
CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police - remx
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/arrested-filming-ceo-thinkpenguin-inc-arrested-filming-police-faces-year-prison
======
lohengramm
Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase
police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them
while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that
"standing his ground".

I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this
guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense.

Source: the YT channel himself posted
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnVXppkmzBKfTOwe-
KqAJQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnVXppkmzBKfTOwe-KqAJQ/videos)

~~~
ithought
And why shouldn't they? Police departments and city officials across the US
routinely lie, obsfucate and remove any sense of accountability for police
officers who commit crimes or make mistakes.

Look at the case of the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago. The lying and
stonewalling is a common occurrence. It's not just a few bad apples, it's a
bad system that promotes escalation and grants power without accountability.

It took the prosecuting attorney 15 months to charge the Chicago cop (Van
Dyke) with first degree murder. And this was long after the family resigned to
believe their son was at fault. It took a whistleblower to come forward to
start a long figh for the truth.

After the courts forced the police to release the videotape to the family,
whereas the City Council immediately votes to give the family $5 million with
the agreement to keep the tape private before they even filed a lawsuit. It
took someone else getting the video for it to become public and the cop to be
charged.

Being annoying or insulting to governmet employees isn't a crime.

~~~
kordless
> And why shouldn't they?

This is a leading question, which is to say it's not a question that can be
answered in a rational way. If one desires removal of choice in the
conversation, they may answer it irrationally.

> Look at the case of the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago.

The use of a separate case of an individual having choice removed, or
individuals in a group removing choice for an individual, applied to the
officers involved in this video (and conversation here) is illogical. Just
because someone of the group "law enforcement" acts irrationally one place
does not mean all will act that way everywhere else.

> Being annoying or insulting to government employees isn't a crime.

When Alex Jones presents his words as truths it is also not a crime. However,
while holding the separate goal of being "controversial" and "in your face",
the dissonance that is created by such actions is palatable, and akin to a
crime of logic or truth. If one attempts to disrupt the arrival of a truth in
a given situation, they seek to create additional work for the aggregate to
determine truth.

In this case, the officer wanted to know why someone was shining a flashlight
(changing colors no less) around in the general vicinity of the stop. The
reply was along the lines of "no concern of yours", when in fact it WAS a
concern of the officer. In essence, the individuals filming were actively
removing choice from the officer to be concerned, speaking for his actions (by
implying he was or was going to run plates) and in general acting in a way
that would _encourage_ the future event of confrontation. In other words, they
are acting in an irrational way to cause further irrationality to occur, when
none existed.

I've been kicking around a framework for detecting and describing these types
of logical "arguments" which are all verbally spoken or written. In the case
of comments on HackerNews, I regularly point out the dissonance in the
argument, and attempt to show how these arguments can spread if the
irrationality is intended to disrupt, as is done with leading questions that
blame using biased arguments.

~~~
athenot
Even if that behavior is questionable, there is at least merit in raising the
argument of parity. If it is unreasonable for this man to behave like that,
then why is it reasonable for men vested with the authority to enforce the law
for the peace of society?

If we can succeed in proving that this man's behavior is contradictory with
what we want for society, then it should follow that the same applies to the
police force.

~~~
kordless
Chris acted irrationally and had the right to do so. However, by his intent to
spread irrationality by removing the officer's choice, the officers were
eventually _baited into acting irrationally_ which then led to the arrest. If
they knew more about these types of removal of choice, and how they may spread
by their very presence, it may have had a different and more desirable outcome
for all involved.

Detecting trolls is important, in other words.

Stating it is reasonable that an individual has a right to choose
irrationality removes the leading portion of your question which itself is a
removal of choice by those who attempt to answer it. Applying rational
thinking to answering it reveals an important question to ask ourselves:

> Why is it reasonable for men vested with the authority to enforce the law
> for the peace of society?

I _think_ it is somewhat rational for individuals of a group to elect a sub-
group to make choice for the individuals. In the case of law, which is
_suppose_ to be a rational instantiation of future choice for the group, it is
the peacekeepers that are responsible for making choice of who is removing
choice from other individuals or the group, as a whole.

However, irrational laws and expectations do creep into the group from time to
time. Benjamin Franklin once spoke to this by stating, "Those who would give
up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither
Liberty nor Safety."

A corollary to this insight would be: "Those who would give up temporary
Rationality, to purchase a little temporary Liberty, deserve neither
Rationality nor Liberty."

Edit: Safety equated to Rationality.

