For videographer, a weekend in jail was too high a price

A man detained last Friday while shooting video outside St. Paul police headquarters says he would have stood his ground if it hadn't meant spending the holiday weekend in jail.

A police officer detained Andrew Henderson, who said he was "gathering content," and told him the sidewalk he was standing on was private property.

"I would have argued the public versus private property with that officer, but I just didn't want to end up in jail on the weekend," said Henderson, who describes himself as a police accountability activist.

Sgt. Paul Paulos, St. Paul police spokesperson, said Henderson was filming right across the street from the department's headquarters, and "security measures are needed to keep [officers] safe."

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"It's a security issue," he said, "so we have to set those boundaries and look at what's public and private." He said the police department was "working with the city attorney to establish that."

On the Friday before Memorial Day, Henderson stood on the sidewalk hoping to gather images of police failing to use seat belts. He explained in a video that he was doing so because police were conducting a crackdown on drivers who failed to buckle up.

Henderson apparently succeeded in that effort. The video he posted to YouTube appears to show several squad cars whose occupants were not belted in.

"You're not planning an attack on the police department or anything, are you?" an officer in squad car asks Henderson in the video.

"Oh, no," Henderson replies. "Not me."

Later, another squad car pulls up, and St. Paul officer Armando Abla-Reyes tells Henderson that he's filming on private property. "There's people here, civilians that are concerned," Abla-Reyes says in the video. "They are concerned that you are videotaping them and so they are afraid for their safety."

The officer takes Henderson's ID, tells him to wait, and returns to his car. Then he returns, gives Henderson his ID tells him to leave the area.

"Seeing it was a Friday and a holiday weekend I did not want to spend, you know, the holiday weekend in jail," he said. "That's pretty much the only reason I left."

Henderson, who works as a welder, said he was motivated to monitor the police years ago after seeing officers treat a suspect roughly. He said he started filming officers as a way of holding them accountable.

The practice sometimes gets him in trouble with the police. In 2012, he videotaped Ramsey County sheriff's deputies arresting a man in a parking lot in Little Canada. The officers confiscated Henderson's camera and charged him with obstructing justice.

A Ramsey County jury found him not guilty of the charges in February, 2014.

Henderson said his main goal of taping police is to present a more public view of officer conduct.

"Some officers are more than happy to be filmed; other officers absolutely hate it," he said. "Some of them even welcome it because if a suspect acts aggressively towards them or anything like, they have my video also to back them up."

Henderson instructs others about how to film police, and said he'd like to get more people involved in the practice. "I can't do everything," he said. "I've a job, I've a social life, a family, everything like that."