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Don't Let Law Enforcement Bully You - NYS Incident

LuvMyTJ

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Live! From New York!
This is a neighboring county local to me and I am shocked and appalled at the treatment given to law abiding US citizens by the Wayne County & NY State Troopers. The town of Lyons had given up it's local police force a few years ago. This is a typical tactic of lying to the person to get what they want illegal or not. This county has a reputation for things like this happening. It is rural.

[*these are not my videos, I only reposted them]


 
To be honest, you're not supposed to fly drones over peoples property unless you have their permission.

What if there was a kid paddling in the pool naked?
What if someone was sunbathing naked?
What if you have a battery, prop, esc, failure and it comes crashing down?

Are all of those realities less important than your need to fly how you did?
 
It is not my video. I just reposted it. I am also pro-police and give them my utmost respect when they follow the laws themselves like the majority do.
Like you said, we don't know, maybe they were outside the property lines? The point of it all is the police had no clue to drone laws and in this case choose to placate the farmers by trampling the rights of the people in the car. 911 should of simple told the complainants that there were no laws being broken and to have a nice day. Am I wrong? Can you show me a law or regulation that you can't fly over property you don't own (aside from stadiums, prisons, power plants, etc.)? Educate me if I am wrong, I have an open mind and would like to further my knowledge.
 
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Here is a response from a member of one of our forums. He is a retired LEO so I think he has a objective viewpoint...

"As a retired detective with over 30 years experience I made these observations:

Clearly Marshall Farms security called the police because they saw a drone observing their property. (Perfectly legal but they didn't like it).

The police have done this for Marshall Farms before.

The state trooper only wanted to identify the occupants of the van. The occupants committed no crimes and the trooper did not have probable cause to arrest anybody. He could argue that he had reasonable suspicion that the drone flight was suspicious given the current state of terrorist activity nowadays. But it was obvious to me he knew the drone was observing Marshall Farms, not planning a terrorist act.

Given those facts, the officer can ask for ID. If the people refuse, he can legally do nothing. He can detain for a reasonable length of time to determine if a crime had been committed. (In Arizona, that time has been determined to be 20 minutes buy the Supreme Court).

If he can't determine a crime was committed he must release the people. They were stopped for suspicious activity, not a traffic violation, therefore the driver is not required to produce a drivers license.

Clearly, these people were arrested for "contempt of cop". Meaning the officer arrested them only because they didn't comply with his illegal demands.

This is the most blatant and unprofessional case of police misconduct and false arrest I have ever seen. To do this while being recorded defies any sensibility. I gave up counting how many times the trooper lied when claiming the people would be committing a crime if they did not identify themselves.

They did nothing wrong and that us why they were released without being charged with anything.

Personally, I see this as a textbook case of false arrest (civil) and violation of civil rights (a federal crime)." - Maddog
 
Can't articulate suspicion of a crime but the Meatball wants I.d.
How can a citizen show respect for an officer of the law when the Officer doesn't respect the law?
Disgrace to the uniform! A lawless Gang

To be honest, you're not supposed to fly drones over peoples property unless you have their permission.
84feet is all you have to be.
 
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It is not my video. I just reposted it. I am also pro-police and give them my utmost respect when they follow the laws themselves like the majority do.
Like you said, we don't know, maybe they were outside the property lines? The point of it all is the police had no clue to drone laws and in this case choose to placate the farmers by trampling the rights of the people in the car. 911 should of simple told the complainants that there were no laws being broken and to have a nice day. Am I wrong? Can you show me a law or regulation that you can't fly over property you don't own (aside from stadiums, prisons, power plants, etc.)? Educate me if I am wrong, I have an open mind and would like to further my knowledge.
when the was pulled over (1st video @ 1.40)he asked why police said they had call due to him flying OVER someones property.he then said is that legal? the answer to which is no.

did not watch anymore.
 
Here is a response from a member of one of our forums. He is a retired LEO so I think he has a objective viewpoint...

