By Tim White
FALL RIVER, Mass. (WPRI) –
Lawyers for a man who was arrested for recording a Fall River police officer on
a public street asked a judge to dismiss the charges, but an agreement fell
apart at the last minute.
George Thompson, 51, of Fall
River, was arrested Jan. 6 and charged with violating the state’s wiretap
statute and resisting arrest. He will be back in court on April 11 because
prosecutors said they wanted to run the details by District Attorney Sam Sutter
before signing off on any deal.
A spokesperson for Sutter
declined to comment because the case was ongoing.
Thompson said he was using his
iPhone to record Officer Thomas Barboza talking on his cell phone and swearing
while working a construction detail. According to an arrest report Barboza
claims Thompson was attempting to conceal his phone. Thompson disputes that
saying he had arm out holding the phone.
In court Thursday Thompson’s
attorney Daniel Igo said a federal appeals court case should be considered in
throwing out the charges.
But Judge Joseph Macey was
skeptical about applying the federal ruling known as the “Glick” case, where
the First Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a Boston lawyer who was arrested
for recording police officers in a public location.
“I’m not satisfied with the
Glick case,” he said. “That’s a federal case.”
For Macey, he said it boiled
down to one question “was it secret or wasn’t it?”
The Massachusetts State Supreme
Court ruled against a civilian in a 2001 case where they upheld a charge
against a man who recorded an Abington officer in secret.
The video Thompson shot would
likely clear up the dispute, but the recording disappeared while the phone was
in an evidence room at the police station.
In an interview with Fall River
Police Chief Daniel Racine earlier this month, he said they have served a
search warrant on the Apple Corporation to try and determine what happened.
“If a Fall River police officer
erased that video, he’s fired and I would suspect the district attorney would
take out charges,” Racine said. “If any other individual did that, we will take
out felony charges.”
According to a court document
police suspect Thompson erased the video himself remotely.
“It is plausible that the owner
of the phone performed a remote factory restore through the iCloud while the
phone was in the evidence vault,” according to the court filing.
Thompson said the last thing he
wanted was for the evidence to disappear.
“The chief keeps pointing
fingers,” Thompson said. “The chief needs to look within the police
department.”
Barboza was disciplined after
he admitted to talking on his cell phone during a work detail, according to
Racine. He was placed on a one day unpaid suspension and forbidden to work
details for 15 days.
Thompson – who filed the
complaint against the officer – called the discipline a “slap in the face.”
“A five year-old in school
would get a more severe discipline,” he said.
