citizen journalism

A Miami woman named Claudia Castillo said she was driving 35 mph when a Miami-Dade police officer sped past her at more than 80 mph on a four-lane street leading to an expressway Friday afternoon.
Castillo then started recording and followed him onto the Palmetto Expressway, attempted to catch up with him, admitting on video that she reached speeds of 80 mph just to try and keep up with the officer, who by then, was reaching speeds of 100 mph, she said.

The Arizona senator who was trying to pass a law that would have made it illegal to record police from within 20 feet withdrew his bill after a national backlash that anybody could have predicted.
Anybody except John Kavanagh, the retired cop turned republican legislator who failed to do his research before proposing such a preposterous law.

A Minneapolis police officer played the role of tough guy when he threatened to break a teenager’s leg on video during a March 2015 arrest.
On Tuesday, officer Rod Webber was fired after a  nine-month departmental investigation, according to Fox 9.
And only because 17-year-old Hamza Jeylani had the sense to record the encounter.

A Connecticut state trooper seized a man’s camera, telling him it was illegal to record, then made the mistake of allowing the camera to continue to record as he conjured up false charges against the man with another trooper.
“We gotta cover our ass,” Trooper First Class John Barone explained to the other trooper.

A Massachusetts man who was arrested on wiretapping charges for video recording a cop in front of his home yelling profanities into a phone was awarded a $72,500 settlement Monday.
George Thompson, a lifelong cook, said he is investing the money into a food truck named Bozo’s – in honor of the cop who arrested him – Fall River police officer Thomas Barboza.
Barboza, who received a one-day suspension for the profanities, is more than welcome to dine at Bozo’s after it opens this summer, Thompson said in an interview with Photography is Not a Crime Monday evening.

Melissa Click, the crazed communications professor from the University of Missouri who became a viral embarrassment to the university after assaulting a student photojournalist trying to video record a protest in November, was charged today with third-degree assault.
She faces up to 15 days in jail.
Now the question is, will the university continue to employ her?

Minnesota activist Andrew Henderson recently shined a light on a cop who was urging readers of a local newspaper to run over protesters in the comments section of an article about an upcoming Black Lives Matter rally that took place on Martin Luther King Day.
Using the moniker JM Roth, the cop explained to readers that all they had to do was say they were in fear for their lives and the courts would rule in their favor.

Less than a year into the job, a Delaware cop was arrested for making terrorist threats against a citizen, who was only trying to help another citizen file a complaint against police.
“I’m going to call my boys and have them come and lock you up,” Wilmington police officer Julian Michel told the victim, threatening to arrest him for disorderly conduct.
“I’m going to kill that motherfucker,” Michel threatened, pointing at the victim. “I’m going to shoot you.”

Over the summer we reported on a story out of Allentown Pennsylvania, involving James Ochse, who is better known as the Allentown singing man in an ultra viral video where he slammed to the ground by a cop.

So last week, a video of a frisky cop mistaking a man’s penis for a deadly weapon had gone viral on Imgur, a short video with no audio that generated laughs, comments and compliments, but revealed no background.
The bizarre footage showed a shirtless, shoeless man being heavily patted down – groin area and all – as his hands are behind his back.