Pinellas County Deputies Swarm and Threaten Candidate for Sheriff for Videotaping

In this video, a man who is a Candidate for Pinellas County Sheriff James McLynas is walking down his own street, which is reserved for "residents only". It is a one block long dead end street by the beach with a lot of foot traffic. There is no parking on the street permitted and there are no sidewalks, so everybody who lives there walks down the street to go to the stores or the beach. The man notices a half dozen cars parked along the side of the road blocking driveways and still running so he starts to video tape them. Pretty soon it becomes apparent that they are all undercover police cars and a person can be seen handcuffed sitting in a home's carport far from the street with deputies questioning her. As the man walks by filming, the Pinellas Deputies take exception with this perfectly legal and 1st amendment protected activity and swarm him like a bunch of angry wasps. You can see the one deputy immediately leave the carport where he is questioning the suspect to aggressively approach Candidate for Sheriff McLynas.

They stop him and call him over to question him. They illegally demand ID, when Florida requires that a person must have committed a crime before any officer can demand ID. The man knows this and states as much to the deputies as well as informs them that video taping is a 1st amendment protected activity. When the man refuses to provide ID, which he is legally not required to produce, several of the deputies simultaneously start claiming that the man is breaking the law by first "entering their investigation scene" which was not roped off and which they invited him to do by questioning him. They then claim that he is illegally "walking" or standing in the street. As if they all have been trained to level false charges against anyone they want to harass or arrest, each of the deputies in unison started immediately making the false allegations as apparently they have done hundreds of times. It was second nature to them.

The deputies circle the man and try to intimidate him, one deputy gets right in his face. He asks if he is being detained and the deputies avoid the question. They then claimed he broke the law by "standing" in the middle of the street and claim that this "crime" is why they approached him, when you can clearly hear in the video that there real concern was "why are you videotaping us". When the Sheriff's candidate does not appear to be intimidated by their actions, they then violate his rights by demanding he leave his own street, and "get out of their investigation scene" even though it is not taped off and the US Supreme Court has determined that 10 feet is a safe distance to record cops.

McLynas asked some of the deputy's to identify themselves and they refused, which is a violation of PCSO policy. McLynas even stated he wanted to file a complaint against the one deputy, which is the exact reason deputies are required to identify themselves, and you can see from the video, they all refused. Later it was determined that the deputy with the double chin had shot and killed a Pinellas citizen. McLynas also noticed that the one deputy with the double chin had a "handicapped" placard in the windshield of the car, which is illegal. When he filed a public records request for whose handicapped placard that was, he was told by Sheriff Gualtieri that he could not see that public record because it was a "surveillance technique". So, pretending that you are handicapped is now a "surveillance technique" at the PCSO.

Immediately after that complaint was filed, the Sheriff's office bought that deputy a brand new black on black Dodge Charger since his "undercover" vehicle had been "compromised". This is who the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office really is. This is how they act towards innocent civilians walking down their own street on a nice sunny day when they KNOW a camera is rolling. So you can just imagine how they act at the side of the road on a dark street when they know no cameras are around. This is also why the current Sheriff, Robert Gualtieri refuses to use body cams. McLynas is running for Sheriff to bring massive reforms to the Pinellas County Sheriff's office to end the widespread corruptions and abuses that go on on a daily basis in that agency. I wonder how much worse they would have treated him if they know who he was?

Let sheriff Robert Gualtieri know what you think about his deputies at rgualtieri@pcsonet.com

Видео Pinellas County Deputies Swarm and Threaten Candidate for Sheriff for Videotaping канала James McLynas For Pinellas County Sheriff