Richard Danielson
The City Council this week
approved the settlement to Leeanna Presson, 40.
Presson was arrested on Feb. 2,
2013, in front of her Interbay-area home. In a claim sent to City Hall, her
attorney, Michael Maddux of Tampa, outlined this sequence of events:
Presson and her husband,
William Viers, had friends visiting when Viers went out for cigarettes. Police
Cpl. Mark Altimari pulled him over near his home.
When Presson approached her
husband's truck to see what was going on, Altimari told her to back away. She
did, then went inside to get her cellphone after seeing what she felt was some
rough treatment of her husband. She shot the video from 20 to 30 feet away.
There are two videos from that
night. The first, about 2 ½ minutes, mainly shows several vehicles. As Presson
moves in closer, a man says, stay over there.
"I have every right to be
here," she said.
"No, you don't," said
the man, who is not seen.
"Actually, I do," she
said. "I know my rights. I talked to my attorney."
The second video, which lasts
16 seconds, shows virtually nothing, but Presson can be heard pleading,
"Please don't take me to jail. Please. I am a good person."
"You should have thought
about that when I told you three times to leave," a man's voice said.
"You didn't tell me three
times to leave," she said. "You told me once."
In his claim letter, Maddux
said Officer Lanard Taylor told Presson to stop making the video and
"rushed to grab the phone away from her."
When Presson said she was
within her rights to shoot the video, Maddux said, Taylor pushed her up against
a fence, swung her around and handcuffed her, bruising her wrists and hurting
her back and shoulders.
Presson, who works as an
account representative for a printing company, had no criminal record in
Florida. She was charged with obstructing or opposing an officer without
violence, a misdemeanor.
Three months later,
Hillsborough prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence of obstruction
and dropped the charge. (Viers, 41, pleaded no contest to DUI with a
blood-alcohol content over 0.15 percent. He was judged guilty and sentenced to
12 months' probation, 50 hours of community service and a six-month revocation
of his license.)
Presson did not interfere with
police, Maddux said. Her claim against the city alleged false arrest, excessive
force and a violation of her rights under the First Amendment.
"When she's not even the
focus of the criminal conduct that's being investigated, a DUI, it's definitely
misguided to direct force onto a person who's exercising their First Amendment
rights," Maddux said.
In a summary for the City
Council, assistant city attorney Ursula Richardson said City Hall denied any
liability. Still, she added that if Presson sued and won a verdict, the
judgment probably would be as big as or bigger than the settlement.
Police spokeswoman Janelle
McGregor said Taylor would not comment. Altimari has since retired and could
not be reached.
Presson's claim reflects a
larger trend shaping police work.
A while back, police Chief Jane
Castor told a group of students at City Hall that one of the biggest changes
she has seen in her three-decade career is that now everyone has a camera.
Increasingly that includes
police themselves. Tampa this week opened bids from five companies vying to
sell the city body-mounted digital cameras for officers. Also, President Barack
Obama said he would seek funding to provide 50,000 body cameras to police
nationwide.
In Tampa, new officers are
trained "on the importance of protecting the constitutional rights of all
citizens," including the right to make videos of "on-duty police
officers as long as they don't interfere with law enforcement duties,"
McGregor said. That's backed up with continuing education, supervisor workshops
and legal bulletins.
In March — months after Presson
made her claim — senior assistant city attorney Kirby Rainsberger warned Tampa
officers, "don't expect the courts to protect you from the annoyance of
having your general activities recorded from an appropriate distance."
In a one-page legal bulletin,
Rainsberger said, "with very few restrictions, this recording is both
legal and consistent with TPD's philosophy of openness and transparency."
Even when the people behind the
camera make profane comments, "this sort of activity is generally
constitutionally protected up until the point where the recording individual
substantially interferes with law enforcement duties," he said. "The
officer bears a heavy burden to prove that the interference substantially
outweighs the protected activity."
Times researcher John Martin
contributed to this report.
