June of 2017 has been one eventful month for Daniel Saulman aka “Tom Zebra” known for his web page “Mistaken Bacon” he was arrested by the LAPD while documenting a DUI/DWI checkpoint disguised as a “Traffic Safety Checkpoint” for the charge of being in the LAPD’s “workspace”. After our coverage Mr. Saulman was fortunate to receive help from the ACLU, they were instrumental in bringing this matter to a quick and abrupt end or so the LAPD believes.
Mr. Saulman was also able to have an outstanding legal matter centered around his operating a Quadcopter camera platform in a park cleared, the LAPD then claimed to be a violation of a Los Angeles City ordinance regarding taking off and land remote controlled aircraft. Mr. Saulman’s attorney’s less than adequate representation resulted in a ridiculous ruling and the permanent seizure of his property. Which Mr. Saulman arrest included 5 days in the Los Angeles County Jail and a added penalty of community service hours.
As a result, Mr. Sulman was not only out of the money for the cost of the DJI Phantom, he lost money on videos and images he could not capture and then upload to YouTube or sell to media outlets. Through the ACLU’s efforts, Mr. Saulman’ s charges were negated and the presiding Judge also ordered the return of all his seized property and any outstanding community service hours.
While attempting to recover his property from the LAPD’s 77th street station, Mr. Saulman and his colleague Catman of the Onus News Service,
(L-R) Ricky Munday, Catman, TMFZ
documented the exterior and approached the front entrance where they were greeted by Lt Magee who identified herself as the person in charge of the station and she invited both Daniel and Catman into the station. From their reactions, both Daniel and Catman were kinda surprised, to say the least.
Well, that quickly changed once the pair approached the evidence room where the encounter turned into a threat and false claim fest. Lt Magee made all sorts of claims that people’s seized property had rights.
That’s right the person in charge of the City of Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street station not only claimed that inanimate objects have privacy rights, she then threatened the pair with arrest for violating the property’s privacy rights for videoing the property. Daniel and Catman walked out of the 77th Street Station free men that day, but they have a strange but true LAPD story to share that does not result in someone’s arrest.
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