By Matt Agorist
Last year, 42-year-old Stephen Ruth was arrested for disabling traffic cameras, and even making YouTube videos of himself in the act, showing other people how they, too, can disable traffic cameras fairly easily. As soon as the video went viral, Ruth quickly became known as the “Red Light Robin Hood” and was soon arrested by police.
In a testament to his dedication, almost 8 months later, and he’s at it again, and arrested again.
Ruth, now 43, was arrested right after a CBS 2 report was published in which he admitted to disabling dozens of cameras over the weekend.
“I cut the cable wires, making it useless,” Ruth said. “I’ve made it dysfunctional, just like the whole red light camera program.”
Monday night, Ruth’s son posted the following on his father’s Facebook page: “Hi this is Stephens son. My father was just arrested at our house by detectives after being chased by them. He escaped them but when they came to the house he honorably turned himself in because he isn’t doing anything wrong. He’s just trying to help people and save lives.”
Ruth is charged with two counts of second degree criminal mischief, a felony, police said. If convicted, Ruth faces up to 7 years in prison on each count.
Ruth’s arrest comes just days after Suffolk County Legislator Robert Trotta called for the suspension of the county’s red light camera program. Calling it “Taxation by Citation,” Trotta pointed out how the cameras have generated nearly $28 million in a year, but noted how nearly half the intersections with cameras have seen an increase in accidents.
Last year, Ruth was frustrated after receiving six tickets, and wanted to make a statement about the revenue-generating scam, so he decided to get creative.
In the video, Ruth used a pole to shift the view of the camera into the sky, saying that he saved innocent drivers “at least 10,000 today.”
“[The red light cameras are] abusive. People are making full stops and they’re still getting tickets. Make a right after making sure no one is coming on the left, and you still get the ticket in the mail,” Ruth told NBC 4 New York.
“It’s abuse on the hard-working American and with the taxes we pay; it’s not necessary,” he said, adding that he was proud of what he did, even though he got arrested.
“Naturally, I thought I was going to be arrested. I thought it was a cause I was willing to fight for and I am still willing to fight for otherwise I wouldn’t be incriminating myself on Facebook,” he said.
After reports of this story went viral, Ruth became an Internet legend and a hero to the people of Suffolk.
Suffolk Police Commanding Officer Milagros Soto disagrees, however, saying that Ruth is a criminal and not a hero. “[The red light cameras are] placed at specific locations where there’s been high rates of crashes. Tampering with these cameras is a crime,” Soto said.
Matt Agorist is the co-founder of TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.
Our government is nothing more than a legalized Mafia.
The top leadership is worse than MAFIA leadership. MAFIA are more human and have some civility.
Not even legal, half the crap they do.
In most cases, state and local governments arrange to lease the cameras from companies taking a cut of ticket revenue first, with the excess going to the states and municipalities.
Occasionally, all the profit is going to the private corporations, not to the city or the state, which in addition to infringement issues will ultimately lead to their disuse.
The merger of State and Corporations is the working definition of Fascism.
LONG LIVE Red Light Robin Hood – may the red light cameras dissolve before our eyes and before they can issue tickets.
Thought I might try flashing a powerful led light to diffuse the camera lens.
A simple LED light will have no effect. Other than to get yourself put in jail.
A very interesting ‘right’ = to drive through red lights at will.
Better to get rid of the cars = save 33,000 lives every year.
““[The red light cameras are] abusive. People are making full stops
and they’re still getting tickets. Make a right after making sure no one
is coming on the left, and you still get the ticket in the mail,” Ruth told NBC 4 New York.
“It’s abuse on the hard-working American and with the taxes we pay; it’s not necessary,” he said”
What do you expect a person to say, who has gotten a ticket for running a red light?
America’s penitentiaries are filled with innocent victims of police frame ups … not!
More — not fewer — speed and red light cameras.
