AnilD
Posts: 671 +924
Charging someone based on the value of the expensive thing they thought they were destroying, rather than the cheap plastic decoy they actually destroyed, seems like a legal theory designed to keep appellate courts busy.
Florida police used a fake Flock camera in a sting, then charged a man with three felonies for destroying it
- Thread starter Daniel Sims
- Start date
You poor old Yanks have my utmost sympathy....A once-proud superpower, slowly turning into a complete bag of ****. Not unlike my own once-proud country -England.
I do not view hardly any police as Americans anymore. Long gone are the days of Andy Griffon, now we have an oppressive, capricious military police who violate our rights of privacy, lie to us, and manufacture crimes. We are really more Soviet than the Soviet Union at this point, while being taxed for at least a third of your income, really up to half with all taxes considered. If someone was following you around with a camera, you would be upset and probably punch him in the face, yet if it is the state, it becomes a crime. There are rules for us, and rules for them, and you can see it most visibly with stories like this and things like qualified immunity. There are good people who are cops, but they are now generally like a foreign army with no identity to the nation that they lord over. If we the people have no control over what our government does, no control over such vital things like this, not to mention abusive and arbitrary speed limits, this is not a democracy, but a dictatorship of fickle, faithless and fraudulent representatives and other government posts who are elected by people with no knowledge of what they authorize, no vote of it, just a blatant in your face 'this is the law now and you have no say whatsoever'.
Fimbulvetr
Posts: 94 +119
And the only way we get to fight it is to vote for the corrupt left or the corrupt right. Two sides of the same coin.
tschmidt69
Posts: 9 +3
Actually, it was not taxpayer funded/government in the case of the printed 3D camera, it was destruction of personal property.
Plutoisaplanet
Posts: 1,988 +2,675
The original camera was taxpayer funded. It was replaced with a fake camera donated to the government. That made it government owned. We know this because:
1. Most people with 3D printers make stuff with them to give them away (ceding ownership).
2. The police department monitored the fake camera after it was installed to the previously destroyed camera’s post. That’s how they were able to arrest the vandal. It was not some guy acting on his own with his personal property.
disinfect8280
Posts: 120 +51
I pray someone understands jury nullification if it comes down to it.
Plutoisaplanet
Posts: 1,988 +2,675
If someone was killing off different members of a hated family in their sleep, and the police got involved by putting a body pillow in the bed of one of the living family members they thought would be targeted, that person would be charged with attempted murder once caught shooting the body pillow because they intended to kill a person. They wouldn’t get a pass because they only harmed a body pillow. It also wouldn’t be a manufactured crime; it would be saving a person’s life.
All the police did was save taxpayer money by re-installing a decoy. You just want to defend the crime because you also hate Flock cameras.
DEMinSoCal
Posts: 51 +42
Our President doesn't think so. Cost to fix the Capitol was much more than this fake camera and everyone got a pardon.
DEMinSoCal
Posts: 51 +42
Isn't a police officer sitting across the street from a bar, in a sort of sting operation knowing people driving away from the bar would be drunk, illegal? Putting up a fake camera knowing someone will try to take it down...is that not the same thing?
mbrowne5061
Posts: 2,395 +1,598
TIL my doctor is a state agent because they accept medicare/medicaid money.
Then they should go find whomever did that original vandalism. Allegedly destroying one doesn't that same person destroyed literally any of the others.
They better have a record of that donation. Including its actual value. That should clear up the severity of these charges pretty quickly.
And no one said anything whether a sting operation is entrapment or not. Stings are legal, but ethically dubious at best. Whether a cop went "out of their way" or not is irrelevant; they're allowed to do stings. But stings do typically come with a lot more review and oversight; so I hope the PD did their paperwork first.
1. They're going to buy a new camera anyway, assuming the camera hardware isn't just rolled into their contract; Flock is service-based, not hardware. If a city terminates a Flock contract and disconnects a camera, Flock comes around and reconnects it. The city needs to do extra work to get Flock to remove their hardware.
2. I didn't suggest the employee put up a camera; I stated that they put up a decoy that had no electronics in it - same as the source article.
3. Flock cameras aren't municipal equipment. Its Flock equipment that towns and PD agree to having installed as part of a service contract. Sometimes towns pay for the camera costs up-front to get a reduced service cost, sometimes Flock covers all the hardware costs and the town pay more for service for some period of time (similar to a lease-to-own structure). At the end of the day, its still private hardware because they are accessing a portal that searches all Flock cameras - not just their local ones, but all Flocks.
"I pray someone understands jury nullification if it comes down to it."
Usually, one cannot mention that directly. Not an attorney, but I suggest saying something like this to the jury: "You are the most powerful force in this courtroom. The government may tell you that you have no choice, but you always have a choice. You have the final say, and you cannot be forced to vote against your conscience."
