Carey Wedler

October 29, 2014

(TheAntiMedia) NEW YORK, NY- Jose LaSalle, a Bronx man and founder of the Copwatch Patrol Unit, is suing the NYPD after police assaulted him for filming. On September 28th, he was “patrolling” when he encountered three cops while recording on his Samsung 5.

When they approached him, one shining a light in his face, he approached them and asked for their badge numbers. He cited the NYPD patrol guide that allowed him to request such information, but police did not abide. When they asked him for ID and he asked why, again exercising his rights, LaSalle says they slammed him against a fence and injured his shoulder:

“So one grabs one arm and the other grabs the other arm…My face slams against the gate. I felt something snap in my shoulder.”

LaSalle says he didn’t resist, but rather, let them rough him up and confiscate his phone as they cuffed him. He was surprised that they attempted to intimidate him:

“I’m well-known so it’s amazing for them to go after me…”

But they did. And rather than recognizing his rights, the cops threatened him. According to paper work filed last week, they said,

“We got you motherf—–, now you’re going to jail for assaulting an officer.”

LaSalle added that they taunted him with, “You thought we weren’t going to get you.”

The police took him to a station on Ryer Avenue. When he told a sergeant that he had been assaulted and needed medical attention, he was ignored. Rather, he says he was taken to a back room and strip searched, then forced to sit in a holding cell for several hours.

He was not charged through the ordeal, but received tickets for “jay walking” and “possession of a scanner” when he was released. His phone was not returned to him.

LaSalle is suing the city for $500,000 after spending two days in the hospital with a sprained shoulder and additional scrapes and bruises. His experience is not isolated. Across the country, citizens are often assaulted and arrested for peacefully filming officers.

Should LaSalle win his case, it will add to the nearly half a billion dollars paid out to citizens of New York for police misconduct over the last five years.

Lasalle gestured to his camera as he told the New York Daily News that

“These are the eyes that don’t lie…We want these officers to know that if the system doesn’t hold them responsible, we will make sure that we blast them all over social media.”

While police violence still runs rampant, the addition of visual accountability — from body cameras to peaceful citizens filming — is making tangible change in the way police operate.

Where they were once eager to brutalize (and to be realistic, many still are), the “threat” of accountability and evidence is slowly but surely intimidating them peacefully — the exact opposite of how they intimidate those they are paid to “protect and serve.”

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