The public has the right to take cellphone videos of police officers doing their jobs. 

Police do not have the right to harass, intimidate or order someone to stop recording their actions in a public place. 

Valdosta Chief of Police Brian Childress notified his officers this week about changes to the department’s policies and procedure regarding the rights of the public to record. 

In an email sent Tuesday evening, Childress wrote, “I attended a class regarding the public’s right to record police. Attached and listed below is a tri-fold document on this subject from DOJ (Department of Justice). Read it please and understand it. This will also be added to department policy. Here is what the courts and DOJ have said: ‘if they (citizens) are in a public place where anyone has a right to be, they can record you.’ In other words, leave them alone unless they legitimately hinder your job. Simply recording on a sidewalk and/or across the street is not hindering you or anyone else.”

Childress is right. 

The rights of the public to record the actions of officers in public are broad. 

A person, of course, cannot trespass on private property, cross crime scene tape, physically interfere with officers ability to do their jobs or create a public-safety hazard but beyond those things, simply using a cellphone or other type of camera or videocamera to record the actions of offices is not illegal. 

Police cannot seize a camera without due process. 

They may request to see what has been recorded to assist them in an investigation but that would be a request not a demand. 

Childress shared additional points with his officers:

— In the majority of situations, individuals have a First Amendment right to audio and video record police who are conducting business in a public place. 

— Officers should always assume they are being recorded when in a public space.

— Officers may not seize recording devices or recording media without a warrant except in narrowly defined exigent circumstances.

— Officers may not arrest individuals for the act of recording.

— Officers should develop a suitable response that will deflect any negative reactions, such as acknowledging the individuals First Amendment right to record and asking whether he or she would like to speak to a supervisor. 

Police can make an effort to keep people safe. That may include sectioning off an area for the public and the press at a crime scene. The purpose, however, must be to keep people out of harm’s way and not to conceal the actions of police. 

We commend Childress for sending this email to his department, for taking the concept of community policing seriously and for understanding the public’s right to know. 

We encourage every city, county and state law-enforcement agency to follow suit.