"As a retired detective with over 30 years experience I made these observations:

Clearly Marshall Farms security called the police because they saw a drone observing their property. (Perfectly legal but they didn't like it).

The police have done this for Marshall Farms before.

The state trooper only wanted to identify the occupants of the van. The occupants committed no crimes and the trooper did not have probable cause to arrest anybody. He could argue that he had reasonable suspicion that the drone flight was suspicious given the current state of terrorist activity nowadays. But it was obvious to me he knew the drone was observing Marshall Farms, not planning a terrorist act.

Given those facts, the officer can ask for ID. If the people refuse, he can legally do nothing. He can detain for a reasonable length of time to determine if a crime had been committed. (In Arizona, that time has been determined to be 20 minutes buy the Supreme Court).

If he can't determine a crime was committed he must release the people. They were stopped for suspicious activity, not a traffic violation, therefore the driver is not required to produce a drivers license.

Clearly, these people were arrested for "contempt of cop". Meaning the officer arrested them only because they didn't comply with his illegal demands.

This is the most blatant and unprofessional case of police misconduct and false arrest I have ever seen. To do this while being recorded defies any sensibility. I gave up counting how many times the trooper lied when claiming the people would be committing a crime if they did not identify themselves.

They did nothing wrong and that us why they were released without being charged with anything.

Personally, I see this as a textbook case of false arrest (civil) and violation of civil rights (a federal crime)." - Maddog
Just my 2 cents:

As a retired cop (32 years) and chief of police twice; I concur with my peer's assessment above. Some police officers are ignorant of the limits of their authority, but out on the streets is the wrong battleground to test that theory. (Don't know NY law but in Arizona if you are operating a vehicle you must provide your driver license to a police officer.) I thought this was a drone issue but it sounds like these guys were some sort of animal rights activists. I wouldn't care for their combative attitude if I were the cops. A 15 minute stop took over an hour because they acted like dicks. And they should sue the state and the county for false arrest (which I think was their ultimate goal).

Having said that, as a Criminal Justice professor, I advice my students (this question comes up a lot) to always cooperate with the cops and file a complaint later. Pushing the cops into an arrest (even if illegal) is not fun and you may get hurt. Even as a retired cop I don't challenge, and never would, a cop's authority because I'm too old to spend a night in jail. It's more fun to drag the cop through an internal investigation and embarrassing the agency by going to the media.

I am a commercial drone operator and follow the rules. When I interact with cops I am polite and respectful (they put up with enough crap every day and I don't need to add to it). My advice to my fellow commercial drone operators is to be polite and respectful when the fuzz shows up, show them your paperwork) and they will leave you alone so you can get back to work. I carry a red folder with tabulated color copies of:

Driver's license (because any cop worth of the title is going to run a wants & warrants check on you)
FAA license
FAA registration for each drone
Certificate of insurance
Business license for the particular city or town
Written authorization from the property owner

The folder gives the cop something to read while I bring the drone back and land it. And demonstrates I am a professional UAV/UAS operator, not some dips--t with a drone.

Or I could act like a **** and cry about my rights in the back seat of the squad car on the way to the station. Common sense. Cops have a saying "you can beat the charge but you can't beat the ride" or if you like this one better, " you got nothing on me! I got handcuffs on you!"red folder.jpg
 
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IMHO with this video you have a very strong case to sue both the State of NY and the county of Wayne for several breaches. One question that did arise, did you note them sharing or giving your identification to the security team from the dog place. If so, then you have yet another case for them identity theft. In the medical community, there are huge laws known as HIPPA to protect patients from information leaks. Even the FTC now has a site to find out what do to do if this does happen to you.

See; What To Do After a Data Breach | Consumer Information
 
UPDATE: saw this today...


From: troopers.sm.h.internal.affairs [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 11:20 AM Subject: RE: Disgraceful Good Morning,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the YouTube video published January 8, 2016. We have received numerous e-mails regarding the video and are looking into the matter to ensure that our Trooper handled the matter professionally and appropriately.

New York State Police Professional Standards Bureau
1220 Washington Avenue Albany, New York
 
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UPDATE: saw this today...


