Now that the video of my wife & I filming that mean, fat cop who accosted us has over two million views... By Martin Hill http://LibertyFight.com January 17, 2015
This is quite an interesting story, and I just noticed that my video It's NOT Illegal to Film Cops. RESIST ILLEGAL ORDERS- EXERT YOUR GOD GIVEN RIGHTS has has topped the two million view mark. 2,009,082 views to be exact. I will be the first to admit that I do not like this video. At all. I don't like watching it and I don't really like several aspects of the way I handled the situation. This all started one day when my wife and I were on our way somewhere and we stopped to use the internet at Starbucks. At the time, Starbucks required a membership to use their wireless internet, which we had. It was a membership system which required certain occasional purchases over a certain amount, and we were happy to patronize the business. Then, all of a sudden, we're surrounded by cops screaming at me to freeze. Besides the Ron Paul sticker on my rear car window, I had two other bumper stickers on my car that day: '9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB,' and 'Same Shit Different Piles,' with photos of Bush and Obama. We never found out why the cops really came to Starbucks to accost us, or if there was even a real call. I had already filed an in internal affairs complaint against a high-ranking detective in that department only a few months prior, after he had tried to get me to stop filming when I had seen police violently push a little kid on to the ground.
The police investigators in the internal affairs interview had confidently assured me, on camera no less, that people were free to film police in public anytime. So when this obese, maniac cop at Starbucks said "it's illegal to film police in America" and that he was going to arrest me and seize my camera for filming him when he accosted me for no reason, of course I was upset. He claimed that he had gotten a call about "a woman in the back seat of my car who was possibly being held against her will." Yet in the video, notice that not one of the three cops ever once asked her if she was okay or if she was being held against her will! It's been over six years now and the video has over two million views (2,009,082 to be exact.) I have learned a lot since then, The Youtube experience can be very rewarding because it puts these issues into the public sphere and can help people learn how to properly exert their rights and protect themselves. Imagine two million people there with you, watching as you get unfairly hassled by the cops!
To be precise, there's five specific things that I did wrong. First of all, I was way too hyper and upset; 2. I talked too much; 3. I showed them my ID when it wasn't required; 4. I got out of the car when I didn't have to, and 5. I allowed them to do a pat down. Keep in mind, however, that this was over six years ago and I have learned a lot since then. I also have many more interactions with cops and have recorded them and posted the videos, which illustrate my evolution in these regards. I know much better how to (calmly, usually) exert my rights. [Such as these two: Obnoxious CHP cop tries to make people stop filming him (3/24/13) & Checkpoint Cop Offended When I Yell At Him About 4th Amendment (Article & Video).] Now that is not to say that I didn't properly exert my rights in this 2008 video, because I believe that I did.
On the positive side, which is the main point of what this video was about, neither I or my wife ever turned off the video camera. And I made it clear to him repeatedly that I DO NOT consent to a search of my vehicle, so he did not search our car. We never stopped filming the pig, even though he threatened to arrest us if we did not stop filming. It is not ilegal to film cops, never has been. Also, another plus is that I did not allow him to search our car. He never searched our car and he never arrested me or gave me a ticket.
By the way, if you resent me calling this pig a pig, too bad. That's what he was. I have law enforcement on both sides my family and I don't refer to all cops as "pigs," but some deserve the label. Since I am not afraid of words or descriptive adjectives, the monicker "pig" shall stand. [Article continues here.]
Martin Hill is a Catholic paleoconservative and civil rights advocate. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Daily News, KNBC4 TV Los Angeles, LewRockwell.com, WhatReallyHappened.com, Infowars.com, PrisonPlanet.com, Economic Policy Journal, TargetLiberty.com, FreedomsPhoenix, The Dr. Katherine Albrecht Show, National Motorists Association, TexeMarrs.com, Strike-The-Root.com, IamtheWitness.com, The Michael Badnarik Show, The Wayne Madsen Report, Devvy.com, Rense.com, CopBlock.org, DavidIcke.com, Antiwar.com, and many others. Archives can be found at LibertyFight.com and http://DontWakeMeUp.Org .