College Point police academy in Queens.
The New York City Council passed a law in 2020 that enshrined the first amendment right of civilians to record police officers.
The law also makes any police officer who violates this civil liberty liable for litigation.
It states civilians must stand a safe distance from officers while filming but fails to specify what that constitutes.
“Stop being on top of my police officers while they’re carrying out their jobs,” said Adams. “That is not acceptable and it won’t be tolerated. That is a very dangerous environment you are creating when you’re on top of that officer who has an understanding of what he’s doing at the time, yelling ‘police brutality.’”
The NYPD has a history of arresting or intimidating civilians who film them.
In 2018, Ruben An, a 26-year-old Queens man, settled a lawsuit with the NYPD after he was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice for filming officers interrogating a homeless man, the New York Daily News reported.
A jury acquitted him of all charges.
Amr Alfiky, a New York photojournalist, was arrested in 2020 while filming police making an arrest. Police lied that Alfiky failed to identify himself as a journalist. Video obtained by Gothamist, shows him repeatedly stating “I am a journalist” and offering to show credentials while police handcuff him.
Gothamist reported on other instances of NYPD officers harassing and arresting journalists and citizens who film them in 2013, 2014 and 2017.
"I'm not going to put these men and women on the front line and have someone put a phone in their face while they're taking action and try to critique their ability to do their job, and allow the noise to determine that they're not doing their job correctly," said Adams.
The unit Adams was speaking of during the speech was at the center of controversy regarding violent and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk searches carried out by the NYPD.
The American Civil Liberties Union recommends filming police as a peaceful way for civilians to protect themselves from officers who infringe their rights or brutalize them.
“The right of citizens to record the police is a critical check and balance,” says the ACLU on its website. “It creates an independent record of what took place in a particular incident, free from accusations of bias, lying, or faulty memory. It is no accident that some of the most high-profile cases of police misconduct have involved video and audio records.”
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