Constitutional Law

Arizona Looks To Protect Cops From That Pesky First Amendment

Because the problem with the killing of George Floyd was that someone was allowed to film it.

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Torn 1st Amendment Constitution textArizona state Rep. John Kavanagh knows that being a cop is hard. He spent 20 years as a Port Authority Police Officer before decamping for sunnier climes, so he’s always down to back the blue. And so he’s sponsored a bill that would make cops’ lives easier — AHEM promote public safety — by banning bystanders from recording police from anything closer than eight feet.

Under HB2319 (as amended) which passed out of the Arizona House Appropriations Committee yesterday 7-5 on party lines, it would be illegal to “knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity, including the handling of an emotionally disturbed person, if the person making the video recording does not have the permission of a law enforcement officer and is within eight feet of where the law enforcement activity is occurring.”

The law would not affect the right of the person interacting directly with law enforcement to record, and violation would be a mere “petty offense,” unless the recorder “fails to comply with a verbal warning.”

“It distracts the cop against the person they are making enforcement against,” Kavanagh told the Arizona Mirror, recounting a time he had lost focus during an arrest and failed to “see the suspect dump a large quantity of drugs.”

“Evidence can be lost, the cop can be assaulted,” Kavanagh said, without specifying exactly how a citizen holding up an iPhone is going to cause a cop to be “assaulted.”

“I think you get a better picture from 15 feet away,” he added. “You get the full scene.”

As the Electronic Freedom Foundation points out, the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh Circuits have upheld the right to record police at work, as has the Ninth Circuit which affirmed the right to film police 26 years ago. But Kavanagh has an answer for that, and it is … abortion.

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Well, obviously.

See, the Supreme Court upheld an eight-foot buffer zone for abortion clinic protestors in 2000, so obviously that means that Arizona can restrict First Amendment activity to stop cops from getting “distracted.”

“I think this fully conforms with constitutionality and weighs officer safety with the citizens’ right, the public’s right, to see law enforcement officers in action,” Kavanagh told the AP. And it looks like the state may be about to test that hypothesis, as the law proceeds to the Rules Committee, before heading to the wider chamber for a vote.

Ex-cop lawmaker wants to restrict recording videos of cops [AZ Mirror]
House panel OKs revised ban on videotaping police [AP]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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