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Public Safety Outweigh Petitioner 's First Amendment Right

Decent Essays

C. The interest of public safety outweighs Petitioner’s First Amendment right to record.
Petitioner’s recording posed an unreasonable risk to bystanders, passing motorist, and the police, essentially creating an inherently dangerous situation. Kelly v. Borough of Carlisle, 622 F.3d 248, 262 (3d Cir. 2010). The Third Circuit has firmly recognized that traffic stops are especially fraught with danger to police officers. Id. A traffic stop always poses danger because of its unpredictable nature, but even more so, when a potential suspect is on the loose. Petitioner was a suspect for a crime of several residential break-ins, which a reasonable office would assume is armed and dangerous; thus creating a heightened risk to the officers’ safety. Furthermore, the Petitioner was stopped on the side of a road congested with traffic. If the officers do not maintain control of the situation, any unpredictable movement could result in grave injury; therefore, the police officers acted reasonably by minimizing the unnecessary danger added by Petitioner’s recording during an already dangerous situation.
D. Petitioner’s recording is not a matter of public interest that carried any expressive or communicative purpose.
The encounter Petitioner recorded is not a matter of public interest. Although there is a broad First Amendment right to film matters of public interest, the extend of that right to film public officials have not been explicitly defined by the Supreme Court or any other

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