Critics of a new Louisiana law, which makes it a crime to approach within 25 feet (7.6 meters) of a police officer under certain circumstances, fear that the measure could hinder the public’s ability to film officers — a tool that has increasingly been used to hold police accountable.
Under the law, anyone who is convicted of “knowingly or intentionally” approaching an officer, who is “lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties,” and after being ordered to “stop approaching or retreat” faces up to a $500 fine, up to 60 days in jail or both. The law was signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, Tuesday and goes into effect Aug. 1.
While the legislation’s language does not specifically mention filming, critics say that by default it would limit how close a person can be to observe police. Opponents have also gone further to question the law’s constitutionality, saying it could impede on a person’s First Amendment rights.
How the fuck do I ask a cop for help? I mean… Not that I ever would, I mean if I call a crackhead to help me, they’re not gonna shoot my dog…
These states are basically fascist testing grounds at this point
Whenever I see dumb laws like this being passed, I think about all the problems they aren’t fixing. Louisiana is damn-near last place on all of the quality of life indexes. It’s sad that they keep electing politicians who refuse to better their quality of life.
That’s the idea, they want a rule that allows exclusion of journalists so their shittness is less public.
They’re not electing anyone. 83% of the population didn’t vote in the recent Governor election.
I keep saying Louisiana should increase turnout by instituting a “vote by dealer” policy. You want your weed, fill out the ballot.
It doesn’t help that it was a shitty election cycle. People didn’t vote and are in shock that the republican won where turnout was 36% of registered voters because people assumed the jungle primary would cause a dem and repub to move forward when in fact, of that 36%, Landry won outright with 51%.
Im not saying he wouldn’t have won anyways, but it would have been much closer if people would actually vote.
Closer than 51%? How much closer can you get?
Fair. I guess I just mean he won with less than 20% of registered voters so it’s difficult for us to know if it’s a fluke since dems did not come out to vote
Literally. They write laws meant to be test cases before the supreme court to usher in fascism via minority rule.
This is just the result of the general populous allowing the legislators to pass whatever laws they wish, instead of laws to benefit constituents.
We need more outrage and change when these things happen. At least enough to make people remember what’s happened when it’s time to vote.
Louisiana has a Republican governor and a Republican super majority. They can pass literally whatever they want right now.
It’s gerrymandered to hell. There is no way to get these clowns out.
The cost of a functioning republic is vigilance: If people stop participating, things get worse.
The issue is that the people who vote for him would see something like this and say good, crime is too high right now.
No matter how you spin it, when you have enough people without critical thinking, they are gonna drag everything down.
To
serve and protectdiscriminate and oppressdo these guys know about lenses?
They shoot people who point things at them. They’ll simply say they "feared for their life” when someone tries to take a picture of them at a distance.
“it was far away, it looked like a large black gun was being raised towards me”
I don’t know where to begin with this but I’ll try.
For starters, you gonna go by everyone a 70-200 and a camera body to match?
Cell phone cameras have been THE best accountability device. And yes they’ve gotten great. But up close, wide shots are going to be far more useful (partially because it’s way more stable)
yeah. my remark was mostly flippant and sarcastic. The law should not exist but it is good technology has some options. Still its sad we have to hack around bad laws.
Sorry, I should’ve assumed as much. I let my smug take over
Well, see the problem is now officers can yell at people to fuck off, and when they later argue in court that they were fat enough away all the cop has to say is “per my judgment they appeared to be within…” and regardless of how stupid they may have to pretend to be, they are protected. They now have legal cover to intimidate random members of the public.
From copilot: "Yes, you’re correct. The doctrine of qualified immunity does protect individual police officers from legal consequences in certain circumstances. It shields government officials, including law enforcement officers, from liability for civil damages as long as their conduct does not violate "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known"².
This means that if a police officer, under a mistaken understanding of the law or a mistaken observation of facts, conducts an arrest or detention, they may be granted qualified immunity if they can show that they believed in good faith that their actions were lawful. The standard is whether a reasonable officer could have believed the arrest to be lawful, given the circumstances. This protection applies even if the officer’s belief was mistaken, as long as the mistake is reasonable¹³.
However, qualified immunity is not absolute. If the law was clearly established at the time of the incident, such that a reasonable officer would understand that what they are doing violates that right, then qualified immunity would not protect them⁵. The application of this doctrine is complex and often depends on the specific facts of each case, as well as the jurisdiction in which the incident occurred. It’s a topic of ongoing legal debate and has been subject to scrutiny and calls for reform¹³."