------
JshWright
Here are the most recent videos in the playlist linked in that post. Parts one
and two of a 'confrontation' with Officer Hans Chapman.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw)

Basically, a couple of guys looking to provoke a reaction, and a cop who
interacts with them respectfully and is primarily concerned for everyone's
safety.

I wonder how similar the scenario described in the post was to the videos in
that playlist...

~~~
adam12
> Basically, a couple of guys looking to provoke a reaction, and a cop who
> interacts with them respectfully and is primarily concerned for everyone's
> safety.

yep

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y&t=45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y&t=45)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y&t=90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtsXYG9b9Y&t=90)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw&t=10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw&t=10)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw&t=73](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkefVqO9vw&t=73)

These guys are a couple of attention seeking jerks.

~~~
Pigo
I recall a detailed blog post of some guy who claim he was arrested for trying
to "help" while a cop was managing a scene outside a bar. I wish I could find
the link. Some people can't help but try to inject themselves into a commotion
(especially when they've had a few), and can't grasp that they just become
another variable for the police to worry about. This particular guy then got
belligerent when asked to simply leave and go about his business.

------
sambull
In my county they opened fire on someone filming the police recently. Turns
out having video evidence is the ONLY way a policeman can be wrong.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Source?

~~~
sambull
Guy videotaping from his garage.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/dad-im-shot-
man-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/dad-im-shot-man-with-
phone-camera-shot-by-police-on-his-own-property/)

~~~
swsieber
To be fair, it probably looked like a gun from a distance.

The police were in the neighborhood confronting somebody with a machine gun -
not smart to take an action _that looks like pointing a gun_ in a type of
situation where one side has decided they need _machine guns_.

It's not to excuse the behavior of the police..., but if you're pointing
something at the police from across the street, it's hard to see the profile
of said object...

~~~
bougiefever
I think it's fair, if you're going to use deadly force, to first find out with
a much, much greater degree of certainty, that there actually is a weapon, and
if so that they actually are in danger. Too many cowardly and scared police
shooting at shadows and noises.

"It's not to excuse the behavior of the police.."

And yes, your comment is excusing the behavior of the police. Just saying that
you didn't just excuse their behavior doesn't mean that you didn't just do
exactly that.

~~~
golergka
Taking time to raise level of certainty will, with high probability, give the
other guy time to shoot you.

This is one untypical case that makes the news, so you're thinking about
optimizing decision making for this case; all the cases where police actually
get shot don't.

~~~
bobwaycott
If soldiers can do it in combat zones, LEO can do it in our city streets.

------
musgrove
Filming police isn't against the law in the US, so that wasn't the charge as
the clickbait title states. If the guy wanted to be forthright he could have
listed the complaint(s) that are on his summons instead of making up a
different scenario. This guy's obviously looking for trouble; filiming police
for no good reason; getting himself arrested for no good reason; then going
online and being deceptive about it to get support for himself by stirring up
more trouble. It's no wonder he's such a frustrated person.

~~~
joekrill
He did. He says it was disorderly conduct, and that it will likely be changed
anyway. The whole point is that the disorderly conduct charge was "trumped up"
because he was filming them. I don't really see the title as click bait at
all. I'm not saying we're hearing the whole story here, either, but I think
it's a little extreme to call this click bait. And if it bothers you so much,
why didn't you explain the charges in your comment?

~~~
paulddraper
> it's a little extreme to call this click bait

Headline: CEO of ThinkPenguin is arrested for filming police

Reality: CEO of ThinkPenguin is arrested for disorderly conduct

It's like saying Al Capone was arrested for having too much money. I mean, I
guess. In a manner of speaking.

------
draugadrotten
This sounds very much like one side of the story.

"I was essentially arrested for filming a police checkpoint in Manchester, New
Hampshire"

I don't want to defend the police, but that sounds like there is a lot of
information missing here. Why was he filming the police? What did other people
do at/to/near the checkpoint? Was he alone or part of a group or even a mob?

~~~
sgift
> Why was he filming the police?

Why would this be relevant?

> What did other people do at/to/near the checkpoint?

Same as above: Why would this be relevant?

> Was he alone or part of a group or even a mob?

Could be relevant.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> Why would this be relevant?

