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.
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.
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
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.
That’s the idea, they want a rule that allows exclusion of journalists so their shittness is less public.
Literally. They write laws meant to be test cases before the supreme court to usher in fascism via minority rule.
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.
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.
You could inform them that California has the good winter weather as well. Heck if a few more of them go to Arizona, we might permanently flip that state blue.
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.
The cost of a functioning republic is vigilance: If people stop participating, things get worse.
You mean all the people saying no one should bother voting because “both sides bad and it does nothing” might not have the US’ best interests at heart??
spoiler
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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.
Given that the courts already shutdown Arizona’s attempt last year to keep people 8 feet away from a cop, I’m not sure arguing for 3 times the distance is going to stand.
They want to push it to the Supreme Court. Arizona lost it’s Republican governor and AG. The Dems settled the case and stopped pushing it.
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.
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.
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.
It’s not like any of the ones with less range mattered this way. The cops just walked towards you.
Police are suddenly going to become really bad at estimating just how far away 25 feet is.
Nah. They just walk keep walking towards you. This law legalizes a behavior they already display called “bulldogging”. They walk towards you attempting to intimidate you into walking away. If you can’t be intimidated then they escalate until you are arrested for resisting arrest. This is just more smoke cover for cops to act like an occupying force.
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
Conservatives: acab? Who are you gonna call when you need help? A crackhead?
cops: it is illegal for you to approach me if I feel like it
crackhead: i’ll do anything for you for 50 bucks
I love the knowledge that if someone is breaking into my house, the cops will show up later to tell me nothing will be recovered and to hand me a piece of paper.
At least they’ll shoot your dog for free… whether you wanted them to or not.
Beautiful, wipes tear from eye it’s just as our forefathers imagined.
…O’er the la-and of the freeeeeee!
also cops: sometimes we will just come into your house and kill you even if you’re the victim, oopsie doopsie
Police is such a poor term, why not Citizen Control Forces.
The CCF does have a nice ring to it! /s
Those are my initials…
You can be their leader or their mascot.
Pass… Idk if this makes it worse, but I live in Louisiana lol
Can confirm, it makes it worse.
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…
More fascist every day, coming soon to a state near you, and no ones coming to help. “States Rights” after all . . .
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
I have a 70-200 I use on a full frame body and it’s awesome. But my phone can zoom in too even if the quality will be way worse. There’s even some optical zoom to it since phones have multiple lenses these days.
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.
I’m sorry I stopped reading when you went to copilot for information that matters. You can always cite the numerous court cases saying qualified immunity is a bar for any civil suit that isn’t an exact replica of a case where a police officer was successfully sued in the past. And SCOTUS ruled that difference can be as little as them walking instead of running. Effectively making it impossible to sue a police officer.
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?