Source: Conversation with Copilot, 5/30/2024 (1) Legal Digest: Qualified Immunity - How It Protects Law Enforcement … https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/legal-digest/legal-digest-qualified-immunity-how-it-protects-law-enforcement-officers. (2) SCOTUS decisions in 2021 that impacted law enforcement - Police1. https://www.police1.com/legal/articles/scotus-year-in-review-decisions-on-qualified-immunity-and-fourth-amendment-seizures-wXjUwXDQl9fSueBj/. (3) What is Qualified Immunity? FAQ and Impact - Legal Defense Fund. https://www.naacpldf.org/qualified-immunity/. (4) qualified immunity | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity. (5) How qualified immunity protects police officers accused of wrongdoing. https://theconversation.com/how-qualified-immunity-protects-police-officers-accused-of-wrongdoing-159617.
From copilot:
Please don’t do this. Even if the information is accurate, LLMs cannot be trusted. You could find that same information from a better source.
Downvote for going to an llm to tell you and us what to think.
Not being able to approach Police Officers because they legally can then THROW YOU IN JAIL is called FREEDOM!
<eagle screech>
<red tailed hawk screech with image of an eagle>
I remember learning about this a few months ago. It’s wild. Actual bald eagles sound so friendly in comparison.
Apparently bald eagles really aren’t that different from seagulls, or so I’ve heard.
Louisiana is going to waste a lot of money defending this law. The Supreme Court has been very consistent on filming cops is allowed. Also 25 feet is huge, that effectively closes sidewalks if a car is pulled over, and any two lane roads. The selective enforcement options are endless.
A bunch of people will get screwed while this winds its way through the courts though.
Which, as always, is the point. Keep everybody in a constant state of law breaking so you can always shake anyone down to make a point.
Can’t even be in a courtroom since the bailiff is a cop performing police duties.
I didn’t even think of that. You could probably fine a bunch of prisoners as well.
If this is allowed to stand, Americans’ first amendment rights end at 25 ft away from a police officer, in Louisiana.
And if they walk towards you while saying “back away”, suddenly you’re fleeing a scene if you actually back away
They saw all these cases against officers and decided they better make a new law to justify using lethal force
I can’t wait for someone to try to justify fleeing the police with this law. “Officer, you were executing your official duties. I was trying to obey the law by staying 25 feet from you but you kept pursuing me!”
Guess I’ll cross New Orleans off my list of possible vacation destinations. Not a big fan of voluntarily entering police states.
Guess I’ll cross New Orleans off my list of possible vacation destinations.
It’s funny because, as a person from outside the USA, I know a lot of people who have decided to do that with the USA as a whole!
Must be nice knowing a lot of smart people.
No need to be smart, just need to have principles
Or access to news
I’m sure there are plenty of people who know exactly what’s going on in the USA and that decide not to care and still go. Hell, I know pro choice people who still travel to red States that have banned abortions every winter because they’re not ready to give up on something they like.
so it was the citizens who are being put in their place by militarized police, voting restrictions, lead in the water pipes, the underfunded and gutted education system, low minimum wage both state and federal, the pollution, healthcare access restrictions, etcetera that caused bad politicians to gain and hold power not anything else?
Well, I guess that gives people an excuse to start pointing lasers at them (gotta accurately measure distance somehow). Also might be fun when those that are hard of hearing start trying to keep 25’ back and can’t hear the officer trying to ask them to stop.
I’m questioning what prompted this, but the law seems perfectly reasonable in any case.
25’ is the length of my driveway. I can hear and see a normal conversation quite well at that distance, and I can’t hear for shit. If you’re closer than that and a cop tells you to back it up, why not?
Cops are mostly dealing with idiots. How close to a potentially volatile situation do you need to be? How close do you want to be? We can still clearly observe the situation at 25’.
Now if they make filming or speaking illegal, I’m screaming to the heavens. And for the love of God, film these assholes. 25’ will suddenly become much further away if there’s no evidence.
Every time this law has been passed it’s been used to stop people filming by walking toward them and then arresting them.
It’s almost as if no one read the very last sentence of my comment. How odd.
Now if they make filming or speaking illegal, I’m screaming to the heavens
What do you think this law’s mostly going to be used for? It’s not gonna be enforced when they’re ‘dealing with idiots’, it’s gonna be enforced when they don’t want to be filmed doing bad shit.
So as your car comes to a stop, check the car behind you or in front or the side. If it’s a cop, you’re fucked. They can just shoot you if you look at them with RBF resting bitch face.
More fascist every day, coming soon to a state near you, and no ones coming to help. “States Rights” after all . . .
fear that the measure could hinder the public’s ability to film officers — a tool that has increasingly been used to hold police accountable.
Yeah, that’s the point. Why else would they enact a law like this?
