
New Jersey police are pressing felony charges for retweeting an officer’s photo - chermanowicz
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355999/twitter-cyber-harassment-felony-charges-police-protests-retweet
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blntechie
The most WTF part for me is the summons and the court case identifies the
police officer and he would likely to get more visibility and negative
coverage than the original tweet which was retweeted by grand total of 4
people. Streisand effect anyone?

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thephyber
Your statement makes sense, but only if the officer actually feared for his
life by being identified.

What if the purpose of the charges is retribution, not to protect the officer
and his family?

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casefields
Officer photo here: [http://archive.vn/qySKX](http://archive.vn/qySKX)

~~~
loceng
So I assume that protestors wanted him identified because 1) he was abusive,
and 2) he didn't have any fully visible identifying badge number - which if
there was then arguably these citizen journalists could simply make a police
report via official route instead of depending on public crowdsourcing?

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djaque
Sometimes it feels like the culture of American policing and criminal justice
is so broken that we just need to start over from scratch.

~~~
redis_mlc
Here's an explanation for non-US readers, or US readers who don't understand
how police are integrated into the judicial system.

The defunding movement hasn't been well-explained in the press, but the actual
core reality is that police unions need to be removed, and to remove the
police unions, you have to start over with new police forces.

There's 4 problems that need to be solved first though:

1) After you start over, how do you prevent a new union forming?

2) In the USA, District Attorneys (DA's), etc. are elected. To get elected,
police union support at election time is needed/helpful.

3) How do you move existing court cases ahead after you fire the arresting
officers?

4) Even though police officers often have misconduct, the DA needs their
testimony to be believable for cases. So the misconduct is generally
suppressed from public view.

As you can see, the dependency of DA's on police officers alone makes this
issue very difficult to solve, and when combined with unlimited legal aid from
police unions is insurmountable.

Canada, which operates quite differently than the US (DA's are appointed),
also has a problem with police unions stonewalling investigations. The
officers involved just remain silent and lawyer up, the same as the US.

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jdhbbbhb
Clown world

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RandomBacon
That person needs to learn not to speak without a lawyer:

“The purpose of this tweet was to find out the officer’s information, to hold
him accountable.”

That can be construed as vigilantism.

~~~
Animats
Holding police accountable is not vigilantism.

The right to photograph cops at work in the US is well established. Cops don't
like that, but they lose in court on that.[1]

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-
rights/#i-w...](https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-
rights/#i-want-to-take-pictures-or-shoot-video-at-a-protest)

~~~
dkdk8283
Proving your right in court can cost you everything.

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thephyber
Ah yes, the "guilty until proven innocent" framework. I don't know about New
Jersey, but the rest of the USA doesn't do it that way for criminal law.

That said, I completely agree that defending yourself against a criminal
charge in the USA is far too expensive.

~~~
rmrfstar
> I don't know about New Jersey, but the rest of the USA doesn't do it that
> way for criminal law.

Do you not read the newspaper? People plea out to drug possession when there
is video evidence of police planting it, because they can't afford bail and
will lose their job and home if they spend 3 months in jail fighting the
charge.

~~~
thephyber
I agree with you that there's a huge gap between the intended legal system and
the actual legal system, but even those officers who plant evidence will give
at least lip service to the "innocent until proven guilty" framework.

~~~
dkdk8283
Do you have experience in the US court as a defendant? Tort or criminal

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legostormtroopr
Doxxing is bad, and that’s exactly what this person was trying to do. Just
because it wasn’t successful, doesn’t mean it wasn’t harassment.

Additionally, that article makes it very unclear what, if anything, the
officer did to warrant being identified. He performed his duties, while
wearing a face mask (which everyone is encouraged to do now) which had a
pattern some people don’t like.

~~~
op00to
Can you explain why asking to identify a police officer performing official
duties should be illegal?

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legostormtroopr
"If anyone knows who this bitch is throw his info under this tweet" \- this is
not trying to identify an officer. This was a tweet that was designed to
inflame people.

They could have taken the picture to their local police station and made a
complaint. They could have sent it to a newspaper. They could have tweeted
"This officer is unidentified at a rally." They didn't.

