Boston Pays Out $170,000 To Man Arrested For Recording Police

Ian Lamont writes "The City of Boston has reached a $170,000 settlement with Simon Glik, who was arrested by Boston Police in 2007 after using his mobile phone to record police arresting another man on Boston Common. Police claimed that Glik had violated state wiretapping laws, but later dropped the charges and admitted the officers were wrong to arrest him. Glik had brought a lawsuit against the city (aided by the ACLU) because he claimed his civil rights were violated. According to today's ACLU statement: 'As part of the settlement, Glik agreed to withdraw his appeal to the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel. He had complained about the Internal Affairs Division's investigation of his complaint and the way they treated him. IAD officers made fun of Glik for filing the complaint, telling him his only remedy was filing a civil lawsuit. After the City spent years in court defending the officers' arrest of Glik as constitutional and reasonable, IAD reversed course after the First Circuit ruling and disciplined two of the officers for using "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Glik.'"

same story yet again

[berashith]

this also happened in Mass around 2001 or 2002, where someone was getting harassed and decided to record the procedure. He was a musician and had a recorder of some sort in his car. After all the grief that he took, he brought the tape to internal affairs to have the offending officers reprimanded, and they used the tape against him in a wiretapping case. Now he has been harassed and arrested. WINNING

Yeah, really!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can it be "wire" tapping to record what your eyes can plainly see, in public? What wire? What tapping?

Typical /.

[Beelzebud]

I knew that there would be more people whining about tax money here, than the violations of the man's rights.

Meanwhile in Philly

[Vinegar Joe]

The cops are slow to learn.........

http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/student-arrested-for-taking-photo-of-cop/ [wnd.com]
http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-26/news/31240585_1_police-officer-cops-misdemeanor [philly.com]

Money is not enough

[markdavis]

So, does that compensation include:

1) Removing his fingerprints from not only Boston police's files, but the FBI and every other system it was instantly and permanently sent to?

2) Removing all records of his improper and illegal arrest from every system?

Somehow I think information, once collected, is forever there. He will now be "searched", like a suspect, every time prints are run.

Just take photos non stop

[giorgist]

I guess the beginning is for the brave, but if everybody just takes photos non stop ... eventually the police will be decentitized. Everybody knows that there are cameras everywhere noways so much like open source ... a million eyes will eventually weed out the bugs in the system. We are living in times of change.

Re:I just wish...

[WillDraven]

The average cops attitude reminds me of the Roman consul Gnaeus Pompey, who conquered Syria and Jerusalem without the senates prior approval. When some of his victims complained that his actions were unjust, he responded "Stop quoting the laws to us, we carry swords."

Re:Ridiculous amount.

[yodleboy]

I agree it sucks that taxpayers pick up the tab but I doubt there's a legal way to get at retirement funds. The alternative is they don't pay at all. I don't think that's fair either. If the cops had falsely arrested this guy and the city said "whoa! that's just wrong, you're fired" then maybe it would have been enough. Those taxpaying citizens should be more concerned with false arrest by the people they are paying to enforce the law and by a city government that pisses away money for 5 years defending that action. Maybe some of them will be mad enough at the waste of money to vote out the retards that are in office.

To your priest example, it's completely fair that the congregation that stood by oblivious while some priest molested children for years pays for that. I just find it hard to accept that hundreds, maybe thousands of people were members of these churches and not once did someone notice or have the balls to say "About Father Bob..." It's ludicrous that someone can get away with this stuff for decades. I guarantee that any congregation that's paid out because of molestation is a hell of a lot more careful about who is in the clergy and what they are doing, especially where kids are involved. Sometimes messing with peoples money is the only way to get a change.

Re:lose-lose

[rahvin112]

You didn't read the story then (duh). The court tossed qualified immunity for the officers. Glik sued both the city and officers in question and in theory the city could force the cops to split the tab with them (I doubt they will). This should send a big chill through the nations police force as it's now precedent that they can lose immunity for false arrest. That's a HUGE precedent and exposes officers violating peoples rights to civil suits that take them for everything they are worth. Now an officer has to make the choice to falsely arrest someone with the understanding that they could end up in civil court and ordered to pay that person a bunch of money for violating their rights.

Re:I just wish...

[ancient_kings]

Now if they made the officer pay at least half of $170,000, and then take the rest from the entire police officer's pension plan instead of the tax payer, then you'll see these type of evil, cowardly arrests stop overnight. Nothing like sharing the pain to stop this...