Usually, one cannot mention that directly. Not an attorney, but I suggest saying something like this to the jury: "You are the most powerful force in this courtroom. The government may tell you that you have no choice, but you always have a choice. You have the final say, and you cannot be forced to vote against your conscience."
How do you feel about the Boston Tea Party, controversial or no?
I think this thread has finally baked long enough.
There are two separate issues here, and somehow we’ve managed to turn them into the Boston Tea Party, the Holocaust, the Soviet Union, January 6th, jury nullification and apparently the collapse of Western civilization. Impressive work, everyone.
First: the guy did not innocently stumble into a police trap.
A real camera had previously been destroyed. Police put a decoy in its place. Nobody called this man, encouraged him, paid him, dared him, handed him pruning shears or whispered, “Go get ’em, tiger.”
He reportedly showed up masked and gloved, carrying tools, and destroyed something he believed was the replacement camera.
That is not “manufacturing a crime.” Florida’s own entrapment statute requires law enforcement to induce or encourage conduct in a way creating a substantial risk that someone not otherwise ready to commit the crime would do it. Putting an object outside and waiting for someone voluntarily to destroy it is missing a rather important ingredient: the inducing part.
And no, a police officer watching people leave a bar is not illegal either. At this rate, putting merchandise on shelves is entrapment because shoplifters might see it.
Now, here is where some of you actually have a legitimate point...The felony charges themselves deserve scrutiny.
Florida criminal mischief becomes a third degree felony generally when the damage reaches $1,000 or more, while third degree grand theft begins at $750. If what was actually destroyed was a cheap 3D printed shell, prosecutors still have to establish the elements of whatever completed offenses they charged. You cannot simply declare $40 worth of plastic to be worth $1,000 because the defendant was stupid enough to think it was something expensive.
That does not, however, mean his intent becomes irrelevant. Florida separately criminalizes an attempt when someone intends to commit an offense and takes an act toward committing it but fails to complete the intended offense. So the intelligent legal discussion is about completed offenses, attempt liability, valuation and exactly what the prosecution can prove.
That is substantially more interesting than...“FLOCK BAD, THEREFORE SMASHING THINGS GOOD.”
You can oppose Flock cameras.
You can question mass surveillance.
You can challenge how police access the data.
You can demand warrants, oversight and limits.
Those are legitimate arguments.
What you cannot do is decide that disliking a piece of technology grants you the personal authority to walk outside with pruning shears and start destroying things.
That isn't civil disobedience.
That isn't the Boston Tea Party.
And good grief, it certainly isn't resistance to Nazi Germany.
It's a man attacking what he believed was somebody else's camera and then discovering that the criminal justice system does not contain a “but I really hate Flock” exemption.
Argue that the felony counts are overcharged? Absolutely.
Argue that he did nothing wrong because surveillance makes you angry?
Congratulations...You have somehow managed to lose an argument to a 3D printed camera.
There are two separate issues here, and somehow we’ve managed to turn them into the Boston Tea Party, the Holocaust, the Soviet Union, January 6th, jury nullification and apparently the collapse of Western civilization. Impressive work, everyone.
First: the guy did not innocently stumble into a police trap.
A real camera had previously been destroyed. Police put a decoy in its place. Nobody called this man, encouraged him, paid him, dared him, handed him pruning shears or whispered, “Go get ’em, tiger.”
He reportedly showed up masked and gloved, carrying tools, and destroyed something he believed was the replacement camera.
That is not “manufacturing a crime.” Florida’s own entrapment statute requires law enforcement to induce or encourage conduct in a way creating a substantial risk that someone not otherwise ready to commit the crime would do it. Putting an object outside and waiting for someone voluntarily to destroy it is missing a rather important ingredient: the inducing part.
And no, a police officer watching people leave a bar is not illegal either. At this rate, putting merchandise on shelves is entrapment because shoplifters might see it.
Now, here is where some of you actually have a legitimate point...The felony charges themselves deserve scrutiny.
Florida criminal mischief becomes a third degree felony generally when the damage reaches $1,000 or more, while third degree grand theft begins at $750. If what was actually destroyed was a cheap 3D printed shell, prosecutors still have to establish the elements of whatever completed offenses they charged. You cannot simply declare $40 worth of plastic to be worth $1,000 because the defendant was stupid enough to think it was something expensive.
That does not, however, mean his intent becomes irrelevant. Florida separately criminalizes an attempt when someone intends to commit an offense and takes an act toward committing it but fails to complete the intended offense. So the intelligent legal discussion is about completed offenses, attempt liability, valuation and exactly what the prosecution can prove.
That is substantially more interesting than...“FLOCK BAD, THEREFORE SMASHING THINGS GOOD.”
