Star’s view: To serve and respect,

Ordinary citizens have the right to videotape police officers as they go about their duties in public. Toronto police say there’s no question about that.

No matter what they say, however, some officers clearly don’t like this kind of attention. And they’re quite prepared to use bully-boy tactics to intimidate members of the public from exercising their rights.

That’s what happened when Mike Miller turned his phone camera on a couple of police officers who were detaining and searching two black youths in the Jane-Lawrence area late in the afternoon of Sept. 14.

Minutes after he started recording the scene, two other officers from the TAVIS unit showed up and effectively vetoed his right to do that by getting uncomfortably close and blocking his view.

The video, posted on thestar.com, shows Constables Brian Smith and Shawn Gill invading Miller’s personal space and forcing him to keep moving backwards. Smith even blocks his lens with his hand.

Ironically, the officers freely acknowledge his right to videotape. “You can record,” says Gill. “You’re in public. No reasonable expectation of privacy. Exactly.”

The officers clearly knew what they were supposed to be doing — respecting a citizen’s right to be a public witness. They just wouldn’t do it. Miller himself says he felt intimidated. “When you express your rights, this is how police sort of deal with you,” he told the Star. “They want to put you in your place and belittle you and make you feel humiliated.”

Even the officers’ ostensible reason for blocking the camera — that the youths being detained were minors — doesn’t stand up. The law prevents publishing such information, not recording it.

The Toronto Police Service itself seems embarrassed by how the officers handled the situation. It says a review is underway.

That’s the very least that should happen. Miller should not be forced to launch a time-consuming complaint through the Office of the Independent Police Review Director when the evidence on the video is so clear.

The officers involved — and all police — need to understand that it isn’t enough just to pay lip service to the right of citizens to witness and record their public activities. They need to actually respect it. Most importantl, they need to act with respect towards the people they are paid to serve.

The police seem embarrassed by how the officers handled the situation