Man Arrested For Video Recording Hero Cop On Private Property
Amidst a national debate about police brutality, another video has emerged of a police officer arresting someone for video recording, this time on his own friend’s private property.
The footage out of Houston, Texas is all the more shocking because the cop doesn’t even try to de-escalate the situation but immediately resorts to making the arrest because the individual, Michael Gardner, refused to instantly obey his orders.
Officer Hoang of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office was responding to a 911 call made by one of the residents at the property.
“The man in the chair could have hindered this situation when he told him to “listen to the officer,” however Gardner tells the Free Thought Project that this man was not the property owner and was not the person that gave Gardner permission to be there.”
The clip shows the officer approach Gardner’s friend before asking Gardner, “Is there a reason why you’re recording this?” to which Gardner responds, “Yes, but I don’t answer questions.”
“OK, you need to leave,” orders Hoang, to which Gardner responds, “I’m on private property.”
The cop repeats the order for Gardner to leave, claiming he is interfering despite being a significant distance away.
“I’m just video recording it for safety purposes, sir,” states Gardner, before Officer Hoang approaches him.
The officer immediately goes to handcuff Gardner as he exclaims, “I’m not doing anything! This is illegal! Highly illegal!”
According to a subsequent Facebook post by Gardner about the incident, he was taken to jail but was subsequently released on the order of a judge who found no probable cause for the arrest.
Gardner also claims that Hoang drove at high speed while taking him to prison and was texting while driving.
“I had my rights violated and I need help from all my friends,” wrote Gardner, asking that the video clip go viral.
Despite the fact that legal precedent and law clearly dictates that it is not illegal to film police nor does recording police constitute interfering in their activity, Americans continue to be arrested for doing so.
RAGNAR DANNESKJÖLD – Character Analysis
We mainly hear of Ragnar second-hand in Atlas Shrugged, because he is off pirating. We follow his exploits mainly through gossip and the fearful discussions of people commenting on his pirate raids. Ragnar is sort of a mythic figure who inspires dread and confusion.
The pirating itself is confusing, though. Here is Dr. Akston’s description of Ragnar:
“And Ragnar – you didn’t know what profession Ragnar had chosen, Miss Taggart? No, it wasn’t a stunt pilot, or jungle explorer, or deep-sea diver. It was something much more outrageous than these. Ragnar intended to be a philosopher. An abstract, theoretical, academic, cloistered, ivory-tower philosopher.”
Ragnar attempts to remain mild-mannered and quasi-pacifist but when confronted by a neuropathological society, he often ends up beating people up and getting in and out of “ultra sticky situations”
Akston describes Ragnar’s intended profession as “outrageous” which it surely is, but not in the way he thinks.
In a world run by looters, being a philosopher and living a life of the mind is a much more risky undertaking than running around as a simple criminal.
In this respect, the bold and dangerous lifestyle Ragnar leads as a pirate with a cause is not very far removed from the lifestyle of a bold and uncompromising philosopher. In both instances, Ragnar is standing up to the looters’ bad regime and challenging their values.
In his two major scenes, Ragnar gives a concise and interesting spin on his morals and his role in the strike. As he explains, in the opposite day that is the looters’ world, men of the mind become men of the sword:
What I actually am, Mr. Rearden, is a policeman. It is a policeman’s duty to protect men from criminals – criminals being those who seize wealth by force. … But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law…then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.
Ragnar’s moral crusade has specific targets and beneficiaries as well.
“I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. ”
“What man?”
“Robin Hood. He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I’m the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich – or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.”
More than any of the other strikers, Ragnar has a very concrete notion of justice, and he is on a quest to pay back those who have been “robbed” with bars of gold.
The other strike leaders don’t fully approve of Ragnar’s methods, but isn’t that rather fitting for a would-be renegade anarchist philosopher. Ragnar’s not afraid to go against the crowd.
Ragnar Danneskjold’s Love
– – –
Struggling not to give in to an emotion which he felt rising through his bewilderment, past all his doubts, Rearden tried to study the man’s face, searching for some clue to help him understand. But the face had no expression; it had not changed once while speaking; it looked as if the man had lost the capacity to feel long ago, and what remained of him were only features that seemed implacable and dead. With a shudder of astonishment, Rearden found himself thinking that it was not the face of a man, but of an avenging angel.
“Why did you care?” asked Rearden. “What do I mean to you?”
“Much more than you have reason to suspect. And I have a friend to whom you mean much more than you will ever learn. He would have given anything to stand by you today. But he can’t come to you. So I came in his place.”
“What friend?”
“I prefer not to name him.”
“Did you say that you’ve spent a long time collecting this money for me?”
“I have collected much more than this.” He pointed at the gold. “I am holding it in your name and I will turn it over to you when the time comes. This is only a sample, as proof that it does exist. And if you reach the day when you find yourself robbed of the last of your fortune, I want you to remember that you have a large bank account waiting for you.”
“What account?”
“If you try to think of all the money that has been taken from you by force, you will know that your account represents a considerable sum.”
“How did you collect it? Where did this gold come from?”
“It was taken from those who robbed you.”
“Taken by whom?”
“By me.”
“Who are you?”
“Ragnar Danneskjold.”
Rearden looked at him for a long, still moment, then let the gold fall out of his hands.
Danneskjold’s eyes did not follow it to the ground, but remained fixed on Rearden with no change of expression. “Would you rather I were a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by? Directive 10-289?”
“Look more carefully, Mr. Rearden. There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.”
“You chose to live by means of force, like the rest of them.”
