Liberty Minute October 18 2013

Videographer Gavin Seim was recording a traffic stop in Boise when Officer Lori Sperry approached him and ordered him to move. Seim was at least twenty-five yards away from the traffic stop, and he had done nothing to interfere or to threaten the officer. Nonetheless, Sperry aggressively confronted him, demanding to see his hands. At one point she actually tried to pull his hands from his pockets ? an act which Seim, in a complaint with the department, correctly identified as an act of criminal battery.

In an interview with Boise?s ABC affiliate, a lawyer named Joe Filicetti ? who was identified only as an attorney ? insisted that Sperry?s conduct was proper, and that she could have arrested Seim for not complying with her demands.

What the news report failed to mention is that Mr. Filicetti is an attorney with the Fraternal Order of Police. As a union lawyer, Filicetti?s job is not to provide an objective view of the law, but rather to defend the interests of officers accused of misconduct.

If Sperry had arrested Seim, she would have violated Idaho Code Section 18-706, under which an "unnecessary assault by an officer? is crime punishable by a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. But we shouldn?t expect a police union attorney to admit this.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.