By The Vanguard Staff
BATON ROUGE, LA – Anyone, even the news media and cop watchers, can be arrested if they approach police officers within 25 feet under a new Louisiana law, according to an Associated Press story this week.
The law is an “affront to the movement for racial justice and violates the First Amendment,” civil libertarians charge, said the AP.
“Critics have said the law — signed this week by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry — could hinder the public’s ability to film officers. Bystander cellphone videos are largely credited with revealing police misconduct such as the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer,” wrote the AP.
“When you enact a law that prevents people from seeing for themselves whether injustice is being done, that is the biggest thing against civil rights you can ever do,” said Shean Williams, an attorney with The Cochran Firm in Atlanta, in an AP story.
Williams said that “images of police attacking demonstrators during the civil rights movement were instrumental to its success in advancing racial justice.”
Proponents claim the law creates a buffer zone to protect officers and 25 feet is close enough to video police action. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill in April, claiming it would help ensure law enforcement officers in his state can “do their jobs without the threat of harassment.”
The Louisiana measure’s author, state Rep. Bryan Fontenot, said the legislation provides officers “peace of mind and safe distance to do their job. At 25 feet, that person can’t spit in my face when I’m making an arrest. The chances of him hitting me in the back of the head with a beer bottle at 25 feet — it sure is a lot more difficult than if he’s sitting right here.”
But attorneys say states, including Florida and Louisiana, argue there are already laws that make it illegal to obstruct police.
“The key in every other state is, ‘Are you disrupting the conduct of the officer?’” said Gerry Weber, a constitutional law expert in Atlanta who has represented numerous people in lawsuits over filming police misconduct, writes the AP.
“One of the problems with the Louisiana law is it creates a presumption that one is interfering if they’re within 25 feet and they have been given a warning,” added Weber, who worked a settlement years ago that stopped Atlanta police from interfering with people recording officers.
In 2022, Arizona made it illegal to knowingly film a police officer from eight feet or closer if the officer told the person to stop.
But, reports the AP, U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi in Phoenix last year blocked enforcement of that statute, ruling it “prohibits or chills a substantial amount of First Amendment protected activity and is unnecessary to prevent interference with police officers given other Arizona laws in effect.”
The Louisiana law does not specifically mention filming, but prohibits “knowingly or intentionally” approaching an officer who is “lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties” after being ordered to “stop approaching or retreat.”
Violators face up to a $500 fine, up to 60 days in jail, or both. It goes into effect on Aug. 1.
Susan Meyers, a senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the AP that the courts have been clear that people have a right to observe and film police doing their jobs in public, adding, “What are they saying? How are they conducting themselves? There are in fact very few ways for the public to hold these public servants accountable for their actions.”
Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said to AP “she experienced the importance of filming police first-hand last year when she and some colleagues were pulled over by an officer who said he suspected the vehicle they were in was stolen.”
Odoms, who added no laws were broken, denounced the new Louisiana law, and told AP she believes the justification was pretextual. On a dark, deserted road, she said filming the encounter gave her comfort because, “I’m probably within 8 to 10 feet of the officer and then two or three feet. (Under the new law) I would not be able to do any of that.”
