A San Diego resident was arrested for filming the police, federal lawsuit alleges
The complaint, filed in the Southern District of California, alleges it was in 'retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights'
Police in Escondido, California, had someone in handcuffs late at night on May 23, 2023.
From about 20 feet away, a local resident started to record the arrest with his phone “to ensure truth and transparency and to document what he perceived might be police misconduct.”
But one of the officers allegedly knocked his phone out of his hand and arrested him, according to a federal complaint filed on July 1.
“In retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights, Escondido Police Officers threatened {the local resident}, knocked his phone from his hand, handcuffed him, searched him, falsely arrested him, and destroyed his property,” the complaint alleges.
It doesn’t seem like this guy was an activist or First Amendment auditor or anything like that. Just happened to be there.
Good news: He was never charged with anything after his arrest. (He was released the next morning after about eight hours in police custody, the complaint says.)
Bad news: The complaint seems to say he no longer has his cell phone video of the altercation:
While waiting in the holding cell at the police station, ArrestingOfficer came to Plaintiff with his cell phone in his hands.
ArrestingOfficer asked Plaintiff for his phone password so that ArrestingOfficer could call Plaintiff’s wife and place her on speaker phone.
ArrestingOfficer entered the code on the cellular phone, called Plaintiff’s wife and then proceeded to speak with Plaintiff’s wife.
While the phone was in Arresting Officer’s custody, the video Plaintiff had recorded of ArrestingOfficer and Defendant Officers earlier that evening had been deleted.
On information and belief, ArrestingOfficer deleted recordings of the incident that were on Plaintiff’s phone.
More bad news: The plaintiff has experienced extreme anxiety, sleeplessness and other symptoms following the incident. He “continues to suffer from severe emotional distress due to the profound injustice and indignity of being wrongfully arrested,” according to the complaint.
The federal lawsuit seeks damages from the city of Escondido for First Amendment retaliation, illegal seizure of person, illegal search of person, inflicting emotional distress and negligence, among a few other causes of action.
Cases like this seem to be coming up much more frequently.
Just about a week or so ago, a self-described cop watcher in Texas was arrested as police were investigating a hit and run.
Another similar case, one that also led to a federal lawsuit, stems from an activist encounter with police in Boise, Idaho, in 2022. An activist/cop watcher started filming police as they investigated some sort of vehicle collision in a parking garage. Video footage shows the officer slap his phone to the ground and shove him against a nearby wall before making the arrest. In June 2023, he filed a lawsuit against the city of Boise for $1 million, plus attorneys fees and costs. That case is ongoing, with a settlement conference scheduled for July 29.
Another similar case involved a woman from Everett, Washington, who was arrested by police for “obstruction of justice” while she was filming them near her apartment making an arrest. A local news article reports that she plans on suing, but a search for her name in federal and superior court records doesn’t show anything yet.
In all three cases mentioned above, body cam footage was released. We’ll see if Escondido releases the video in response to a California Public Records Request I just filed.