I agree (and commented more extensively about why, below).

For more information about how systematic the abuse of those who record encounters with the police has been across the United States in recent years (including third-party photograhers/videographers who are not party to the original encounter), see the extensive documentation here: http://www.photographyisnotacrime.com/

For details of another brave Marylander, Anthony Graber, who stood up for his rights in a very similar situation, and how police entered his home, confiscated his property, and threw him in a cell before a court upheld his right to have recorded the police, confirming he had never violated any law in doing so, see: http://www.photographyisnotacrime.com/2010/04/16/motorcyclist-jailed-for-26-hours-for-videotaping-gun-wielding-cop/

I live in Rockville also and have been, and at the ripe old age of 54 continue to be, subjected to a renagade police force. But this is not only the Rockville Police, but throw in the local Seven Locks Montgomery County Police and your Capital Area Park Police, we are living in a Police State that is no better than communist China, if not worse. Nobody has the "balls" to confront them. A perfect example is the percentage of local police retiring with a "work related injuries" try 700 times the national average. They have no accountabilty to anyone and that is more than obvious in there behavior. They have harrassed my children, threatened to "FIND" drugs in my house, if I didn't calm down and let them continue there unwarrented actions. Mr. Parr is a local hero and should recieve a key to the city from mayor Phyllis Marcuccio, but that is very unlikely, since like all our local officials, she turns her back to their actions. I will most likely have my home raided in a local search for weapons of mass destruction for writing this reply. Dick, Donald and George, might be gone from Washington, but their legacy is very much alive in the Rockville Area Crime Fighters Society,our very own christian soldiers. Again Mr. Parr keep up the good work and if you want to make a lasting difference run for the city council, I would happily volunteer to be your campange manager. Your platform is the best I have seen in my 24 years as a city resident. Again good luck young MAN.

Until some bozo walks into your office and tries to video tape you doing your job. Then you would be the first to call the police to have him arrested. Its a wonder that any young person would strive to be a police officer with nearly every person considering them as the enemy.

Too bad that you don't know what you are talking about. No one put anyone in a choke hold in that case. They guy died from "excited delerium" which happens in cases where a person gets so excited that they die of asphyixiation.

Brigitta, The cops were wrong, period. He had broken no laws and therefore had no lawful reason to provide an ID. You should challenge anything from anyone you know is unlawful, be it the cops, a senator or even the President. Stop being so weak willed and submissive.

Because in THIS country we don't kowtow to the cops. They can't just stop you, harrass you and then charge you because of the way you react. Read the Bill of Rights. Let me guess, you went to public school, right?

Hey Marsha how about you get off your high horse. There is nothing wrong with public school. In fact, Montgomery County is a leader in public school education. Let me guess you live in "North" Potomac? Sorry, I mean Gaithersburg.

"Why challenge an officer when you are not doing anything wrong?"

Because that is your right. The police have no legal right to detain or question you without cause. If he wasn't doing anything wrong then he should most definitely stand up to the police. With that said, I obviously have no idea whether or not he was really doing anything wrong, I'm just offering an answer to your question.

Can you give an example of "so many recent cases"?

"let police do their job" -- That's just it, Ms. J. I'm perfectly happy to let police do stuff that's their job. I'm not happy to let them do stuff that is *not* their job, like random stops or telling people to turn off their camera.

The job of the police is to enforce the laws passed by the legislature and sanctioned by the courts. The officers in this video were not doing that. They were breaking the law. It's that simple. Being pro or anti-cop hasn't a thing to do with it.

How would being videotaped by a member of the public hinder an officer's ability to do his job? On the contrary, if the officer is doing his job properly, he should welcome documentary evidence demonstrating the fact. One reason so many police departments have installed cameras in their patrol cars and required officers to record traffic stops is to protect officers from false allegations of improper behavior. It also serves to reinforce good behavior on the part of individual officers because they know they are being recorded. It's a benefit for everyone.

Yes, there are already cameras on patrol cars. Is your claim is that any given YouTube viewer is qualified to evaluate the conduct recorded? Also, do you think that every competently-performing person should "welcome" constant videotaping, or simply that police officers should? If only the latter, why?

