The eyes of the First Amendment auditing world turned to New York City on Thursday when luminaries of the New York auditing scene including Leonard “Leroy Truth” Filipowski and SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes protested a demonstration by New York City Police in favor of New York’s version of a halo law.
The proposed action would establish a 15-foot “halo” area around first responders, including fire fighters, police and emergency medical technicians when they are engaged in their official duties.
Like other halo laws enacted across the United States, the law would prevent recording in the security buffer zone. It would also give the first responders the ability to give someone a single warning to exit the exclusion zone before police would have the ability to arrest that person.
Violating the zone after a warning could lead to arrest and the person would be charged with a class B misdemeanor. A class B misdemeanor under existing New York law can result in a punishment of up to 90 days in jail, a fine of up to $500.00 or both.
While the law is currently working its way through the state legislature, First Amendment auditors like Reyes have pointed out that the law may fly in the face of New York’s existing right to record laws, which give citizens the right to record police in the course of their normal duties.
Reyes is currently suing the state over an incident where he was trespassed from a police station for recording. He claimed in the lawsuit that New York’s Right to Record law supersedes existing case law governing non-public forums as it does not specify limits on where citizens can record within police precincts.
Thursday’s anti-police protests were held by a small number of First Amendment auditors at city hall in New York City. They gathered outside the area where a private function was being held in support of the bill.
While claiming to be legitimate members of the press, Filipowski and others were denied entry into the gathering as they held no certified press credentials. Filipowski argued in vain that there was “no such thing” as press credentials, making the common first amendment auditing argument that anyone with a camera on their phone could be classified as a journalist.
His argument did not sway the police officers working the gate to the event, who eventually moved the small group of auditors away as they were creating a bottleneck and preventing attendees from accessing the gathering.
Filipowski milled about the area for a few hours, being rebuffed in his attempts to interview police officers on scene. Most of the officers he approached stood silently and refused to speak to him, often turning their backs on him, or completely walked away from his questioning.
At one point and electronic billboard truck featuring messages supporting the bill appeared and in a surreal moment, one of the First Amendment auditors changed into a novelty police outfit with a pig mask and began making racist comments in support of the police.
While Reyes ended his livestream in support of the auditors early as he said he had “things to do,” Filipowski’s largely impotent gathering continued for roughly two hours. Filipowski’s event ended without further incidents or arrests.
