Last month, a Missouri cop who boasted about his 17 years on the force without ever being sued arrested a Black man for failing to identify himself while simply recording video in public.
“I’ve been in this line of work for 17 years. “I have done that without a complaint or a lawsuit on my record,” said Grandview police Officer Beau Bailey, according to bodycam footage captured on November 4.
“OK, this will be your first,” responded the Black man, whose name appears to be Ariel Moses, the owner of the First Amendment auditing YouTube channel Kansas City Accountability.
“No, it won’t because between the two of us, I am the subject matter expert on the law, and that includes constitutional law,” Bailey told me.
“I applied hundreds of hours of study to my career. We are out here for a legal reason. We have reached out to you for a legitimate purpose.”
“And in the course of my duties, I’m asking you to provide a name and date of birth that I can verify before we let you go. I will not ask you again; you will go to jail for failing to identify yourself.”
Even though Missouri is a “stop and ID” state, police must have a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime or is about to commit one, according to a Missouri attorney’s website.
In this instance, Moses was merely taking a video in front of a bank, which prompted the bank employees to call the police.
Bailey would have known that the First Amendment protects public recording and does not require reasonable suspicion of a crime if he had studied constitutional law during those 17 years he boasted about.
However, Bailey’s partner attempted to manipulate his interpretation of the law to his advantage by suggesting that he was planning a bank robbery because he was recording it from the outside.
“The suspicious part we’re talking about is that you’re recording a building—not just any building but a bank, and banks are robbed,” said Grandview police officer Thorrin Savage.
But Moses corrected their misinformation.
“I’m doing nothing wrong, just simply out here with my GoPro in public,” he told me. “There’s no expectation of privacy in public.”
However, Bailey insisted he was “suspicious” because he was recording in public.
“We are out here on a suspicious activity call; we have every legal right to identify you; there’s case law you need to do more research on.”
However, when Moses asked him to elaborate on that case law, the cop replied, “I cannot tell you the name of it right now.”
Then Bailey insisted on respecting Moses’ First Amendment right to record their conversation by allowing him to do so.
However, Moses claimed that they were violating his Fourth Amendment rights by requiring his identification when there was no reasonable suspicion that he was involved in a crime.
As promised, police arrested him and took him to jail. However, they released him two hours later without knowing his real name.
The video concludes with Moses carrying a brown paper bag filled with his belongings, the name “John Doe” scribbled on it, and the letters “B/M” to denote a Black male.
“I just got out of jail,” Moses explained. “I did not tell them my name. “You can’t get anything from me.”
“He said he’s been on the force for 17 years; he knows what’s going on, and I’m obligated to give him my ID. Yeah, he learned quickly.”
Moses has yet to respond to Atlanta Black Star enquiries for more information on whether he intends to file a lawsuit.