Those things are the worst. They’re dangerous. People see em at the last second and come to a screeching halt the second a light turns yellow fearing a ticket. It’s a natural reaction. Not to mention they’ve got nothing to do with safety in the first place, plus they shorten the time of the yellow to generate more revenue, making them even worse than otherwise. They should ban those things outright.
Respectfully, those red light cameras are probably the reason for the crashes in some cases. The ones they installed here in Escambie and Santa Rosa Counties Florida emit a bright flash which blinds drivers for up to 15 seconds.
Do the money grubbing idiots know what can happen in the time it takes for a person to slow down from something like that? NO! And they don’t care either, they still issue the tickets with it being their own fault!
That’s a stretch
It got worse after George H. W. Bush “appeared” – or was created – and joined the USNavy in 1942. The subterfuge increased after he appeared in TX in 1948 and became an oil tycoon. With his “election” to congress, the subterfuge began to mushroom.
Former OSS general Russell S. Bowen, after years of carrying out subterfuge on order of GHWBush, had a book published in 1992: “The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed.” For a more thorough elaboration of the evil family prior to WWII and up to 2000, search the internet on the phrase, 4 generations of treason.
Bush and Casey created the “October Surprise of 1980,” a coup on the American people and the Carter administration. (“Profits of War Inside the Secret U.S.- Israeli Arms Network,” p. 75.
All law enforcement is for profit. Privitized jail, probation, drug testing “criminals”, tethers, lawyers…everyone gets paid, except the poor saps enforcing these “laws”.
If people just followed the rules of the road, they wouldn’t get speeding or red light camera tickets. But that being said, they always shorten up the yellow light time in order to get more citations to make more revenue, PLUS, collisions go up at intersections where the cameras are and they are often times worse than they would normally have been because people speed up to avoid being caught by the cameras.
The smarter plan, if you can’t educate people on the rules of the road, is to LOCK DOWN the intersections for two or three seconds with red lights all directions before they change to green. THAT will really save lives and property. But they won’t do that because it makes way too much sense, which is something bureaucraps have no clue about.
The $42.4 billion payout they try to hook you with in ads here is really just being able to claim a sales tax deduction. My tax attorney told me that is what it is. They call it a payout or rebate, but it is only a deduction that your tax guy will tax anyway. I hate the way they try to manipulate us with their false headlines!
Now if someone would do something about those ubiquitous police cameras staring down inside our cars 24/7, such as here in Bullhead City, Arizona – and across this once-free country, before lunatics began getting away with their indecencies.
Sorry but no sympathy here.
The problem is the cars themselves … not the system meant to ‘profit’ from the cars’ use. Maybe if gasoline cost $10/gallon (and electricity $1/kwh) there would be no need for automated fee collection; as it is, the fees are too low and more of the nuisance variety instead of the means to reduce driving in a meaningful way.
Because there is no meaningful administrative reduction in driving there will be the ‘other’ kind … the kind where the entire country is bankrupted and NOBODY has any fuel.
Go ahead and scoff but this dynamic is underway right now under your’s and everyone else’s nose and there is not a thing anyone can do about it.
Are you retarded?
Personally, I don’t care. But your car (and your parents’ and theirs’) have bankrupted the entire world. That means YOU and YOURS are going to pay and you have no idea what kind of payments your and yours are going to have to make.
Crash in oil prices is the overture.
You could of just said “yes”.
The problem is cars? A non sequitur and a whole different conversation. You’ve no sympathy for someone who’s law abiding and been blamelessly victimized by an incompetent bureaucracy? I’ll leave you to the opaque conversation you’re having with yourself…
Nope, cars are fair game.
Get rid of them and there are no problems with EZ Pass or red-light cameras.
A solution as wise as it is a germane retort.
The real criminals are the erectors of red light camera’s for the purpose of picking the public’s pocket and have the gall to expect the citizenry to believe it’s all for safety. “[The red light cameras are] placed at specific locations where there’s a high expectation of income, not safety. Highway robbery under color of law. The cameras and the pilfering public “servants” need to come down. Jury nullification would put a stop to this.