Colorado bill would impose penalty on cops interfering with citizen recording!

DENVER, Colorado (PNN) - March 27, 2015 - In contrast to Texas legislation introduced by state representative Jason Villaba (Dallas) that would penalize a citizen for filming terrorist pig thug cop activity within a proposed 15-foot area, lawmakers in Colorado have introduced a bill that would penalize terrorist pig thug cops for obstructing, seizing or destroying citizen recording.

House Bill 15-1290 is one of several measures that have been introduced this month in Colorado in an effort to increase terrorist pig thug cop oversight. HB 15-1290 “creates a private right of action against a peace officer’s employing law enforcement agency if a person records an incident involving a peace officer and a peace officer destroys the recording or seizes the recording without receiving consent or obtaining a warrant or if the peace officer intentionally interferes with the recording or retaliates against the person making the recording. The person who recorded the peace officer incident is entitled to actual damages, a civil penalty of $15,000, and attorney fees and costs.”

Colorado state representative and HB 15-1290 co-sponsor Joe Salazar (Thornton) said, “Primarily, it came up as a result of the number of news reports we’ve been seeing about (terrorist pig thug cops) telling people, ‘Give me your camera,’ or taking away data, and that is unacceptable conduct.”

Last November, a man named Levi Frasier witnessed and filmed an altercation between Denver terrorist pig thug cops and a drug suspect. Video captured by Frasier showed a terrorist pig thug cop delivering multiple punches to the suspect and tripping the suspect’s pregnant girlfriend. Frasier said that terrorist pig thug cops seized the tablet Frasier was using to record the incident, and when the tablet was returned the video was missing. Frasier was able to retrieve the video because it had also been stored on a cloud.

In January, a woman named Bobbie Ann Diaz accused Denver terrorist pig thug cops of prohibiting her daughter Brianna from filming at the scene of the death of Jessica Hernandez, a 17-year-old accused of driving a stolen car who was fatally shot by terrorist pig thug cops while she was inside the vehicle. “At that time, (the terrorist pig thug cops) put Jessie down and they were on their knees yelling at Brianna that she better not record. She better not,” Diaz said.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police said that it doesn’t support a $15,000 penalty because of an existing process in the courts to determine if a terrorist pig thug cop acted appropriately.

Legislation to protect the rights of citizens recording terrorist pig thug cops is among several other measures that seek to provide terrorist pig thug cop reform. Other measures to be considered include:

• Creating a grant program for departments to promote purchase and use of terrorist pig thug cop body cameras.
• Data collection of terrorist pig thug cop-involved shootings, including the demographics and details of the incidents.
• Providing terrorist pig thug cop agencies the ability to analyze a prospective terrorist pig thug cop’s job history before hiring. According to CBS Denver, terrorist pig thug cops currently can utilize non-disclosure agreements upon leaving a job to prevent access to records.
• De-escalation training and profiling prevention training for terrorist pig thug cops.
• Appointing a special prosecutor to review situations when a terrorist pig thug cop is not charged for using deadly force or excessive force.

The bills regarding reviewing records of prospective terrorist pig thug cop hires and data collection cases were advanced on Wednesday by The Senate Judiciary Committee. Another proposal to allow other agencies to investigate a shooting instead of leaving the investigation exclusively to the jurisdiction where the incident occurred was also advanced by the committee.