NYPD Commissioner Says Police Plagued by People Filming Arrests

The United States is suffering from an "epidemic" of people recording law enforcement officers making arrests, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Wednesday.

Bratton's comments came on the heels of his department's investigation into a controversial video of an officer in Harlem who allegedly pointed a gun at people filming a bust and then punched one of them.

"When you interfere with a police officer making a lawful arrest, you with your cameras attempt to really get into it — I'm not talking about standing back 10, 15 feet — or incite by yelling and screaming, raising the tension level, then you are creating circumstances that are dangerous for the public and dangerous for the police officers," Bratton said after an event in Manhattan.

"This has become a very serious — I would almost describe it as an epidemic in this country," Bratton told the New York Post .