Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Jan 3, 2013
A Texas man was arrested by an Alice Police officer recently for filming a traffic stop and providing commentary on the rights of drivers under the Fourth Amendment.
Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlWvQTedFcA&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1
The man, 25 year old Gabriel Cabrera, began filming the incident on a cell phone while standing on his own property. While Cabrera explained, presumably intending to upload the video at a later time, that Americans should never concede their constitutional rights to police in such situations, the officer conducting the stop approached him and asked for ID.
“Am I committing any crimes?” Cabrera asked.
“I need to see your I.D. sir because if this end up on YouTube or something like that…” the officer, later identified as Nicolas Juarez said.
Cabrera then told Juarez that he was on private property and he would not show any ID because he was not committing any crimes.
“And now you’re under arrest” Juarez immediately fired back, attempting to cuff Cabrera and then suggesting he could charge him with resisting arrest if he did not comply.
A cursory investigation into the incident by news channel KRISTV revealed that Juarez omitted the YouTube reference from his report on the incident.
Assistant Police Chief Alberto Martinez told the news station that he didn’t see anything wrong with his officer’s actions. An internal police investigation is underway,
Internal investigation? That’s a hoot! That’s like having the CIA furrow their collective brow and philosophically meditate upon whether drones are “evil”. Hmmmmm.
Dear MoT,
“Internal investigation? That’s a hoot!”
Yup.
“Internal investigation” = “How the fuck can we make this go away?”
Sounds like the fox guarding the henhouse…