Dan I would have to believe that anyone recording safely in a public area would be able to videotape any police officer, meter officer, MTA busdriver, US Postal worker, or other public employee in a public area. The act of recording constantly is not empeding or endangering so is legal. An issue of safety might arise, making an adjustment of where they record from, not what they record.

No, that would be harassment. I would think it appropriate for any person who is singled out by a civilian for prolonged or repeated filming, whether a public or private employee, to call 911 and file a report, and to use that report to get a restraining order. A tort suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress might also be appropriate in such a case.

This poor, er, fellow has nothing better to do with his time than demand under color of police authority that a CITIZEN stop recording an encounter with the police, even though as a member of the public in Maryland, the citizen is entirely within his rights under law to do so. Where is the rule of law? Are we a nation/state/county of laws, or of men? Are we, perchance, increasingly, a police state?

What possible cause of action could the police have against him for recording them breaking the law? None. He was following the law; they were breaking the law. If anyone has a cause of action, it's him for false arrest. And yes, he can sue them today and have every right to expect them to respond tomorrow if he is being assaulted. That's their job. They get paid to do exactly that. They are not some volunteer force acting altruistically.

Mr. Parr should sue for false arrest.

Sorry, but I think it's something of an overstatement to claim that the police are deserving of praise just for being police. The police are to be commended when they do their jobs well and, yes, we often expect them to put their lives at risk for us. But they also exercise tremendous power over people and it is not our duty to try to exercise our constitutional rights in a way that makes the police feel enobled.

It doesn't matter at all if the police like the laws passed by the legislature and ratified by the courts. Their job is to enforce them. This officer did not enforce the law. Further, for every several decent heroic officers there seems to be at least one abusive poorly trained officer who is a threat to the public. It is those officers who should fear being filmed. As for an officer feeling put upon for being recorded, that is simply a fact of modern life that they must learn to accept, as the courts have made clear. Most of us are aware that we are recorded when we go into stores, when we walk around at work, when we walk on many streets, when we drive on public roads. Our movements can be tracked based on our cellphones. Why should the police, who have the ability to do a great deal of harm when they abuse their authority, be exempt from public scrutiny?

Interesting suggestions, RTB. It occurs to me that every motorist also has the ability to do great harm when poorly trained. Should we also advocate -- no, mandate -- video cameras in every car, to be made available on Youtube to any viewer? School teachers and nurses, too, wield great power, as do the variety of high-level public-sector workers who people Montgomery County. Would our safety be improved if they, too, were accountable to the public in a maximal sort of way, with live-streaming web cams in each office? Let us not forget the incredible influence parents exert on children, who are both valuable in their own right and are themselves an influential source on a variety of others that they encounter. Should all parents have live-streaming web cams in their homes, with the products available for public viewing?

Nice try Dan, but motorists, teachers, even parents don't have the right to kill you and be protected by the law when they do so. They do not have the power to arrest you. The police are the means by which "the police power" of the state is exercised. The police power is, by definition, coercive and should be checked to ensure that it is used in conformity with the law. Besides, more and more police departments now require their patrol officers to have cameras in their patrol cars and to record traffic stops and other interactions with the public. The departments recognize that recording these stops can protect officers from false allegations of wrong doing, catch abusive cops in the act and foster a greater sense that police departments are acting in the public interest on the part of the public. Your arguments against are not persuasive in light of the tremendous good it does to record the actions of police as they interact with the public.

RTB, if I understand you correctly, your argument is that the public should have the (unlimited?) ability to record and disseminate recordings of the police in action because some police officers sometimes use coercive force unjustly? As you note, many police cruisers are already outfitted with cameras and these recordings are evaluated internally. Is your suggestion that any given YouTube viewer is better equipped than the Police Department to evaluate this footage? If so, what reasons do you do you have to believe that the process already in place is ill-suited to the task?

