DADvocate

Philadelphia Emmy award winning anchor Alycia Lane was arrested in New York for assault with intent to cause physical injury to an officer. The incident sounds like a prima donna news woman losing control.

According to the police complaint, the Emmy-winning anchor yelled at the female police officer, "I don't give a f--- who you are, I'm a f---ing TV reporter, you f---ing dyke," according to Philadelphiawilldo.com, a Philadelphia Weekly blog.

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Lane, 35, her current honey, Q102 morning host Chris Booker, and another couple were in a cab behind a slow-moving unmarked cop car, the New York Post reported. One of the males jumped out and headed to the police vehicle, screaming, "I don't care if you're a cop, drive faster!" the newspaper said.

The officers got out and identified themselves to Lane and company, and Lane began to take photos, according to the paper. The female cop asked her to step back and that's when Lane lost it, according to the Post.

A station source said Lane's iPhone was confiscated by cops as evidence.

The confiscation of the iPhone is important.

As much as I'd like to revel in the problems of a more than pretty, possibly narcissistic minor celebrity, a couple of other items I came across today make me wonder.

Reason.com posted an article on cops getting away wit murder in Chicago.

An eight-month Chicago Tribune investigation of 200+ police shootings going back 10 years found that within hours of a police shooting, the police department convenes hastily-assembled, wagon-circling "roundtables" of law enforcement officials where police and witnesses are questioned but not sworn or recorded, where the officers involved are allowed to confer to get their stories straight before being questioned, and where the inevitable conclusion is always that the shooting was justified. From there, broader, show-investigations begin. Key witnesses go uninterviewed. Forensic evidence is ignored. And the shooting officer is inevitably exonerated.

Combine this with the apparent cover-up of Drew Peterson and his wives' fates and you get a pretty ugly picture beginning to develop.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds (I'm not sure why he includes "Harlan", but I like it.) wrote a column for the January issue of Popular Mechanics, Watching the Watchers: Why Surveillance Is a Two-Way Street. A few of his points:

But try shooting photos or video of police or ­other public officials as they go about their business and you might find yourself in wrist restraints.

In recent months such cases have been piling up. Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pa., was a passenger in his friend's car when the police pulled the vehicle over for speeding. When Kelly began videotaping, he was arrested and charged with violating a state wiretap statute and thrown in jail overnight. Charges were dropped when the district attorney recognized that recording police in public isn't much like wiretapping. In addition, the DA said that the police had no expectation of privacy when they themselves were recording the incident. Michael Gannon, of Nashua, N.H., faced similar charges when he used a front-door security camera to record what he considered to be overly aggressive behavior by a detective. The charges against Gannon were dropped. That's the eventual outcome in most such cases, though sometimes photographs and video are lost in the process. (Emphases added)

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In October 2007, an elite unit of the Chicago Police Department was disbanded after video emerged of its members shaking down barroom customers. A policeman in Puerto Rico is under FBI investigation because video—uploaded to YouTube—apparently shows him executing an unarmed man. And a Baltimore woman recently won a $180,000 false arrest and imprisonment lawsuit based on police videotape evidence that confirmed a different but similarly dressed woman was the one buying drugs.

Supporters of widespread surveillance often argue, "If you're obeying the law, you have nothing to fear." Why shouldn't the same go for police officers? The cases above all involve accusations of extreme misconduct or errors on the part of police. Let's hope those are rare.

That is the same Chicago police department that seems to be getting away with murder. Ms. Lane tried "shooting photos or video of police" and she found herself in wrist restraints. Was Reynolds being prophetic?

So, what happened in New York? Do we really have a prima donna news lady slapping a female police officer or do we have police officers using their color of authority to arrest and "teach a lesson" to the news lady? Will ALL pictures Ms. Lane took be on the iPhone when it is returned to her? And, should we start watching the watchers more closely?