A man was confronted by a D.C. police officer after he began filming the restraint of a person by several police officers outside a public library, a matter that is now under review.
Andrew Heining, a mobile engagement producer at the Washington Post, filmed the restraint of a man by several Metropolitan Police Department officers outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on September 7 at 6:24 p.m.
Shortly after the video begins, an officer approaches Heining to ask if he knows the person being restrained.
“Are you a part of this, sir?” the officer, identified as C.C. Reynolds, asks Heining. “We’ve got an investigation going on over here. Do you want to be a part of it?”
After Heining replied, “No, sir,” Reynolds responded, “Then I suggest you pack up and go.” The officer also claimed Heining wasn’t standing on a public space.
The two went back-and-forth on whether Heining was allowed to film the incident.
“You are videotaping this crime scene, right? … That makes you part of it. And your little camera phone could be used as evidence, you understand?” Reynolds said.
Heining didn’t back down, and eventually the officer taped off most of the area around the man being restrained.
“I don’t know what happened before this, whether the man was indeed fighting, or whether the large police response was warranted, but in light of the recent events in Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island, N.Y., and elsewhere, I thought it prudent to stay and observe the arrest,” Heining wrote in the YouTube video’s description. “I know that I have a right to occupy a public place, and that recording the police isn’t cause for suspicion or accusation of wrongdoing.”
A 2012 general order [PDF] from MPD instructs officers to allow “members of the general public” to exercise their “First Amendment right to video record, photograph, and/or audio record MPD members while MPD members are conducting official business or while acting in an official capacity in any public space, unless such recordings interfere with police activity.”
As long as the photographing or recording takes place in a setting at which
the individual has a legal right to be present and does not interfere with a member’s safety, members shall not inform or instruct people that photographing or recording of police officers, police activity or individuals who are the subject of police action (such as a Terry stop or an arrest) is not allowed; requires a permit; or requires the member’s consent.
When asked if the officer was disciplined, MPD spokeswoman Gwen Crump said she “cannot comment on personnel matters.”
“This matter is under review,” she said.
Heining said he filed a PD-99 citizen complaint form on Sunday and spoke to the investigator in the case, Captain Brian Harris, on Tuesday. He is also seeking a public apology.
D.C. police plan to test body-mounted cameras beginning this October, a move that the officer in the video said he supports.