Read other posts here about this person being a "cop chaser".

~~~
vertex-four
His reasons for filming the police are still irrelevant. His methods of doing
so are relevant.

------
dewitt
Seems incredibly ill-advised to be publicly discussing what is sure to result
in legal action. Even as one-sided as this is, the best he can do is
incriminate himself. The other side will wait until due process requires them
to disclose their case. At best he's trying to rally opinion (why?), at worst
he's just seeking attention, and either way he's just making things worse on
himself.

As a CEO he just associated his company with poor decision making.

If this guy has a lawyer, he should consider listening to them.

But IANAL, so who knows.

~~~
ajross
Or maybe he thinks the issue is important and the imperative to discuss it
outweighs personal legal risk and association of his company with "poor"
decision making. (Given the content at ThinkPenguin's site, I'm not sure that
the target market agrees with you about "poor", btw).

I don't know anything about this issue, to be clear. But the fact that you
personally don't like to see stories about police misconduct doesn't seem like
a very good reason for finger-wagging at those who experience it.

~~~
dewitt
Good point about ThinkPenguin's target demographic. I think you're right—I
presumed too much about his business without looking first.

(Sorry I upset you, btw.)

------
pnathan
Interesting how the prevailing mood on HN is very much pro-cop. Kind of
surprising for a hacker forum.

You don't really see what a system is made of until you stress it: filming
police is one way to stress the LEO system. It's an unfortunate reality that
it often does not produce good results.

~~~
codezero
I think this is generally because of the audience here – I know there's a
solid international contingency, but the US one is likely biased by privilege
and hasn't experienced police corruption/harassment first hand like lots of
less privileged people have, so they assume bad cops are an outlier and not
part of an institution which props them up.

I was definitely one of those people until recently, and it unfortunately took
an incident I was directly involved in to change my mind, now when I hear
someone else's story about police harassment/abuse, I put the burden on the
police to explain why it was justified, not on the victim as to why it wasn't.
It took a long time for me to have this POV, I expect it will take others who
haven't had first-hand experience with bad law enforcement a long time too :/

~~~
JshWright
Have you watched the linked videos?

I have gone on at length about the issues with our militarized police agencies
in other threads. We have turned cops into soldiers, and soldiers need an
enemy, which fosters an 'us vs them' attitude. It is a major issue (one of
several) that certainly needs to be addressed.

These 'CopChaser' folks are only looking to antagonize. Rather than improving
the situation, they are feeding in to the "us vs them" mindset (despite that,
in most of their interactions, they are the ones who come away looking like
jerks (while patting themselves on the back the whole time)).

~~~
codezero
Yep, I agree, going out of one's way to antagonize the police is not helping
with making police more transparent or accountable.

I was really just responding to the parent realizing the generally pro-LE
attitude, which I do think extends beyond this thread, for the reasons I
stated, in part.

I didn't mean it as a way of excusing the OP of the videos.

At the same time, if the OP didn't do anything illegal, they shouldn't have
been arrested, even if it's "annoying." If this kind of thing interferes with
the police, there should be some legal precedent set before you get thrown in
jail for it (maybe there is, if so, hooray!)

edit: the shade of your text is getting lighter, to be clear – I upvoted your
comment, it was completely reasonable.

------
hownottowrite
He's part of "New England Cop Chasers." Their YouTube channel is here:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnVXppkmzBKfTOwe-
KqAJQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnVXppkmzBKfTOwe-KqAJQ/videos)

------
traviswingo
Snapshot since site is overloaded:
[http://archive.is/g0Kes](http://archive.is/g0Kes)

------
rdiddly
So has anybody written an app for streaming video directly into cloud storage?

~~~
coldpie
The ACLU maintains a list of such applications:

[https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-apps-record-police-
conduct](https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-apps-record-police-conduct)

~~~
pklausler
I have my state's version of the "Mobile Justice" app, but I worry that it
doesn't really stream into the cloud in real time, so a badged thug could
erase the evidence by destroying the phone before it got a chance to upload
after the recording was complete. We'll need a true streaming upload app once
the pigs figure this out.

~~~
rdiddly
Nagging question - why would this need to be state-specific?

------
crispyambulance
I've seen this stuff before. Police doing their job on the street trying to
keep order in potentially volatile situations and some fool with a camera
insinuating himself into the mess who wants to start an ad-hoc high-school
forensics debate about police power. Bad idea.

~~~
scott_karana
If the "fool" is obviously in the wrong, it's in the officers' best interests
_not_ to escalate the situation, or let their egos get involved, and
subsequently shoot themselves in the foot.

