foreign [Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers live streaming swatting and reasonable suspicion and is brought To Us by law and crime networks Channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit they deserve on August 8 2022 officers from the Cincinnati Police Department in Cincinnati Ohio responded to the home of YouTuber Darren I show speed Watkins who as of the date of writing this episode has 13.7 million subscribers after law enforcement received a call from someone claiming that Mr Watkins had a firearm and was going to hurt himself and his family the ensuing interaction was captured on an officer's body camera hey how you doing you all right come here real quick you're not in any trouble what the heck come to the back hey hey hold on I'll tell you hey what's going on relax get my phone is right right there right there let's go live press public yeah what is going on we're gonna talk with you what did I do okay bro bro hear me out you ready you're gonna listen to me real good bro I didn't yo bro oh my God bro and we are going to make a plan oh okay that's what that is yeah it happened to his boy Aiden last night okay so this is one of those silliest things people yeah but he didn't know his wife right I don't know who he is right now I don't care about it we don't care well I'm just letting you know that's the situation like that okay that's that's what it is someone called him in for the past two hours live doing what waiting for this to happen no breaking a PS4 he plays video games live on stream like I said it's 100 000 people watching okay that's what he does we're gonna shut that part down for right now we're gonna do that while we have a conversation over the protests of Mr watkins's Friend the officer turns off the live stream on Mr watkins's phone while they discuss the situation as we have discussed many times on ATA the Supreme Court is not explicitly held that the first amendment protects the right to film government officials performing their duties in public however based on relevant Supreme Court First Amendment precedent six of the 12 U.S courts of appeals have recognized a First Amendment right to film Law Enforcement Officers while they are carrying out their official duties in a public place notably the sixth circuit which has jurisdiction over Ohio is one of the six courts of appeals that have not yet acknowledged that filming the police is covered by the First Amendment however even in jurisdictions that have determined that recording Law Enforcement Officers is protected speech the issue as to whether the same safeguards apply to live streaming is largely unsettled in the 2021 case of Sharp versus Winterville Police Department the United States district court for the eastern district of North Carolina which is part of the fourth circuit a jurisdiction that has not recognized the First Amendment right to film the police held that officers did not violate the first amendment when they ordered Dijon sharp who was a passenger in a vehicle subject to a routine traffic stop to stop live streaming the encounter claiming a safety issue the officers told Mr Sharp that he could film the interaction but he could not simultaneously broadcast it the court determined that quote assuming without deciding that the First Amendment entitled sharp to record the traffic stop from inside the car during the traffic stop the First Amendment did not entitle sharp to live stream the traffic stop from inside the car during the traffic stop and that quote in light of existing precedent and the differences between recording and live streaming from inside the stopped car during the traffic stop the court rejects Sharp's argument that the First Amendment provided him a right to live stream a traffic stop from inside the stopped car Mr Sharp appealed this decision and in early November 2022 the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals heard Arguments for the case however instead of focusing on the first Amendment implications of this case it was reported that the judges questioning seemed to center around whether an officer can prevent an individual from live streaming without violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable seizures as of the date of writing this episode this case is still pending and it will be interesting to see what the fourth circuit decides and on what constitutional grounds it bases its decision spam l in the chat they're making us turn it off but we'll keep going this is Mom call them same thing happened to him last night this is something going on right now swatting it's the thing that people do they find that his address oh somebody got killed doing that where was that that was uh that's why he's freaking out because he knows the risk of it yeah that's so you're saying somebody oh I know called us yeah I know for sure Wilson be out yeah and if you if you don't believe me you can we literally just ended a live stream he's been streaming for the past three and a half hours two hours two and a half three and a half hours you can see everything he's done for the past two and a half hours okay so do me a favor you can walk out here with us yeah leave yourself well here I'll carry it for you Mr watkins's Friend explains to the officers that Mr Watkins has been quote swatted and offers to show them footage from Mr watkins's live stream from the last few hours generally swatting involves fake emergency calls claiming that a violent crime is about to take place or is already in progress with the goal of provoking a significant police response often including the deployment of special weapons and tactics or SWAT teams to the home of the individual being swatted a large portion of the swatting incidents that occur involve individuals such as Mr Watkins who engage in online gaming and live streaming swatting can typically be prosecuted under section 2917.32 of the Ohio Revised Code which makes it a crime to quote report to any law enforcement agency an alleged offense or other incident within its concern knowing that such offense did not occur however if the state legislature passes pending legislation House Bill 462 it it would create a separate offense that specifically addresses swatting the proposed text states that quote no person by means of a telecommunications device or telecommunications service shall purposely trigger an emergency response when no emergency response is warranted by reporting or causing to be reported false or misleading information to a law enforcement agency emergency service provider or Public Safety answering Point whoever violates this section is guilty of swatting additionally many swatting incidents could be prosecuted under federal law for instance section 1038 of Title 18 of the United States code prohibits engaging quote in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where the information May reasonably believed or where the information indicates that certain criminal activity has taken place is taking place or will take place including homicide or attempted homicide likewise section 875 of Title 18 of the United States code prohibits Interstate threats stating that quote whoever transmits into Interstate or foreign Commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the person of another shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years or both without knowing the exact details of where the caller in this situation was located and what they explicitly said it is challenging to know which particular crimes they could be charged with for swatting Mr Watkins still it seems likely that the individual responsible for Mr Watkins is swatting could be prosecuted for the violation of at least one of these statutes listen to me someone called a 9-1-1 Center and said with your name that you wanted to hurt your family and hurt yourself so we came to make sure you're okay all right just listen to me okay I am a popular streamer I am a