You can oppose Flock cameras.
You can question mass surveillance.
You can challenge how police access the data.
You can demand warrants, oversight and limits.
Those are legitimate arguments.
What you cannot do is decide that disliking a piece of technology grants you the personal authority to walk outside with pruning shears and start destroying things.
That isn't civil disobedience.
That isn't the Boston Tea Party.
And good grief, it certainly isn't resistance to Nazi Germany.
It's a man attacking what he believed was somebody else's camera and then discovering that the criminal justice system does not contain a “but I really hate Flock” exemption.
Argue that the felony counts are overcharged? Absolutely.
Argue that he did nothing wrong because surveillance makes you angry?
Congratulations...You have somehow managed to lose an argument to a 3D printed camera.
Sure, why not? What difference does it make?
Stings are an old playbook, and they can use this as evidence of character or behavior patterns. Probably was enough for them to get a warrant to find other evidence, and then, if it goes to trial, it would be up to a jury to decide if the one who destroyed this is the same who destroyed the others. In either case Plutoisaplanet has made the not too incredible leap that these are the same people.
I'm against Flock and widespread surveillance. At the very least any such surveillance should always require warrants (spurred by non surveillance based evidence) to even use. Even that feels inadequate. Regardless, police setting up a fake one and catching the person who destroyed the fake, then tying them to the original crime, really isn't that controversial of a police tactic, and similar things are used all the time. Maybe they can use politics as a defense, maybe they'll get away with it, but most likely they won't since protests don't really let you get away with destroying property (except practically by blending into the crowd and making it hard to find the actual people who destroyed property, and there's no crowd to blend into here).
I was with you right up until we apparently crossed the Berlin Wall, entered the Soviet Union, encountered an occupying foreign army, lost democracy entirely, surrendered half our income to the state, and discovered that speed limits are one of the final pillars of tyranny.
All because police replaced a repeatedly vandalized camera with a plastic decoy.
That is an absolutely magnificent journey.
You can dislike Flock. You can argue about privacy, warrants, qualified immunity, government surveillance, police accountability and whether these systems should exist at all. Those are real discussions.
But “the police put up a fake camera and waited to see whether someone would voluntarily destroy it” is not the government manufacturing a crime. Nobody recruited him. Nobody persuaded him. Nobody handed him the tools. Nobody forced him to show up and attack it.
And since we’re invoking the Andy Griffith days, let’s remember those days are being romanticized a little too.
People weren’t routinely walking into stores, filling carts and strolling out while employees stood there filming them. They weren’t smashing displays, stealing cars in broad daylight, punching strangers over nonsense, vandalizing businesses for entertainment, or committing theft directly in front of cameras with the attitude that nobody could touch them.
Civilization got meaner, uglier, more brazen and less embarrassed about bad behavior.
Law enforcement didn’t wake up one morning and randomly decide, “You know what America needs? More cameras.”
The environment changed, and the response changed with it.
You can absolutely argue that some of those responses go too far. I do.
But pretending modern policing exists in some vacuum while society itself remained Mayberry is ridiculous. Andy Taylor also didn’t have to deal with people livestreaming themselves committing felonies in a Walmart parking lot.
And the “if somebody followed you with a camera you'd punch them” argument may not be quite the constitutional masterstroke you think it is. Punching people because they are recording you in public tends to create a second legal problem rather than solving the first one.
As for America being “more Soviet than the Soviet Union” because police use cameras and enforce speed limits, somewhere the ghost of Stalin just looked up and said, “Good grief, dial it back.”
Oppose surveillance all you want.
But when your argument requires Andy Griffith, the Soviet Union, military occupation, taxation, qualified immunity, dictatorship and oppressive speed limits just to explain why a man shouldn't be responsible for deliberately destroying something that wasn't his, perhaps the 3D printed camera isn't the thing that needs recalibrating. Maybe some mindsets!
Cheers!
WTH...
@pnntmp said destroying property is a crime. Your response was essentially, “Yeah, but Trump.”
That isn’t a gotcha. This is what happens when the argument runs out of gasoline and you start pushing it with politics...
DEMinSoCal
Posts: 51 +42
Politics have become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. There is rarely a topic these days where you can't draw some parallel to our government and specifically, Trump. Sad, but true.
Sure, politics touches almost everything these days.
That still doesn’t mean every discussion needs to be dragged behind the Trump parade float.
pnntmp said destroying property is a crime. That was the entire point.
Responding with “but Trump pardoned people who damaged the Capitol” doesn’t rebut that. It just proves that when politics becomes the fabric of everyday life, apparently logic becomes an optional accessory.
You can draw a parallel between almost anything if you try hard enough. I can probably connect this story to the fall of Rome, the designated hitter rule and my electric bill.
Doesn’t make any of them relevant.
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