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LOWELL — Brendan Brown, a 21-year-old UMass Lowell junior majoring in criminal justice pulled out his cellphone and started videotaping police as they responded to a fight on University Avenue nine days ago.

In the early-morning hours of Saturday, Oct. 8, a university police officer noticed Brown and immediately asked Brown if he “was all set.” Brown said yes. The next officer who noticed him videotaping was not so easily satisfied.

After a brief exchange, Brown, who was standing back about 15 feet from police to ensure he didn’t interfere with their work, was given a startling command that was caught on tape.

“Shut that (expletive) thing off before I slap you.”

Brown, fearing the officer would act on his threat, complied.

“I couldn’t believe what he said to me,” Brown said. “If he was heated enough to say that, I felt like he probably would have done something.”

Brown pocketed his camera, walked back to his dorm and uploaded the video to YouTube.

“I thought it was something that people should see,” he said.

According to Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Boston who is suing Boston police and several officers over a similar incident several years ago, the order was a violation of Brown’s rights.

“Here’s a police officer who’s authorized to use force, and who has the ability to use force, telling someone, ‘Stop excercising your First Amendment rights or I’ll slap you,'” Wunsch said. “He doesn’t have to be arrested to have that rise to the level of interference with his rights.

“I think what the officer did was impermissible.”

Brown grew up in Lynn and said he has always appreciated police.

“I have no animosity toward police,” he said. “I’m from Lynn and I grew up around police activity. Most of the time, police are on your side. That’s why I was surprised by that comment.”

Exactly who issued the order is not clear from Brown’s video, but once the university became aware of the video, UML Police Chief Randy Brashears launched an immediate investigation.

The legality of recording police, especially recording audio, has been questioned around the nation as some officers seek to use wiretap statutes to arrest those who record their voices.

Such an arrest in Boston, on Oct. 1, 2007, brought the issue to a head in Massachusetts, where the legality of making such recordings is no longer in much doubt.

Rulings from both the Supreme Judicial Court and the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals have made it clear that as long as a recording device is in plain sight, such recordings are legal in all New England states.

Simon Glik was charged with violating the state’s wiretap law, which forbids secretly recording anyone’s voice, as well as disturbing the peace, and aiding the escape of a prisoner for recording Boston officers as they arrested a man on Boston Common.

All the charges were soon thrown out, and Glik sued the city of Boston and the arresting officers. Wunsch is among the attorneys representing him.

The Boston officers sought immunity from liability, but a strongly worded ruling from the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals handed down in August left little doubt about the legality of recording police in New England, or of the liability faced by any officer who makes such an arrest.

The court ruled that recording in plain sight is not only legal but is obviously legal, and denied the officers immunity since the court found that they should have known as much. Rulings from the First Circuit apply only to New England, which the court oversees.

“We conclude, based on the facts alleged, that Glik was exercising clearly established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause,” the court wrote.

Of the incident at UMass Lowell, Wunsch said: “In light of the Glik decision, this is appalling to me — to see an officer saying this to somebody in Massachusetts. The officer should have known better. The law is clearly established.”

Officials at UMass Lowell quickly arranged a meeting between Brown and Deputy Police Chief Ronald Dickerson.

“He was very nice and he was doing a full investigation,” Brown said.

The officer who threatened Brown came forward, voluntarily, according to both Brown and Chief Brashears.

Brown said he doesn’t have any specific hopes on how the officer is disciplined.

“I want whatever their procedure is for this type of behavior,” Brown said. “I don’t want him to lose his job or anything.”

Brashears did not identify the officer or say what, if any, discipline he will face.

“We will use this opportunity to not only retrain the officer, but the entire department concerning the law over taping police in public,” Brashears wrote in an email.

For Brown, that’s good enough. He’s already back to studying.

“I’m not pursuing it any further than I have,” he said.

To view the video, which contains explicit language, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXMeMwJd23w.