Was He Arrested By A Lafayette Parish Deputy For Interfering With An Investigation Or Videoing An Officer Doing His Duty?

Alexander John Lege was arrested recently on Ambassador Caffery by a Lafayette Parish Sheriff's deputy and jailed overnight.  Lege was filming a traffic stop when he was approached by the deputy and questioned.

After being questioned by the deputy and his supervisor, Lege was arrested.  According to the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office Lege was arrested for interfering with an investigation.  Watch the video and tell us if you think Leger was interfering with police work, unlawfully recording police at work or loitering.

*** NOTE EXPLICIT LANGUAGE!

You can watch the full 15 minute video here.

After watching please leave a comment.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Department Public Information Officer Kip Judice tells KPEL, " What the deputy perceived was an interference of his investigation, 'Was this vehicle, in close proximity to him with two people sitting inside of it placing an officer's safety issue in play, so the deputy could not complete his investigation?' That is the allegation that Deputy Broussard has made against Mr. Lege."

Judice says,

"Well the district attorney will review all the facts, the report, and make a determination or not to file official charges, if they do then we get a trial date, if they don't, then the case is over, and we move on. Certainly, we at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office understand a citizen's right to videotape us. We don't have a problem with that. We're accepting of that. The issue is, that needs to be done that's safe enough for us to be able to perform whatever duties we are doing, and not cause any other persons to be put in harm's way. The person that was stopped in this traffic stop was actually concerned about who was videotaping her. She had some concerns.  She said, 'Well, is this guy going to follow me when I leave? Why is he here. Is he with you?' Those kinds of questions. So, certainly if she has concerns, then the deputy's concerns are going to be greater than that."

Judice says the Lafayette Sheriff's Department understands the public's right to view and tape events. He says, "If you become an advocate, if you become someone who feels the necessity to document something by videotape with regards to a police presence, specifically with the regards to the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office we just asked that you do it from a safe distance, a distance where we can perform our duties and without having to have another pair of eyes in the back of our heads. Our jobs are already hard enough and to throw another person or another factor into the mix for an officer to have to deal with, with safety, in the middle of the night is just not wise for us to have to deal with it's just not wise to let that happen."