http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/06/25/cops-try-to-muzzle-photo-radar-watchdog

Cops try to muzzle photo-radar watchdog
By Ross Romaniuk ,Winnipeg Sun
First posted: Saturday, June 25, 2011 6:26:49 CDT PM 
 
 

Wise-Up Winnipeg claims city police officers are hassling its volunteers to keep them from alerting motorists to the presence of mobile enforcement units and photo-radar vans. One volunteer says a cop even threatened to try to charge him.

(BRIAN DONOGH/Winnipeg Sun files)

A group opposing Winnipeg’s use of what it calls predatory photo-radar tactics claims city police are intimidating its volunteers who use signs to warn drivers about speed cameras.

After Wise-Up Winnipeg recently stepped up its efforts to warn motorists about mobile enforcement units and the city’s “entrapment” to boost fine revenue, the group said Thursday that it’s being hassled by police in an effort to keep the revenue pouring in.

“This is simply the Winnipeg Police Service’s reaction to Wise-Up Winnipeg’s ‘taking it to the street’ campaign,” Chris Sweryda told the Winnipeg Sun of an incident on Tuesday in which an officer confiscated two of the grassroots organization’s signs that say, “$low down, photo enforcement ahead.”

While Sweryda, 23, used the signs on Sturgeon Road to warn motorists of a camera-equipped vehicle parked north of Ness Avenue, a cop riding a motorcycle pulled up and talked to the photo-radar van’s driver. The officer then talked to Sweryda, who videotaped much of the encounter, about the signs. The cop seized the signs before leaving.

“He took my licence and registration, and said he is going to go through bylaws and try to figure out if he can charge me with something,” Sweryda said, accusing police and ACS Public Sector Solutions — a contractor providing the mobile camera units — of working together against Wise-Up to keep the “cash cow” going.

“It’s obviously a joint effort. (The officer) spent as much time talking to the photo radar operator as he spent talking to me. If this was simply an issue of me putting signs on the road, what has it got to do with the photo radar?”

Wise-Up Winnipeg has long pointed to a wider problem surrounding the city’s placement of speed limit signs where drivers don’t easily see them, such as one along southbound Moray Street that is high and well hidden behind trees just north of Ness Avenue.

But the police attempts to keep Wise-Up’s signs off the streets, said group spokesman Dave MacKay, go across an ethical and legal line.

“We see it as harassment,” MacKay said. “And intimidation — no question.”

Police did not return a call for comment.

Ban the Cams note:  WE WONDER WHY.  Maybe it is because the police BROKE THE LAW THEMESELVES!

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