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Illinois man’s video appears to show police officer asleep in patrol car

A student at Southern Illinois University posted video on Facebook that appears to show a Carbondale police officer asleep in a patrol car.

A student at Southern Illinois University posted video on Facebook that appears to show a Carbondale police officer asleep in a patrol car.

WSIL shared the video, of an unidentified patrol officer, after it was posted online by SIU student Matt Fedora.

“When I got up to the car, is when I realized he was sleeping,” Fedora told WSIL. The video also shows Fedora confronting the officer.

“(I)t really upset me because our house was broken into last week,” Fedora said. No one was home when more than $4,000 worth of electronics were stolen, he said.

The officer is seen in the video asking Fedora, “Are you aware that it is now illegal to record police officers in public?”

Carbondale councilwoman Jane Adams said that was incorrect, and that “it’s perfectly legal to video people in public; specifically, police officers.”

Illinois eavesdropping law says only recordings that are of a conversation where at least one person involved had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The Illinois Supreme Court previously ruled the state could not criminalize recording if there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, including citizens’ public encounters with police.

The ACLU of Illinois confirmed the statute, passed in December 2014, says “we cannot be arrested or prosecuted under the new statute for recording on-duty government officials who are talking to the public as part of their jobs, because those conversations are not private.”

The Carbondale Police Department was investigating whether there may have been any workplace misconduct by the officer.

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