U.S. Marshal Satches & Smashes Bystander's Phone

‘A blatant and deliberate violation of the Constitution’

Another one of the 1,000s of Police State crimes the Police and Law Enforcement do to its very own citizens each day.  Don’t they understand that by taking away Constitutional Rights of its citizens, they are also taking away their very families Rights to live free? 

The U.S. Marshals Service has launched an investigation into one of its agents who appears to be captured on video ripping a cell phone from the hands of a bystander who was trying to film him in the street while he responded to gang activity.

The video also seems to show the agent throwing the phone to the ground.

Gawker reported agents with the Marshals Service were investigating some activity of a biker gang near a California home, and a nearby woman started videotaping the scene on her cell phone.

The agent then snatched the phone from the woman’s hands and smashed it to the ground, the video shows.

“We’ve had incidents where people have videotaped us and it requires unbelievable restraint. Typically during times where things can be a little chaotic,” said South gate police Capt. Darren Aerakawa, to the Los Angeles Times. “We really have to convey we’re living in a different environment now where police action is scrutized and a lot of video is surfacing. We simply tell our officers to assume they’re being recorded out in public at all times.”

The Times identified the woman who owned the phone as Beatriz Paez, 34. She told the newspaper she was aiming her phone’s camera lens at two men in black shirts with “Police” on their vests when they began to back toward her and block her view. The video shows a third officer, a deputy U.S. marshal, soon after rushing toward her and grabbing the phone and throwing it while she shouts: “Oh, no, don’t do that.”

Her attorney, Colleen Flynn, said the phone’s screen was shattered and the device stopped working.

Unbeknownst to police, a resident in a nearby home caught the exchange between Paez and the Marshals Service agent on camera and posted that video to YouTube. That YouTube video then brought on the Marshals Service investigation into the agent’s taped actions.

“The U.S. Marshals Service is aware of video footage of an incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a deputy U.S. Marshal,” the agency said in a statement. “The agency is currently reviewing the incident.”

Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California, said the officer clearly violated the law.

“There is no situation in which an officer can intentionally grab and destroy a camera being used to lawfully record law enforcement,” he said, the newspaper reported. “The officer’s conduct is a blatant and deliberate violation of the Constitution and his duties as an officer to abide by the law.”