Best Chicago Defense Lawyer Robert J Callahan Weighs in on Recording The Police In Illinois

VO: If someone is feeling harassed, or that they might be in trouble, can they video record the police? Bob: Video recording the police, and this is what differentiates Illinois from a lot of the other states in the United States is it is a felony offense to record the police while they’re executing an arrest. On top of that, the police are going to get pretty upset about that. They don’t like to be recorded for a lot of different reasons, both proper and improper. They’ve been trying to put cameras in the police cars here for years. And what the police department always says is, “We can’t afford it, our budget is too low”. But believe me, the hardworking officer on the street doesn’t want a camera in his car. With all the, with all the different lawsuits now there’s everything from legitimate reasons they don’t want to have this footage used against them later in a lawsuit later on to having it affect the prosecution of the case later on. It’s almost always going to hurt them.