Everyone has a clean record
When I first read this story I laughed at the idea of a cop car off in a ditch because of a bad U-turn. It’s his actions afterwords that made him the bad guy in my eyes. The police chief is also not doing to great when it comes to his duties.
Police officer David Devore just didn’t appreciate John Bell III’s “whimsical sense of humor.”
When Bell took digital pictures on Feb. 6 of Devore’s police cruiser stuck in the mud and being towed out of a ditch after an errant U-turn, Devore got angry. He took the memory card from Bell’s digital camera and erased the images.
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Devore directed fellow officer Tyson Dinda to pull over Devore’s red minivan after Devore stopped to take the pictures. When Devore arrived farther up the road where the stop occurred, Bell asked Devore why he needed Bell’s camera.“Because,” he said at first. After he paused, he added, “Defamation of character. Camera. And film. Now. I’m not going to ask you again. I’ll give you the count of three. Or I can make your life a living hell. You make the decision. I’ll give you that choice.”
When Bell picked up the memory card at the police station later that day, the images had been erased
Yep. Robbed by the police. Threatened by the police. Detained by the police. Right now you’re saying the police officer must be in some big trouble.
Nope.
Devore served a one-day suspension without pay on Feb. 15. He also received counseling and was told his future traffic stops would be monitored.
One day suspension. I call that a small vacation. They also offered the camera owner a whole 1000$ for walking all over his rights. He has turned it down and they are all on their way to court. Interesting to see what price the judge puts on our rights.
The police chief is acting rather shamefully here
“That’s what we did in this case,” said Chief Robbins. “We felt it was appropriate for the instance. It’s an anomaly for this officer. We have not had this type of issue with him.”
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The chief says the 29-year old officer has been with the department for three years and has a clean record.
We all have a clean record until we get caught.
May 30th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
Are there two guys named Devore? You’ve got Devore as the cop and the photographer.
May 30th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
As bad as the cop’s behavior may be, I’m not sure why the camera owner thinks the case is worth more than $1,000. Since he’s chosen to drag the cops (read: taxpayers) to court, I hope he gets the full measure of his real damages, which is $0.00.
May 30th, 2005 at 10:05 pm
Looks like the article is in error. Bell was the one pulled over. devore was the cop.
Xrlg
He is taking them to court for more then just the pictures. The pictures are secondary to the theft, the destruction of image, and threat to make his life rough. More then the pictures are involved here. That is obvious.
May 31st, 2005 at 12:19 am
Perhaps, but what is not obvious is what actual, measurable monetary damages Bell has suffered. If the threat had caused him suffer a stroke, he could sue for that. But it sounds like all it did was piss him off. Not much money in that.
May 31st, 2005 at 8:20 am
Punitive damages?
May 31st, 2005 at 8:38 am
Ignoring the legalities for a minute, I wonder if he has tried any of the flash memory file recovery utilities?
Often times “deleted” files are simply no longer indexed, but all the data is still in the physical memory.
May 31st, 2005 at 9:18 am
Yet another case of a government official who breaks the law and gets relatively nothing, but if a civilian used threats and coersion to take property and destroy it, I’d be in jail.
May 31st, 2005 at 11:58 am
Maybe, but even punies generally have to bear some reasonable relationship to the actual damages, e.g., triple. I suppose there may be some obscure clause in Section 1983 that says “any person aggrieved by a violation of this Section shall be entitled to a million billion gazillion big ‘uns,” but I rather doubt it.
May 31st, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Would this have been a violation of his civil rights?