Yes. As long as they are not physically interfering with what the police are doing, anyone should be able to film the police doing their jobs. The issue is not one of who is best equipped to evaluate the footage. The issue is primarily the primacy of the 1st amendment. The US Supreme Court has interpreted the free speech and free press protections of the constitution extremely broadly and protecting the right of the public to film whatever they want unless there is a justifiable reason to prevent such filming is part of that broad protection. And I think that the police knowing that they may be filmed will act as a beneficial check on abusive behavior. I don't see any harm at all in it. How many times in recent years have we seen the police's story to justify a heavy handed action fall apart when a citizen comes forward with a film of the incident? Here in MD, we saw exactly that scenario when the PG County police assaulted a U of MD student and then lied about it to justify their actions. That some police may not like being filmed is unfortunate. No honest cop should object to being filmed and even if he does, the sociatel benefits justify overruling his offended sensibilities

Filming the police might be protected by the First Amendment, but so is the hateful speech of Westboro Baptists, so I'm not sure we can resolve the question by simply noting what case law permits. Perhaps one can, per the Court (openly, not surreptitiously) record the police. Should one do so? There is an argument to made that while some individuals may be helped by such filming, society may suffer because filming generates a culture of mutual distrust. People of character may be deterred from entering the profession, and police may be hesitant to enforce the law. Does this help society as a whole?

Why should people of character be deterred from becoming police officers just because they might be filmed doing their jobs? I don't think that filming creates a culture of mistrust; it evidences the existence of such mistrust. You are correct that just because people may exercise a right doesn't mean that they should. However, if you think about most cases involving police misconduct that has been caught on tape, there generally was something about the police action that prompted the bystander to start filming. I see people pulled over for speeding all the time and I've never seen another person pull up and start filming. It's when the police start using force against people that other people start filming. And it can help provide justification for an officer's actions, as when a bystander caught a woman spitting in that officer's face and later claiming he'd arrested her for no valid reason. Seems to me that people being free to film agents of the government (which is what the police are) is a good thing and part of living in a free society. Can you imagine people doing that in Russia or Iran?

Where did you get the statistics that the average citizens has three interactions with a police officer in his lifetime? Even if true, statistics like that can mask a great many exceptions that have nothing to do with a person engaging in wrongdoing. Try being a black teenager going about your business in a predominantly white area. I can tell you that growing up in Columbia in the 80's, I was stopped so often by the Howard County Police conducting "routine stops" that my parents had to complain to the chief. It took the state legislature to pass a law against racially motivated stops to give blacks at least some veneer of protection from police harassment and that was very recent. I recall in the studies the state legislature considered before passing the law, there was a white MD state trooper who never stopped anyone except black motorists. Ever. Experiences with people like that can leave a very sour taste about police generally and that taste lasts a very long time. It gives evidence to the lie that police officers should be assumed to be courageous and deserving of praise. I'm afraid the well of good feeling towards the police has been poisoned by decades of racially motivated policing. The only black people I know who aren't wary and suspicious of the police are people with police in their families. Sad, but true.

You say that "[t]reating all police officers as the enemy is no better than police officers treating all civilians as criminals and adds to their stress level and frustration." The vast bulk of comments to this article have done no such thing. That is simply a straw man premise.

In fact, most commenters are doing exactly what you advise with their criticisms of the officer's conduct in this situation: "by all means hold those accountable who abuse the public trust and violate our rights". That's the point. I'm not sure it's necessary to couch every criticism offered in a pro forma acknowledgement that in general most police officers most of the time are competent, brave, selfless, and perhaps, indispensable. Those points are often made in other, more on-point, contexts.

@Richard Boltuck; there is a broad stroke in a number of pens in these comments like this one: "...subjected to a renagade police force. But this is not only the Rockville Police, but throw in the local Seven Locks Montgomery County Police and your Capital Area Park Police, we are living in a Police State that is no better than communist China," That's a pretty big leap for one incident involving two specific officers. Don't condemn an entire police force for a single action of two individuals. In addition, I specifically said "Yes, by all means hold those accountable who abuse the public trust and violate our rights" so I did not imply anywhere to 'cut officers slack when they violate a citizen's rights'. I did in fact state the exact opposite.

I didn't say there were NO comments over the top -- that's pretty typical in comment sections to news articles. I said the vast majority of commenters did not say anything that suggested they believed all police officers are "the enemy". If there are one or two such specific comments, it would be helpful to reference them explicitly so we know what you mean -- otherwise, your original comment appeared, to me at least, to have intended much more general applicability to the character of the discussion and sentiment expressed overwhelmingly here than it in fact ought to have.

No. The MD Court of Appeals has not drawn a distinction between audio and video recording when it comes to recording the actions of police officers. Legally you can audio and video record a police offer conducting his duties in public. End of story.