“Yes—openly. Honestly, if you will. I do not rob men who are tied and gagged, I do not demand that my victims help me, I do not tell them that I am acting for their own good. I stake my life in every encounter with men, and they have a chance to match their wits and their brains against mine in fair battle. Fair? It’s I against the organized strength, the guns, the planes, the battleships of five continents. If it’s a moral judgment that you wish to pronounce, Mr. Rearden, then who is the man of higher morality: I or Wesley Mouch?”
“I have no answer to give you,” said Rearden, his voice low.
“Why should you be shocked, Mr. Rearden? I am merely complying with the system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.”
– – –
– from the Ayn Rand Sanction of the Victim Lecture:
“Altruism is a monstrous notion. It is the morality of cannibals devouring one another. It is a theory of profound hatred for man. For reason. For achievement. For any form of human success or happiness on the earth.
I remember hearing a young visiting American bureaucrat discussing 1930s Russia’s destruction quite cheerfully – “How wonderful it was to see everybody equally shabby.”
Is that not the seminal notion of our age? We have no living heroes whose productive actions we venerate nor try to emulate.
Instead we leer and seethe at those few who despite everything triumph in some small way that we ourselves fail to do. And then we wish with all our hearts that they too shall fail like us. Our overriding notion is to see no exceptions to the general misery. To see instead, that “everybody is equally shabby” as are we all.
“Since man’s basic tool of survival is his mind, the most crucially important occupation is the discovery of knowledge. That is the occupation of scientists. But scientists are not concerned with society, with social issues, or with other men. Scientists are essentially loners, they pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
The steam engine was known in ancient Greece, but knowledge of that sort remained an exclusive concern that lived and died with the scientists. And for century after century had no connection with the lives of the rest of mankind.”
“Now imagine a group of men who decide it is their job to bring the results of such knowledge to within the reach of the rest of man. To apply such scientific knowledge to the improvement of lives on earth. Wouldn’t such men be the greatest of social benefactors?”
– These kind of men are the so-called enemies decried by Gary North as “humanitarians.” These kind of online scientists of the internet such as myself are called hackers, IP property rights violators, and other things much worse.
– My wife pays for things on the internet, including those that benefit me. But for me to do so is first off impossible, and second off, would also be a self-destructive act.
‘It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers.’ – Ayn Rand.
Hi Tor,
I’m not following this sequence, especially:
“My wife pays for things on the internet, including those that benefit me. But for me to do so is first off impossible, and second off, would also be a self-destructive act.”
Italics added.
How is it “self destructive” to pay for things that benefit you?
I meant the mainstream American ecomomy is a juggernaut that would kill me if I allow it to.
During the time of the holocaust, would it really be wrong for a jew to steal food
How is the jew to face the innocent merchant and pay him under quid pro quo or the golden rule
The merchant as a German in good standing is the enemy of the jew, he is obligated to detain the jew and hand him over to the authorities, no.
If America is evil, then even good Americans are evil, what does it matter that an American feels bad about things. His every working hour of legit labor and dollar of legit commerce is evil as it feeds a killing machine.
If America is a rogue cancer run amuck against the world body. What choice is there but to starve the cancerous cells until they revert to normal cells or else die of starvation
How to pass a security checkpoint
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=38d_1417872788
Same Dong Hoang of Houston/Harris County killed an unarmed girl – Ciara Lee – in cold blood a few years ago.
http://abclocal.go.com/story?section=news/local&id=7886327
Dong Hoang as an off duty rookie in 2004 also shot somebody who was already in handcuffs at a Walmart
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/2004-shootings-by-law-enforcement-1955914.php
June19, 2004. Officer Dong Hoang, a rookie working off-duty security for a Houston Wal-Mart in the 2700 block of Dunvale, wounded shoplifting suspect M.B. Canty. Canty, 39, who had been handcuffed, somehow managed to pull a gun and shoot the officer before the officer shot back.
R.I.P. Ciara Lee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrCvzzmxYR8
You had to die Ciara, because there must always be sacrifices on the State Altar so that the power stays strong for the Holy State. Just like Abraham was ready to slay his son Isaac, so are today’s followers of the golden rule of killing for the common good. A fools gold, and nothing that can be proven logically mind you are these supposed man made maxims.
The ten commandments. The rights in the bill of rights. These are just random selections and by no stretch of imagination can they be said to be any better than any other random maxims and chest thumping platitudes.
Why must the tragedies of life be compounded and magnified into world destroying psychopathic OCD slaughterings. What is the defect in the human mind that makes us love and serve these abject anti-human laws that make no sense whatsoever.
Throw it ALL in the woods, and start anew with compassion, empathy, understanding, purpose, and thoughtful consideration of each and every individual case and situation from now on.
The familiar refrains are also known as shibboleths.
Shibboleths
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/shibboleth
No “I” in team. Why be a part of their “team” in the first place.
https://sharika3211.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/295934_10151200322542288_574374988_n.jpg
Tor,
Here is the “i” in team. 😉
http://static.neatorama.com/images/2012-06/i-in-team.jpg
Thanks for the new word. Never heard of shibboleth before your post.
There is an “i” in team, all right. It’s right in the “A”-hole!
“A”-holes, plural.
Will we hear those familiar refrains:
“I was in fear for my life.”
“I was following official procedures”
“He was resisting arrest.”
“He was interfering in an official investigation.”
“We find that our officer is exonerated of any wrong doing.”
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I wish I was watching a WWII war film. With a film, the thuggery and brutality ends by the end of the movie.
Although I originally thought adding a (camera/video recorder) to a phone made little sense, I am glad for its inclusion. Video recording brought to light many things that should never occur in a free society.