- JOE ANYBODY: VIDEOS THE POLICE
Local videographer Joe Anybody has filed suit against the police today over being pepper sprayed during March 2008 protests over the U.S.Invasion of Iraq. Anybody, whose real name is Mike Tabor, has a history of being harassed by police, as he videotapes police actions and protests. The bureau even made policy changes following a prior incident.
Tabor’s new suit involves the pepper-spraying of people on the sidewalk during a protest in front of the Wells Fargo Tower on March 19, 2008, the 5th anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq. From his attorney, Aaron Vahola:
Michael Tabor, aka “Joe Anybody”, a freelance videographer, was videotaping the protest from the sidewalk. While there was some confrontation with the police elsewhere in the protest, there was no resistance to the police in his area. Lt. Mike Lee was walking through the crowd, and had his back turned to some protesters without incident.
Lee started pushing protesters without provocation, then directed Officer Aaron Schmautz to pepper-spray the crowd. Tabor was hit by the pepper spray, even though he was on the sidewalk and no threat to the police line.
This spraying was against PPB policy, handed down that same day, prohibiting use of broadcast spraying in most instances. See the attached memo from Chief Sizer, particularly Section 635.10(f)(3). The PPB violated this memo in this instance, broadcast spraying a crowd that was not surging at the police lines, including my client, Mr. Tabor.
Also note: Ronald Frashour, the officer who killed Aaron Campbell, was sued for Tasering a videographer several years ago. This is a pattern and practice of the Portland Police Bureau, and it is my opinion that a lack of accountability and punishment for officers who commit misconduct leads to repeat offenses, liability for the city, and even deaths, such as those of Campbell and Raymond Gwerder, who was killed in a manner shockingly similar to Campbell by an officer (Leo Besner) with a history of unprovoked violence against citizens.
We’ll have video of the alleged incident around 5pm today. In the meantime it is against police bureau policy to comment on open lawsuits. Update, 5pm Here’s the video:
Don’t forget to note how many complaints and/or suits this gentleman has filed against the police.
one lawsuit (see article) and one complaint (see link in article) – (both justified)
One suit (see topic article above) One complaint (see the “policy change” link in article above) – (both justified)
how does “D” figure that his question has any relevancy to matter at hand? I’m sorry dude! I don’t GET IT!
It’s not a question, but aside in addition to this case I believe this gentleman makes a career of trying to dig up dirt on police.
From you know, following around police all the time to take video of them and all. Self fulfilling conclusions.
I love the number of video cameras there. I think D may be onto something here, people do follow the police around and record them, when THEY SEE THE POLICE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. There are plenty of people with cell phone cameras and given that it is a protest and the police have a history of beating people up at protests, a fair number of people brought real video cameras. And then the police do do something wrong, and wow, everyone has it on tape. Self fulfilling conclusions indeed: Police beat up people at protests and then people file cases in court.
So D, what you’re saying…
If we monitor our employees (aka, the police – whose salaries we pay as our public servants), we will “dig up dirt” as a “self-fulfilling conclusion.”
Good.
That’s what good managers do. They manage their employees. Like taxpayers do with our public servants.
We are the boss of the police. They are our servants. They answer to us.
And if you say that just by us looking, we’ll “dig up dirt?” Then you clearly suspect the same as everybody else in Portland these days. That the Portland Police are dirty.
But don’t blame Joe if the Portland Police are dirty. Don’t blame him just because he’s “looking.”
If the Portland Police truly have nothing to hide, they won’t illegally interfere when their bosses film them on the job.
But you see… If we aren’t filming them, we wouldn’t have this video which appears to show the Portland Police on tape assaulting people standing on the sidewalk by courageously pushing a girl off her bike and spraying mace into a crowd before cowardly running away…
Glad to see your story get out there Mike.
Settled out of court for over a grand. My intention is to make them stop pepperspraying and was not to make money. Thanks for all the support in the struggle for social change and police accountability! The full video will be reposted on my website…. Just search for the words “Funk the War Pepperspray”