In yet another case in which police illegal arrested someone for filming the police, the police have been forced to pay up. Unlike the big Simon Glik case, it appears that the NYPD (under new management!) decided to do its best to settle the case and get it off the books. They’re paying $125,000 to Dick George, who recorded police doing one of its infamous stop-and-frisks. According to George’s lawsuit, not only did the police arrest George and delete the photos from his camera (after he told the kids who were stopped and frisked to get the cops’ badge numbers next time), the police flat out knew what they were doing was illegal — telling George to sue the police:
“Now we’re going to give you what you deserve for meddling in our business and when we finish with you, you can sue the city for $5 million and get rich, we don’t care,” Lt. Dennis Ferber said, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Not surprisingly, the new mayor and new police chief didn’t want this case to go very far, and got George to agree to a $125,000 settlement. Will victories like this get police to stop these kinds of things? Doubtful, but it’s still good to see.
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