Longtime readers of Hell Gate may remember our coverage of an interesting set of legal disputes between New Yorkers who took city and state laws establishing the right to record police officers in public places at face value, and the NYPD, who argued that actually a departmental policy forbidding filming in the public lobbies of precinct houses is the governing authority.
In one case, Patricia Rodney, a Brooklyn grandmother compelled by her insurance company to file a police report for her lost glucose monitor, had her arm broken in 2020 by police officers who didn't appreciate her standing in their precinct vestibule claiming to film them with her phone.
In another, SeanPaul Reyes, a YouTuber and self-identified "First-Amendment auditor," sued the department in federal court in 2023 after twice being arrested for filming in the public parts of police stations. Reyes's litigation was successful, at first—the judge assigned to his case granted an initial injunction which barred the NYPD from stopping people from recording in the public lobbies of station houses, and noted that "the Right to Record Acts do not carve out police precinct lobbies as places where individuals are not allowed to record."
The NYPD appealed that decision, and the Second Circuit ruled that the question of whether the state and city laws protect people filming in police stations is a question best answered by New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals. Late last month, that court issued a unanimous ruling that the Right to Record acts do not protect New Yorkers filming in the public lobbies of police stations.