Whylie Claims Police Cannot Stop Civilians from Taking Footage of Them

Allen Whylie

It’s a question that has been raised in the past – can civilians take photographs and video of Police Officers while they are conducting their duties? It was raised again Monday because of an incident in which a Police officer photographed during an operation allegedly forced the photographer, a reporter, to delete the photos. Commissioner Whylie reiterated that he’ll get the message out, again, that Police cannot interfere with civilians taking footage of them.

Allen Whylie, Commissioner of Police

“I’ve said in the past and I’ll say it again, I have no problem with the citizens taking photograph, taking videos of any police operation and activity. That is their right; it is to ensure that things are done according to procedures and standing orders and I will again reiterate to the commanders and I will send out something in writing to them that I have no objection. People have the right to video their officers and they don’t have any right to take away people’s recordings. We should be glad, if we are doing the right thing, that people are recording us. As a matter of fact, what I had asked for, for quite some time, but it is quite expensive is for us to try to acquire those small body cameras that we can again equip our officers because we have good and we have bad officers. As I said earlier today in a different forum that we recruit officers from the very society out there and so we know we recruit people who sometime are not as professional as they should be. But whenever these things occur, I repeat again, I wish that it is brought to our notice and we will have the professional standards branch investigate and look into these things. And where we are able to substantiate those kinds of allegations, we will deal with those officers because they have been told that they are not to engage in such practice and such behavior. If the officers are doing nothing wrong, I see no reason why they will be concern with anybody videoing them.”