When defense attorney Jesse Bright was pulled over in North Carolina while moonlighting as an Uber driver, he began filming the encounter. Allegedly, he had been pulled over for picking up a...
When defense attorney Jesse Bright was pulled over in North Carolina while moonlighting as an Uber driver, he began filming the encounter. Allegedly, he had...
Becker has been with the department 17 years . Police spokeswoman Linda Thompson told The Associated Press an investigation of the incident was closed Thursday. She could not say whether the demotion was directly related to the investigation.
The officers demanded he turn off his phone, citing a reportedly non-existent state law, but what they didn't know was that Jesse Bright was a defense attorney – moonlighting as a driver to make some extra cash in an effort to pay off his student loans. Now, one of the officers involved has been demoted.
Michael Roppolo is a CBS News reporter. He covers a wide variety of topics, including science and technology, crime and justice, and disability rights.
After a search, police let Bright go - without an apology, he tells CBS News. After Bright went public with the incident, the police department released a statement saying they were launching an internal investigation.
He then threatened him with jail and police began to search the car. Again, Bright refused to allow his car to be searched.
In the first of three videos Bright posted of the February 26 confrontation, one of the officers tells Bright that the passenger was caught leaving a drug house. He also asks Bright if he had anything in the car that he needed "to be concerned about" and if he would mind if he looked.
N.C. cop who told Uber driver not to record gets demoted. WILMINGTON, N.C. -- When police stopped an Uber driver to detain his passenger last month, he immediately turned on his cellphone and started recording. The officers demanded he turn off his phone, citing a reportedly non-existent state law, but what they didn't know was ...
During a Feb. 26 traffic stop in Wilmington, N.C., Uber driver Jesse Bright pulled out his phone and began filming. One of the officers told Bright to turn his phone off, or he would be taken to jail. (Jesse Bright)
As he aimed his phone in the direction of officers and recorded, Bright was surprised to hear Wilmington police Sgt. Kenneth Becker tell him that there was a new state law that prohibited him from recording police.
Yes, you have a right to record the police.
He noted that suppressing video is in an officer’s best interest because it allows police to dictate the narrative later if a case arises. Advertisement.
Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous said in a statement this week that his department has “launched an internal investigation” into the Feb. 26 incident.
A black woman called 911 because she was afraid of a police officer. A violent arrest followed.
Bright was driving for Uber to make some extra cash, but he works full-time as criminal defense attorney in North Carolina.
The Feb. 26, 2017 traffic stop involving Sgt. Kenneth Baker and Uber driver Jesse Bright – during which Becker was captured on cell phone video threatening to take Bright to jail if he continued to video the encounter – took the internet by storm.
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - A Wilmington police officer who was demoted last year after he wrongly told an Uber-driving attorney he could not film law enforcement officers was reinstated to his former position earlier this year, then abruptly retired the next day .
Though the deputy, who was never identified, was only "counseled" following the encounter, three weeks later Becker was demoted, which included a pay decrease, and reassigned.
Becker was demoted from sergeant to corporal and reassigned several weeks after the incident, and the Wilmington Police Department issued a statement to reassure the public that you can, in fact, record police. That statement was also passed to each officer in the department, officials said at that time.
But Becker was later reinstated after appealing his demotion to the city' s Civil Service Commission, a group that can overturn personnel actions taken by city departments. Though the Commission is subject to the state's open records law, discussions or decisions concerning personnel remain confidential, keeping most of this situation's details out of the public sphere.