WICHITA, KS – A Wichita man is asking questions after he claims police disabled his security camera’s inside his home after police say they were searching for a shooting suspect.
Can police disable your security cameras when they enter your house?
“Then they just want to toss my stuff around so that I can not see anything else going on in my house.,” says Rogers. “Mad, you know, disappointed and angry that they would even do that.”
What his security camera footage appears to show is someone with a law enforcement agency knocking his security unit to the ground. He says during the video law enforcement did not have a warrant to be in his home. Something neither the sheriff’s office or police department is able to confirm right now.
Rogers claims in another video his camera system was disabled. Law enforcement was looking for Eli Mendoza, who Rogers says has been staying at his home. It is unknown right now if a warrant had been served. Wichita police will only say it was a multi-agency response, and they were lawfully at the home. But even if law enforcement was there legally was what Rogers is claiming happened legal?
“What authorized them to turn off the camera and why in the world would they need to be turned off in the era of transparency?” asks Defense Attorney Dan Monnat.
Monnat says just because officers can lawfully be in your home the homeowner still has a right to privacy.
“In the modern era it is difficult to imagine a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement that would permit the disarming or unplugging of a private homeowners security camera,” says Monnat.
News outlets are still asking both the sheriff’s office and police department questions to find out which agency was responsible for turning the camera off.