Establishment mouthpiece Bill O’Reilly ran a short segment attacking Cop Block on his show this week. He referred to the activists as “clowns” and disapproved of the idea of filming police. For anybody that pretends to be part of the news apparatus to openly discourage the ability to film public officials and even hint that it should be illegal shows viewers that the “cable news show” is anything but news. No self-respecting journalist or even a tabloid hack would ever condone an encroachment on the First Amendment.
Bill described the organization’s activities by saying they are “spying on the police.”
Perhaps Bill has missed the list of articles detailing how local police departments are, in fact, spying on Americans, or maybe it just doesn’t fit into his narrow worldview so he just overlooks it. Recording public interactions is not spying by any definition. If anything, it’s journalism; albeit a bastardized and guerilla form of it. Journalism is that subject Bill studied at Boston College. It’s been a while, so maybe he just forgot what it was.
Bill took the opportunity to show a clip of an Arlington Police Department representative saying
“officers are actually being followed. A lot of times the officers don’t have any idea who’s following them.”
He echoes the complaint by Dallas Police Association President Ron Pinkton when he said
“We don’t know who it is pulling behind us. We don’t know they’re there to videotape, they might be part of… if that guy has has just done a kidnapping they could be part of the kidnapping. You don’t know.”
As was previously pointed out, if an officer is unable to tell the difference between a camera and firearm, perhaps that officer should seek out a different line of work before they kill an unarmed birdwatcher. It’s either that or the department needs to step up its training program.
Megyn Kelly of the Kelly File, smiled and chuckled as she mocked the appearance of one of the activists and stated that an officer could be
“riding down the road, trying do your job, and suddenly it’s like Paul Bunyon is after me!”
The ever-present echo for ideas supporting a police state, Bill O’Reilly, chimed in by stating
“Yeah, there’s somebody with a camera in your face.”
Of course, the more likely scenario is that you’re rushing home after you’ve found out your house has been broken into and a cop sticks a gun, not a camera, in your face. The video below shows that exact scenario. Before Bill responds by saying that the cops have their own video and this case proves it, he should note that, as usual, the equipment malfunctions just as the officer begins taunting the teenager about sticking a pistol in her face. So, no, the American people can’t just trust the police to police themselves.
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