[sandworm101]

Whether or not someone is breaking the law is a very difficult question. A cop must figure out what a person is doing and who they are. Is the person in the middle of a mental health crisis? Are they subject to special rules such as having been previously trespassed from a location, or are they in violation of a court order? Is this person stalking someone? When first amendment-protected "speech" become non-protected shouting in breach of the peace depends largely on context. What type of property are they sanding on? Are there special rules at play, such as publicly-accessible private spaces? (bathrooms, some areas of hospitals etc.) Even then the cop must decide if an arrest will actually prevent further issues, or whether some sort of non-arrest option might be better.

[conductr]

If they're standing on a public sidewalk, not trespassing, and all they're doing is holding some video equipment... then what is the basis of the cops confrontation in the first place? Is there some probable cause to believe the cop needs to do any of those things you mentioned? Why is the cop getting involved? The root of the whole issue is that cops are over-policing. They need to know when to just leave people alone because they're not doing anything illegal or really even suspicious in most cases. The cops just want to be bully's and control every situation even if unconstitutionally.

There's dozens (hundreds?) of unenforced laws on the books. I'm sure it varies by jurisdiction (where I live, using your turn signal is optional and cops would never pull you over for failure to signal- it's effectively unheard of.) Point being, cops can decided when to police and when not to police. Recording them at work seems to be a line they do not like people to cross and they don't really care if it's constitutionally protected or not.