Police Charged a Woman for Recording Them Holding a Black Man at Gunpoint. Now, They Owe Her

Also: Woman settles lawsuit over her recording of 2018 encounter with Robbinsdale police (Star Tribune)

______________________________________________________________________

Source: The Root

Police Charged a Woman for Recording Them Holding a Black Man at Gunpoint. Now, They Owe Her

Kalyn Womack
Thu, October 6, 2022 at 2:50 PM

A woman charged with a misdemeanor for recording Minnesota police officers holding two Black men at gunpoint settled her federal lawsuit against the city for $70,000, according to the Star Tribune. In addition to monetary compensation, the city also agreed to policy reform within the police department.

Arizona recently attempted to make recording police encounters illegal but they surely weren’t the first to try. Some of these restrictions don’t look like laws but instead a misdemeanor. Take Amy Koopman for example. Koopman, a white woman, went on Facebook live in 2018 to record an interaction between Robbinsdale police and two Black men. She was only one of many people who crowded around the intersection, waiting anxiously to see if the police would fire at the two as their guns were drawn.

“Three squad cars with three officers out of their cars, guns drawn on what I could see at the time was one Black man,” Koopman said via CBS News. “Because what was in my mind [was] Philando Castile.”

Koopman talked to the officers from a distance and after she put her phone away, they charged her with obstructing the legal process. Her charges were later dropped by a Hennepin County judge.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/police-charged-woman-recording-them-185000938.html

______________________________________________________________________

Source: Star Tribune

Woman settles lawsuit over her recording of 2018 encounter with Robbinsdale police

livestreaming officers drawing guns on two Black motorists.

By Stephen Montemayor Star Tribune OCTOBER 4, 2022 — 3:45PM

A woman who was charged with a misdemeanor after she recorded Robbinsdale police holding two Black men at gunpoint settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the city this week for $70,000 and policy reforms.

Robbinsdale police charged Amy Koopman with obstructing the legal process in 2018 after she stood on the opposite side of an intersection and livestreamed officers who pulled over a car and approached it with guns drawn.

She said she wanted to stream the interaction on Facebook to ensure that the two Black motorists remained safe and that police would be held accountable. Koopman, who was a church secretary and seminary student at the time of the encounter, sued the city after her misdemeanor criminal charge was dismissed in 2019.

-snip-

A Hennepin County judge dismissed charges against Koopman after finding that "no reasonable officer could construe [Koopman's] shouting as 'physically obstructing or interfering' in the performance of their duties." Attorneys representing the city in the federal lawsuit argued that Koopman's claims were barred by the legal doctrines of qualified and official immunity.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.startribune.com/woman-settles-lawsuit-with-robbinsdale-police-over-her-recording-of-2018-police-encounter/600212925/