Much better to deal with it as calmly and professionally as possible. The
worst thing you can do around a heckler is react. ;)

~~~
JshWright
Go watch the first couple videos in the YouTube playlist in this blog post.

The cop is calm and professional, despite the antagonizing behavior of the
"CopChasers".

------
Justin_K
You can almost tell by the attempt to write "legalese" that this guy was
looking for trouble. Every other sentence is "clearly this", "clearly that"...
no, it's really not so clear.

------
dustingetz
> I was _essentially_ arrested for filming a police checkpoint ... (my video
> was seized, _but experienced correspondents bring back up, as I did_ , we
> had several people apart from the nearly 20 activists protesting the
> checkpoint with video cameras)

Emphasis mine. What happened _exactly_? There's more context gone unmentioned
and he knows it. All one-sided stories sound open-and-shut.

------
JustSomeNobody
> You can legally get as close as a foot to an officer provided there is no
> interference. So for instance one can get a few feet from a scene as a
> member of the press where an officer is ticketing somebody for an offence.

Does the person being ticketed have no rights in this situation? I think I'd
be pretty upset at the reporter if they got all up in my business like this.

~~~
throwaway76543
In a public space, no. You have no right to restrict others from observing or
recording.

It is not "your" business, according to the law. It's an event occurring in
public and is everybody's business.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I guess it begs the question, is this a decent thing to do to someone?

I don't think so. Let people sort their business out themselves.

~~~
throwaway76543
Whether or not it's decent isn't at issue. The issue is the arrest.

There's quite a bit of indecent, perfectly legal activity which will often
result in illegal abuse of authority. For example: Standing on a street corner
yelling "cops are pigs, fuck the police" is both somewhat indecent and
entirely legal and well protected by the first amendment.

Engage in such behavior and there are good odds you will become the subject of
an illegal abuse of power.

------
beedogs
Ah, the old "contempt of cop" charge. If taxpayers knew or cared how much
money is wasted by police acting macho and lording it over citizens even to
the extent of violating the law to do so, there might be some actual change in
this area.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
No they wouldn't. They see headlines occasionally about the cost overruns of
the military (F35!) contracts and they don't do anything.

------
throwaway999b
There are very few details in this forum post, just some nonspecific mentions
of an individual recording a police checkpoint of some kind. What type of
checkpoint? Why did this person feel it necessary to record the police? Why
did a confrontation start? What were the circumstances of the escalation?

In general, if you interfere with the police (even if you disagree with
whatever it is they're doing) you can expect some trouble. I will be the first
to acknowledge that sometimes the police (especially small town cops) can get
a little too full of their own authority and take it too far.

On the other hand, their job is to keep the community safe, and save for the
very worst cops (which are in the minority), they take the job seriously.
There is (and should be) a pretty high bar to harassing or interfering with
the police.

~~~
adamnemecek
> save for the very worst cops (which are in the minority)

This is debatable at best.

~~~
throwaway999b
Try talking to some. You'll be surprised that most are actually pretty good
people trying to make a difference in a very difficult job. They see nothing
but the worst of humanity day in and day out.

~~~
jdietrich
There are no good people, only good systems. The German people didn't turn
into monsters in 1938 and become decent people at the end of 1945, they were
just participants in a broken system. The Rwandans didn't suddenly become the
worst people in the world for a few months in 1994. Perfectly decent people
are capable of utterly abhorrent things if their environment is sufficiently
toxic.

US police officers aren't bad people, they're just poorly trained and held to
very low standards of accountability. They do bad things because they're
operating in a system that incentivises them to do bad things.

~~~
adamnemecek
> "There are no good people, only good systems."

Nice quote. Can you recommend some reading on this topic?

~~~
jdietrich
_The Lucifer Effect_ by Philip Zimbardo is a satisfactory primer.

[https://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Effect-Understanding-Good-
Peo...](https://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Effect-Understanding-Good-
People/dp/0812974441/)

------
snikeris
I just bought a wireless card from ThinkPenguin a couple weeks ago. Very
pleased with the transaction.

------
charliebk
There are innocent people losing their lives in confrontations with cops
(including the good cops who get killed just doing their job) and this guy is
creating drama and looking for more attention from it. Just look at how long
his posts are and at how he is begging for attention from everyone (the media,
the tech community, etc). His altercation with the law (a misdemeanor at the
most) doesn't warrant all of this extra drama he's creating. And what the hell
does he want strangers to do about it (stop their busy lives, filled with real
problems, to fight his battles and stroke his balls so he can feel validated
about this self-inflicted wound?). The term "get a life" was creates
specifically for these moments and types of people.

