citizen journalism

It was a beautiful day in Freehold, New Jersey, so Jen Coombs decided to do First Amendment audits at the Monmouth County jail and courthouse to see how well officials there would respect her right to record in public.
The New Jersey woman who runs a Facebook page called Time to Stand – New Jersey ended up forced into a mental facility against her will for four days. Not that it kept her from doing another First Amendment audit on the same courthouse upon her release.

The Amherst Police Department in Massachusetts has refused to comply with a public records request from PINAC that asked for the internal affairs records for two police officers who were named in a civil rights lawsuit this month.

Joe Biden came to town and the Constitution ended when a North Carolina cop told a PINAC reporter he was not allowed to access his car, which was parked in a public garage, even though the cop claimed it was “private.”
“If you do not leave, you will go to jail,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Andrew Isaacs told PINAC reporter Joshua Brown last week as he was on assignment covering a Joe Biden speech at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.

New York cops were beating a man in the street when they realized they were being watched, so they first went after a woman who was standing on a sidewalk just outside her property, pouncing on her inside the property after one officer accused her of standing on his sidewalk.
Then, after spending almost a minute arresting that woman, Rochester police realized a man was video recording them, so they went after him too.
Clarence Thompson’s phone continues to record for more than two minutes after the cop snatches it from his hands and places it on a car.

Texas cops called a helicopter on PINAC correspondent Phillip Turner for recording the Texas Department of Public Safety building from a public sidewalk, later accusing him of having scouts spying on them in the bushes and possibly planting explosives.
“It’s not cheap to fly these helicopters. It’s amazing they responded this way,” said Turner.
Video footage from the air, obtained by Turner through a public records request, shows a helicopter circling him as he recorded footage of the building from a public sidewalk.

PINAC reporter Jeff Gray was enjoying some traveling with his family in central Georgia when he decided to slip away to conduct a seatbelt audit on the Warner Robins Police Department, which is where he stands on public property outside the department to record officers as they drive away to see if they are wearing seat belts.
After all, not only does state law require all drivers to wear seat belts, most law enforcement agencies, including this one, have departmental policies also requiring the use of seat belts.

A California security guard who pulled a gun on an Apple engineer for running over a traffic cone as he was trying to exit a shopping mall parking lot is facing a civil lawsuit seeking damages in part because the mall guard wasn’t even licensed to be carrying a gun.
Nicholas Buchanan, 27, an Apple engineer who resides in San Jose, is seeking damages for inflicting emotional distress, assault, false imprisonment negligence and violation of the “Bane Act,”which alleges a cop violated someone’s constitutional rights by threats or intimidation.

Co-written with Maya Shaffer

For the first time in more than a year, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office has been prompted to take action against government officials who have violated the state’s public records law.
That’s good news, but it’s also the latest reminder that Massachusetts state officials treat transparency as a joke.

A video recently uploaded to Facebook shows Texas deputies responding to a call about males fighting in the parking lot of a Whataburger burger joint and then arresting a pair of female teenagers inside who had nothing to do with the fight.
Bexar County sheriff’s deputies arrested one girl as she was sitting down to a meal of chicken strips and fries, throwing her food on the floor.
They then arrested her friend after she walked up and placed a hat on her handcuffed friend’s head.

A Texas cop illegally detained and handcuffed a PINAC correspondent for video recording before secretly scanning his fingerprints on a portable device without his consent while his hands were cuffed behind his back.
Now the Harris County Constable’s Office is refusing to provide PINAC details on this mysterious device that was used to scan David Warden’s fingerprints without his permission.
The incident took place on August 17 as Warden was conducting a First Amendment audit from a public sidewalk outside a chemical plant in Houston.