Visited my local Police Department Today and recorded

It is not a felony to record a cop. However, in certain instances it is illegal to record anyone, e.g. private room without mutual consent.

Since you were not being interrogated, you should have not been recorded (if you were actually recorded).

Public building.
Public officer on duty.
Public gathering/meeting. (Was no one else allowed? Was the door locked? Was there a sign saying "PRIVATE"?)
No expectation of privacy under the circumstances. (Interview rooms are reasonably expected to have communication in which they are overheard or recorded.)
Statutes do not imply a violation.
Lawful to record even without consent.

PC 632(c)
The term "confidential communication" includes any
communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate
that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the
parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public
gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or
administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other
circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably
expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.

The officer is a public employee on duty and gets no expectation of privacy. His actions and communication represent the department and are public. If the officer wanted his communication private then he can meet off duty in private.



For those interested about interrogation room recording equipment; http://www.martelelectronics.com/Police-interview-room-equipment.html

pullnshoot25 said:

It is not a felony to record a cop. However, in certain instances it is illegal to record anyone, e.g. private room without mutual consent.

Since you were not being interrogated, you should have not been recorded (if you were actually recorded).

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PC 633 seems to imply that recordings that police could legally make prior to this statue becoming effective are not affected by PC632. Would that cover conversations in an interview room between the police and the citizen? If not, what is PC633 covering?

633. Nothing in Section 631, 632, 632.5, 632.6, or 632.7 prohibits the Attorney General, any district attorney, or any assistant, deputy, or investigator of the Attorney General or any district attorney, any officer of the California Highway Patrol, any chief of police, assistant chief of police, or police officer of a city or city and county, any sheriff, undersheriff, or deputy sheriff regularly employed and paid in that capacity by a county, police officer of the County of Los Angeles, or any person acting pursuant to the direction of one of these law enforcement officers acting within the scope of his or her authority, from overhearing or recording any communication that they could lawfully overhear or record prior to the effective date of this chapter.
Nothing in Section 631, 632, 632.5, 632.6, or 632.7 renders inadmissible any evidence obtained by the above-named persons by means of overhearing or recording any communication that they could lawfully overhear or record prior to the effective date of this chapter.

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Badger Johnson said:

This whole tale sounds like BS to me. Why would one go to a PD and secretly record a conversation about UOC?

Were you trying to entrap him? Did you have a bad experience and want to try and get him to out himself?

In CA, it is illegal to OC loaded, IIRC, so he didn't say anything that was over the top.

SNIP

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In Kali, the police are just about the biggest road block to freedom in the entire government structure. This has been the case since they successfully beat the anti war/counter culture folks into submission in the early 70's. They've never come down off of their high and mighty thuggish power trip, and they are deeply entrenched into their us against them attitude. The fact folks like yourself offer little to try to stop them from oppressing you is why it continues.

The helpful interview you were trying to give them should have been over as soon as the LEO said no recording.

LEO, ".... turn off the recorder. its a felony...."

You, " sorry this meeting is over, good-day to you"

I agree mostly with what everyone else said.

However I think it is important to note here is if the officer was acting in his "offivial capacity"

In other words were you talking to him as the patrol sargean, the lt. Or as just "hey Jim"?

If the officer was acting in his official capacity then there would be no expectation of privacy, that would be almost like the pr guy holding a press conference but statsing "no recorders of any kind and no one can talk about this". He can't do that while he is acting in his official capacity.

I myself would have probably said "turn off my recorder? Ok then I will also turn off my mouth." Then sat there and stared off into space till one of the two of us got bored enough to leave....

That's just my a$$holedness coming through though....

When the laws are set up to give a tactical advantage to instruments of the State over its citizens (leo can record in an interview room, but you can't), it's time to shut up and get out of Dodge.

Do you have to record someone saying they consent permission to record? What if someone says yes, then they take you to court and you have no proof they DID say it.

Syst3m Ov3rrid3 said:

Do you have to record someone saying they consent permission to record? What if someone says yes, then they take you to court and you have no proof they DID say it.

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If consent is needed, I'd certainly want a record of the consent...

Yeah because anyone can easily do the "I didn't give him permission to record me" and blah blah blah

Toxic said:

Today I visited my local police department and talked to them about UOC.
I was greeted fine, then we went into an interview room.
Almost at the beginning of our conversation. The officer asked me if I was recording our conversation. He told me that It was a felony to record police officers' conversations, and that it was a felony if I was recording. So he would give me a second change to tell them if I was recording the conversation. I was a little concerned since I was in their office within their premises. I don't know if recording them inside their office without telling them is a felony for real. But, he told me to turn off my recorder. I agreed.
Our conversation continued and they told me that if they saw someone UOC carry in this city they would do a felony arrest type of confrontation since they did not know if the gun was loaded or not.
At the end of our conversation he asked in a friendly way if I could erase the part I had recorded since he did not want our conversation to appear on youtube or any other social media site.
My main concern is, is it really a felony to record a police officer without informing them if I am in their office building and what can happen?

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Oh, Holy crap.

How do they propose to erase the recording each and every one of our brains do as a natural course of record? An exact recording is not only not much different, but in all LAW-ABIDING SOCIETIES it's welcom as an adjunt to law enforcement, rather than a "threat" to it.

So, Toxic's LEO department, do you have any words to say in response to your attempted squelch on the truth?

Hello?

...

Hello?

Hmm... It appears Toxic's LEO representatives have "declined to comment" as to any and all of their activities and departmental policies.

Like drowning rats escaping beneath a sewer grate.

Dear Toxic: You're dealing with the above/underground. They'll never give you an inch of ground, period, bar none. They've been in business far too many decades to be suckered into even hinting at the fact that they've busted state and federal law themselves six ways to Sunday, even if it's on record five ways to Sunday.

Oh, no - they're too smart for that.

Sweat 'em. Sooner or later, the lawbreaking "lawman," one or all, break down. They always do. They always will, under situation, interrogation, or just shame of the fact they turned tail on their fellow man.

No one in 10,000 years since the advent of human civilization has ever beat the system. Sooner or later, all corrupts have been caught.

The people have always prevailed. Look around - it's why we still exist as a people.

We Police Our Own.

The city of Costa Mesa is on course to be bankrupt. The local PD knows the right and wrong ways of handling Law Abiding Citizens who carry, but they willingly do the wrong thing. A lot of "We're gonna..."

Paging El Sensei...