From: troopers.sm.h.internal.affairs [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 11:20 AM Subject: RE: Disgraceful Good Morning,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the YouTube video published January 8, 2016. We have received numerous e-mails regarding the video and are looking into the matter to ensure that our Trooper handled the matter professionally and appropriately.

New York State Police Professional Standards Bureau
1220 Washington Avenue Albany, New York
Good. Perhaps the Wayne County Sheriff Department will follow their example...
 
First of all my hat off to you for protecting does innocent animal being hurt by animal test. That's what should be illegal. Not flying your drone. So what's there a apology or anything. From them?


Sent from my iPad using InspirePilots
 
I applaud the creator of the videos efforts and I definitely agree the police overstepped. However, I struggle with these types of videos because they are usually intentionally antagonistic in an effort to goad the police into illegal actions.

I don't think this video goes that far and when the videos do, I still don't think the police should fall for it. HOWEVER, if they HAD produced their identity, they would not have been arrested and the issue would NOT have escalated. If it did, then they'd only be in the same position they are now, but with an even stronger case.

For sake of argument, let's just say that they WERE up to no good and had a bomb strapped to the drone and the police DIDN'T follow and try to ID the people and something bad happened later on. The Police would've been chastised later saying they had the culprits but let them go...

Police are really in a no win situation these days.

I know this looks to be a very small town, and I doubt the Police were thinking this was terrorism... BUT it's happened MANY times were activists do drastic things to people/companies that participate in animal cruelty.

After saying ALL that, in my opinion, the BEST scenario would have been for the Office to simply take the license number along with as much detail and description of the people and note it in there system and let the people be on their way. Are police allowed to take pictures of people?

One of my very first shoots I was taking video of an empty lot next to a large high school during a football game (client wanted to show how bright the lights were and how loud it gets to rezone the property as commercial). My plan was to fly only over the empty lot pointing toward the school. and I was waiting for the local news helicopter to fly out of the area to make sure I didn't have any potential issues.

Before I even took off, I heard another chopper coming, thinking it was another news channel heli. All of a sudden I hear this really LOUD chopper come buzzing over my head and started circling me (and my business partner) at about 70 ft. Turning so hard you could hear the blades struggling to keep the chopper flying. I looked up and saw it was the police chopper and a sniper sitting in the back with his rifle ready, but not pointed at me@!!

My partners said 'what do we do now'? I said, just wait a couple minutes for the cruiser to show up and we'll just show them my 333 and we'll continue with our shoot.

2 minutes later, a bunch of neighbors came out of their houses to see what was going on as the Police chopper circled over head. A police cruiser sped up and 2 officers got out.

As they walked up to me, one of them saw my drone and started to chuckle. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both sort of shook our heads. I said 'hello officer...' and I explained the situation. I offered up my ID and my FAA license. He made a call into HQ and about 4 minutes later he was taking pictures of my drone, chuckling and asking me how much something like that costs, it looks cool, etc.....

2 more minutes later, they said have a nice day and were on their way and I was airborne taking my shots...
 
Wow didn't realize it's that many around. My bad for quoting I should have checked myself.
Tompkins, Syracuse, Elmira, Bing is my main Airports when I'm Upstate. I should have realized it's probably a ton of private airports in the area.
Thanks for clarification
 
When I studied for my part 107 and passed it, one of the test's questions is who you are required to show you FAA license to, The correct answer is local law enforcement. I assume this is correct, but would be interested in what FAA qualified drone pilots here have to say about this? I guess they did not ask for the FAA license but this seems a small point. They wanted to know your identity and they should have asked for your FAA license...right?
 
When I studied for my part 107 and passed it, one of the test's questions is who you are required to show you FAA license to, The correct answer is local law enforcement. I assume this is correct, but would be interested in what FAA qualified drone pilots here have to say about this? I guess they did not ask for the FAA license but this seems a small point. They wanted to know your identity and they should have asked for your FAA license...right?

Well, FAA licenses don't have photos. Cops want to see a driver's license.
 

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