YouTuber okay come on I have ten let me talk so guess what okay okay good you may be out of these cuffs but relax We're on your side we're here to make sure you're not going to harm yourself right all right now people right oh yeah yeah yeah let me talk let me talk okay I am a popular streamer I have 10 million Subs you know what a streamer is right I'm sure I guess okay so tell us about the streamer what'd you say I didn't say nothing were you trying to be funny no I didn't do nothing well apparently someone called a help center out in Iowa and said and I want to kill myself my family obviously a lie it's a lie we're here to make sure right oh yes because of school shootings right yeah be on my side yeah work with me all right well let's put you in the car and then guess what sorry this is this this is Beyond um yeah like I'm trying to calm down right it's just a streamer's place you think um they tried electricians yeah they call somebody somebody called I know y'all drinking exactly exactly I keep I just told him that that I keep telling I'm gonna we're just trying to figure it out right now yeah I mean it's not really that much exactly this is prank call I keep telling y'all I can't really explain it to y'all because I probably older but you know it's just like you know what twitch is Twitch YouTube you know I'm famous you know and I'm popular you know I know but it's a card that's why we got to do our job the officer's handcuffed Mr Watkins and place him in the back of one of the Cruisers although the line between a reasonable suspicion based Terry stop and a probable cause-based arrest can be confusing courts have consistently held that in some situations officers may use restrictive methods such as handcuffing and placing a suspect in a police vehicle during a Terry stop without converting it into a full-blown arrest however it is uncertain in this situation whether the officers even had the requisite Reasonable Suspicion required to be able to constitutionally detain Mr Watkins in any way as the Supreme Court explained in the 1972 case of Adams versus Williams quote informants as tips like all other Clues and evidence coming to a policeman on the scene may vary greatly in their value and reliability one simple rule will not cover every situation some tips completely lacking an indicia of reliability would either warrant no police response or require further investigation before a forcible stop of a suspect would be authorized but in some situations for example when the victim of a street crime seeks immediate police Aid and gives a description of his assailant or when a credible informant warns of a specific impending crime the subtleties of the hearsay rules should not thwart an appropriate police response relying in part on this decision the Supreme Court determined in the 1990 case of Alabama versus white that although an anonymous tip alone seldom justifies a Terry stop when sufficiently corroborated it can exhibit quote sufficient indicia of reliability to furnish reasonable suspicion that the suspect was engaged in criminal activity and justify an investigatory stop however the Supreme Court also held in the 2000 case of Florida versus JL that an anonymous tip that an individual was carrying a gun was insufficient on its own to justify a police officer's stop and frisk of that person the court explained that quote the tip in the instant case lacked the moderate indicio of reliability present in white and essential to the Court's decision in that case the anonymous call concerning JL provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant's knowledge or credibility all the police had to go on in this case was the bare report of an unknown unaccountable informant who neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information given the highly fact specific level of analysis required for this type of determination and the limited and conflicting details we have about the individual who called 9-1-1 and what he said it is nearly impossible to predict what a court would decide in this situation however if the tip was made anonymously and did not include any information besides Mr watkins's name and address it seems likely that a court would conclude that the officers did not have the Reasonable Suspicion to detain him without additional corroborating evidence Target for no reason well come talk to us we can let him out of cuffs because of school shootings we take it seriously hey Sarge this is his mom and is that what they're doing Frank any dinosaurs yeah I know 80. you haven't ate him last night same thing same thing we were worried about you don't say a day um your address his name is everything people was pranking y'all gonna have to figure this out okay yeah I I mean it's hard to me like it's hard to like really explain like tell you what's really going on the officers eventually determined that Mr Watkins had been swatted and did not pose an actual threat and they released him from the back of the vehicle it is unclear whether Mr Watkins intends to file a complaint or take any legal action against the officers involved as of the date of this episode the individual who swatted Mr Watkins has not been publicly identified overall the Cincinnati officers get a c because although they were not overly aggressive in their demeanor they repeatedly talked over Mr Watkins instead of listening to him and used unnecessarily restrictive detention methods on Mr Watkins even after several individuals that explained that this was an instance of swatting while I appreciate that the officers did not use physical force or otherwise escalate the situation there was absolutely no reason to handcuff Mr Watkins and place him in the back of the police cruiser once they confirmed he did not have a weapon on his person as Mr Watkins remained cooperative and non-violent throughout the encounter and by the time they put him in the cruiser at least two different individuals had confirmed that the call was made by a swatter and there was no legitimate threat the officers repeatedly demonstrated that they did not understand what swatting was for instance by making comments implying that Mr Watkins had made the call himself as a prank and although I understand that they may not have dealt with this issue before in Cincinnati Ohio I would encourage them to educate themselves on the subject considering how prevalent it has become in the field of modern policing Mr Watkins gets an a for maintaining a relatively calm demeanor throughout the encounter exercising patience while the officers attempted to understand the situation and expressing his disagreement with the officers overly restrictive methods of detention while I do not have enough information to make an informed assessment of the constitutionality of the officer's actions it is certainly feasible that they violated Mr watkins's rights by detaining him handcuffing him and placing him in the police cruiser potentially without Reasonable Suspicion I commend Mr Watkins for making rational decisions when faced with an unforeseen frightening situation and although he could have expressed a stronger descent to his restrictive detention I certainly understand why he chose to Simply comply in this situation finally the swatter gets an F for senselessly placing Mr Watkins and his family in potential danger wasting Community Resources on a prank diverting Law Enforcement Officers away from protecting against actual crime and likely committing state and federal criminal offenses swatting is not only illegal but it can also be deadly and multiple people have been killed during various swatting incidents contrary to what some individuals believe swatting is not a harmless prank and I would strongly urge the swatter to reconsider any plans they have to swat again in the future let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out my second channel for even more police interaction content [Music] foreign [Music]