Here is the video I shared with you on today’s Morning Browser that was posted on YouTube last night by members of the United Mountain Defense. As I mentioned on the show, the video shows an aggressive cigar smoking Roane County Police Officer refusing to accept a valid form of government issued identification and then proceeding to physically handle the camera of the person video taping the entire incident. Another officer is later caught on tape basically apologizing and saying they were “moving on down the trail.” Probably a good idea.

Here is the description on the video:

March 3rd 2009 UMD volunteers began setting up air monitors around the TVA ash disaster. We found one spot downwind that was perfect–and go permission from the local that lived there. Within minutes TVA and Roane County police came and detained our volunteers, questioned the person that lived on the land, questioned the owner of the land, read the lease agreement, questioned all of our volunteers and took their ID–snatched a camera out of one of our volunteers hands and ordered us to take down the air monitoring station. Why doesn’t TVA want independent air monitors around the site?

More from other Tennessee blogs:

• Enclave -
  Not exactly a primer in good community policing
• KnoxViews - Video of Roane Co. cops harassing United Mountain Defense worker

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under Environment, Public Policy, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.