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In Which One Day I’ll Be Shot or Arrested Too
June 22, 2011 Flotsam and Jetsam

When I am in my car, especially if I plan to be in it for a while, I carry a Flip video camera with me. I usually carry it so that I can film something cool that I drive past — such as a field of sunflowers, a cool looking barn, etc. But I also have it so that I can record any interaction I have with government officials should I have the unfortunate pleasure of interacting with them. I am sure that on a traffic stop one day if I reach for it a cop may feel threatened and taser me or worse. Or perhaps they’ll simply arrest me for surveilling them.

In any case, a woman in our very own Rochester was arrested for videotaping them cuffing someone else and she did the taping from her front yard. The citizen’s name was Emily Good. The cop’s name was Mario Masic.

Here is the story.  Here is the video:

19th ward police stop

"9" Comments
  1. Outrageous, plan on post about this tonight.

  2. First, there’s this: “The Minneapolis Star-Tribune tells us about felony business practices:
    The former owner of a White Bear Lake sports bar faces felony charges after authorities say he purchased beer kegs and other liquor in Hudson, Wis., for import and resale at his bar.
    Michael Ogren, 43, made the purchases last fall after his Stadium Bar, 3600 Hoffman Road, was added to a state list of businesses that were delinquent in paying state sales taxes, according to charges. He no longer owns the bar.
    State law prohibits distributors from supplying liquor to businesses placed on the delinquency list. In Minnesota, it also is illegal for liquor license holders to purchase alcohol from other retailers for resale.
    According to the charges filed in Ramsey County District Court, Ogren made 13 trips to Casanova’s Liquor Store in Hudson between October and December, and allegedly bought 117 beer kegs, 95 bottles of liquor, 51 cases of beer and three bottles of wine.
    Agents with the state Department of Public Safety had begun placing the bar and liquor store under surveillance in November. At times, the charges state, the number of kegs being picked up was so large that the kegs had to be loaded into trucks or trailers.
    A manager at the sports bar, known for its outdoor softball fields and volleyball courts, told agents she placed orders at Ogren’s direction, and that Casanova’s Liquor Store had been selected at random.
    “Ogren told her it was legal to do this and she regretted that she had trusted him,” the charges state. The manager also told agents that in January, when she last saw Ogren in the bar, she saw him tossing away business receipts.
    In an April phone interview, Ogren allegedly told agents that he had purchased liquor at Casanova’s Liquor Store “only twice,” according to the charges. But he then admitted, the agents added, to having made weekly trips between Oct. 30 and Jan. 7.
    When asked if he knew he was breaking the law, he allegedly replied: “Well, I knew I wasn’t supposed to do it, let’s put it that way.”

    But then, there’s this: “The U.S. Department of Justice has decided not to prosecute anyone else in connection with the scandal-plagued Metro Gang Strike Force, the multi-jurisdictional law enforcement unit that was abolished nearly two years ago.

    “We have closed our case, and it is our understanding that the Department of Justice is not going to prosecute anyone else,” said Special Agent Steve Warfield, media coordinator for the FBI’s Minneapolis office.

    Last year, the Justice Department prosecuted Minneapolis police officer Jason Andersen, a member of the Strike Force, on charges of violating a teenager’s civil rights by kicking the boy in the head in Crystal in 2008. A jury found Andersen not guilty.

    The FBI concluded its investigation last year and handed its reports over to the Justice Department, where the case had remained. Warfield said Justice officials recently told the FBI it was closing the case.

    In May 2009, Michael Campion, Minnesota’s commissioner of public safety, asked the FBI to investigate the Strike Force after a Legislative Auditor’s report uncovered a series of problems. Those included missing cash and cars seized in raids.

    The report said the Strike Force failed to develop internal controls that would ensure it properly safeguarded or accounted for seized cash and other property. Auditors found nearly $400,000 of seized cash in a property room safe, dating to 2000.

    Campion called the report “significant, serious and disturbing.”

    Hours after the report was issued and Strike Force activities temporarily suspended, members of the force were found shredding documents and carrying materials out of the Strike Force offices.

    While the FBI began one investigation, Campion authorized a second one by former federal prosecutor Andy Luger and retired FBI agent John Egelhof. It concluded that Strike Force members took home property seized in raids, and that minorities may have been unfairly targeted.

    Meanwhile, the Justice Department assumed control of the federal inquiry, removing it from the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis.

    After the FBI ended its inquiry in 2010, its findings were turned over to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, for possible state charges.

    Freeman announced last September that he would not file charges against the Strike Force, citing major obstacles to the investigation, including the unit’s substandard handling of records and evidence and the refusal of 29 of the former force officers and employees to talk to investigators.”

    Evidently this means that if you don’t keep records of your criminal activity and refuse to discuss it with investigators, you won’t be prosecuted. And, even though there will be no further prosecution, a settlement was reached: “MINNEAPOLIS – A $3 million settlement has been reached between the disbanded Metro Gang Strike Force and a number of Twin Cities residents.

    Attorney for the plaintiffs, Randy Hopper, said the settlement compensates the victims who had property unlawfully taken by the strike force and orders the retraining of police officers and the supervisors in dealing with minority populations.

    The victims will submit claims seeking compensation for violations including assault, property loss, false imprisonment and violations of civil rights. What remains of the $3 million after those claims are settled will be applied toward officer retraining.”

  3. Unbelievable! They arrest a woman for standing in her own yard, all the while in the 19th ward you often have to take the law into your hands to protect yourself (cause the cops aren’t there). I’ve been mugged there twice before, and the cops sure took their sweet time interrogating me for 2 hours, instead of doing anything about it. Next time it happened, I didn’t bother calling the cops.

    PS: Although, the girl in question is one of those hippie d-bags you will find at all the Socialist protests (I’ve met her), so I can see how one can easily get annoyed at her. But of course, that’s no justification for what was done. I hope this becomes a bigger issue…just not that the lefty d-bags of RIT turn it into a battle cry for their next thursday-night marxist meeting :p

  4. I’ve often thought it would be great if someone set up streaming video of “work” being performed on state highway projects. Just a camera inconspicuously documenting all that productivity.

  5. Hahaha, jb! A new use for technology! Maybe we could put cameras behind the sunglasses of the road supervisor, assuming he is present. Maybe all we would get is a shot of the ceiling above his office couch, and his drive home.

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  7. Now I have seen the tape; that is outrageous. Has anything come of this? Have the police made a statement? What came of her arrest? That’s one heroic cop, armed with a 38 mag probably, afraid of a young woman armed with a video camera.

  8. When I owned the newspaper, I was acutely aware of the laws regarding what photos my reporters and I could take and where I had to be when I took them. Basically, I could photograph anything I could see from a public street or some other public area, but I had to obtain permission if I needed to go onto private property. Fire policemen would try to keep me from taking photos of crash victims and accident scenes, but they really had no authority beyond what was needed to protect the safety of the public, including me. They could not single me out as a pressie and then let gawkers from the public to check out the accident scene, for example.

    If people want privacy, they should not hang out in public.

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