First Amendment Auditor Assaulted and Arrested for Filming in Public (Deleted Video Recovered)

She responds, “I’m recording the building.” and then, “Because I want to,” after the guard follows up by asking why.

Shortly after, the guard begins calling for a supervisor.

That supervisor, Cook County Sheriff’s Deputy Lieutenant Don Milazzo, states that the courthouse is a public building. (While that statement is very much true, Milazzo’s statement obviously implies that he believes that means you can’t film there, which is very much not true.)

Pink Camera Magic replies, “Yes, that’s exactly why I’m recording it.”

“Yes ma’am. You’re doing something suspicious and we need to know who you are and why you are doing it, ok?” He responds.

“Are you familiar with the First Amendment?” She asks.

Illegally Deleted Footage

Later, once she has been held for a matter of hours, she was brought into court for a hearing. During that hearing, District Court Judge Peter A. Felice reportedly also demonstrated that he isn’t very familiar with the constitution or those first ten amendments (particularly the first and fourth ones in this case) to it. According to Pink Camera Magic she was given an order by Judge Felice to delete the footage she had legally recorded earlier.

However, she was unable to follow that illegal order because someone, presumably Lt. Milazzo, had already done so. The now empty memory card from her camera was then confiscated on order of Judge Felice. She was subsequently released without charges, but with a warning that recording the courthouse again would result in her being held in contempt.

That card was returned to her two days later at another court appearance. Perhaps having realized that their previous actions were unconstitutional, Judge Felice claimed at that hearing that they had not searched the SD card (which requires a warrant) or deleted any video (which violates evidentiary rules). Both of those illegal things had, of course, already been done prior to Pink Camera Magics first hearing, during which she was also ordered to delete the footage on the card.

In spite of the video having been deleted, Pink Camera Magic was able to send the SD card to a technician, who was able to restore the files on it and recover the footage. She has now filed a complaint with the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

References

The following were used as references for some of the information included within this post:

WATCH! Illinois Deputy Snatch Camera From Photographer Recording Public Building

DELETE THAT FOOTAGE NOW – Description for YouTube video embedded below

I’m just including this next one because it’s funny (in a pathetic way) and probably could benefit from some comments:

Woman who videotaped Cook County deputies arresting her travels the country provoking police encounters while collecting money on GoFundMe.. .. (You can contribute to that GoFundMe account and help her travel the country hurting those poor, unfortunate police officers’ feelings here: I document what police officers do)