Auditors say they’re exposing police brutality and protecting the right to film on public property. The cops don’t see it that way.
By Will Sommer
Last April, the San Antonio Police Department got a call about a man
filming at a strip mall. The officer who arrived first on the scene was
in for a couple of surprises—and unexpected internet stardom.
First, the man with the camera, Jesus Padilla, called him an asshole. Then Padilla said he was a pendejo—Spanish for “stupid.”
“I don’t cooperate for idiots,” said Padilla, whose more than 40,000 YouTube fans know him as “Mexican Padilla.”
“Say that again?” the police officer replied.
“I don’t repeat myself for idiots,” Padilla shot back.
Unbeknownst to the San Antonio cop, he had become the latest
unwitting star in a growing YouTube genre called “First Amendment
Auditing,” in which self-proclaimed “auditors” test how police will
react by filming them in public places or around government buildings.
Auditors show up with their cameras at places as mundane as post
offices, or as imposing as the entrances to nuclear-weapons factories.
Once there, they start filming, and wait to see how police react.
“Anything
that is publicly funded is fair game,” said David Worden, a Texas
“auditor” who operates under the handle News Now Houston.
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Source: The Daily Beast
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