Santa Ana police cranked up some Disney tunes during a recent late night investigation, apparently in an effort to prevent a local blogger from filming them while they worked.

The idea, according to the videographer and others, was that because social media platforms remove home-made videos with copyright-protected music, any video made by the blogger wouldn’t spend much time online and wouldn’t be seen by many people.

The video was shot anyway. And it wound up starring Santa Ana police and a city councilman, Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, who chastised an officer for waking his neighbors and disrespecting his community.

“Guys, what’s going on with the music?” Hernandez asks officers in the video, which was shot around 11 p.m. on April 4. “I’m embarrassed this is how you’re treating my neighbors. There are children here. Have some respect for my community.”

Now, Hernandez wants to make it illegal for police in Santa Ana to play loud music while working.

“This is a serious civil rights violation,” Hernandez said in an interview this week.

Santa Ana Police Chief David Valentin on Thursday called the video concerning, and said the incident is under investigation. The department, he said, has a policy that acknowledges members of the public can photograph and video record police officers, and that police “will not prohibit or intentionally interfere with such lawful recordings.”

“I’m disturbed by what’s apparently on the video,” Valentin said.

He said there’s no policy or directive in the department that tells officers to avoid being videotaped by playing copyrighted music. Instead, he said, officers are told to assume they are being recorded.

“What is apparent in the video is the playing of music allegedly from a PA system,” Valentin said. “That’s not something that we train to (do). That is not something that is appropriate. And that’s what I’m concerned with.”

This is what happened in the Artesia Pilar neighborhood, as recorded in a video that’s been posted to social media and has since made national news:

A resident who runs the YouTube channel Santa Ana Audits — which focuses on police videos — began filming after at least six patrol cars, with lights flashing, arrived up near Civic Center and North Western, where officers surrounded a Porsche they believed to be stolen.

In reference to the car, the resident videographer speculated: “It must have been a high speed chase or something.”

Soon, the song “You Have a Friend in Me” — a Randy Newman hit from the 1995 movie “Toy Story” — could be heard playing at an extremely high volume from one of the patrol cars. Several other Disney songs followed during the course of the video.

The resident videographer complained that police played the Disney tunes on purpose to prevent him from posting his videos online, since videos can be pulled down if accompanying music violates copyright infringement laws.

“You guys get paid to listen to music and stand around?” he yelled at officers.

A neighbor also turned up at the scene, asking officers: “Can you turn the music down? I want to go to bed.”

In his home, about half a block away, Hernandez also heard the music, and he soon appeared at the scene.

“Guys, what’s going on with the music?” he asked. “Why are you playing Disney music?

An officer mentioned, as the videographer suspected, copyright infringement laws.

“He knows I have a YouTube channel!” the videographer told Hernandez.

“You’re using our resources?” Hernandez asked police.

The officer said he wasn’t. Hernandez noted that they were on the job, working on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Do you know who I am?” he then asked.

The officer said he recognized him: “You’re a city council person.”

“Absolutely,” Hernandez said. “And this is my district. You’re not going to conduct yourself like that in front of my neighbors.”

“I apologize,” the officer responded.

Pointing to the resident with the YouTube channel, Hernandez added: “Apologize to him.”

And he did, one of several apologies that followed. “I realize my mistake,” the officer said.

“I’m embarrassed that this is how you’re treating my neighbors,” Hernandez said. “There are children here. Have some respect for my community.”

The officer responded: “I am.”

After asking whether the officer lives in Santa Ana, (he doesn’t,) Hernandez told him:  “My people live here, brother. Please treat them with respect. There’s kids that need to go to school. There’s people that are working. You chose to use our taxpayer dollars to disrespect a man with your music, that’s childish, sir.”

The resident piped in that he has a First Amendment right to film police. “You do,” Hernandez told him.

In the end, the officer repeated he made a mistake. He and Hernandez shook hands. And the videographer soon stopped recording.

Since then, the video has been widely shared on social media, local TV stations and some national news sites.

A growing movement of “First Amendment Auditors” – like the Santa Ana resident who videotaped on April 4 – have taken to filming police officers on the job.  Some applaud such efforts and say it promotes transparency and open government, and protects citizens’ constitutional rights. Critics, however, say the videotaped “audits” can be confrontational and interfere with police work.

In an interview Wednesday, April 13, Hernandez said he wants to see “clear direction” from the police department that it will not tolerate similar incidents in the future.

“This has to be a practice that’s being taught by somebody,” Hernandez said. “I don’t understand why there isn’t clear direction that this policy should be banned.”

“What is the purpose of infringing on people’s First Amendment rights?” he added “What are we doing while the public is recording us that we don’t want the public to see?”

Next Tuesday, Hernandez plans to ask his colleagues on the City Council to discuss and consider “a resolution, policy or ordinance to ban loud music for use by police officers.”

Valentin, the police chief, would not directly say what he thought of Hernandez’s proposal other than to emphasize that the councilman has a right to bring up topics to his council colleagues and that there’s already a policy against preventing citizen videos in the books.

That policy, titled “Public Recording of Law Enforcement Activity,” states that the department “recognizes the right of persons to lawfully record members of this department who are performing their official duties.” It prohibits officers from intentionally interfering with recording of their work, but it also stipulates that under some circumstances the recordings could be deemed evidence and seized.

Valentin said Thursday, April 14, that his department’s administrative investigation will involve interviewing the officer Hernandez spoke with. The investigation also will reach out to other officers who were on the scene and possibly to other community members who were present.

A previous statement from the Santa Ana Police Department said the department is “committed to conducting complete, thorough, and objective investigations,” but it did not acknowledge an official investigation into the events of April 4, saying only that officials were aware of the video, are committed to serving the community, and understood “the concerns as it relates to the video.”

Jennifer Rojas, policy advocate and organizer at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said that the public has a First Amendment right to record law enforcement officers on the job.

“We have repeatedly seen those recordings provide accurate accounts in the face of distorted police reports. In the absence of a bystander video of George Floyd’s murder, the public would still believe police statements that he died of ‘medical distress’,” she wrote in an e-mail Thursday.

Rojas also referred to an incident involving Santa Ana police who eventually were prosecuted for stealing from a local marijuana dispensary during a raid. That incident, she wrote, “would not have been discovered without third-party surveillance that caught them red-handed.”

She also criticized the idea that at least some police might be using a tactic to evade public oversight.

“Obstructing the right to record by playing copyrighted music is a troubling, bad faith attempt to avoid the most basic measure of transparency — the public simply observing what they are doing. Indeed, officer hostility to video recording or publishing suggests they are engaging in or want to engage in activities they don’t want the public to see.”

The incident, Rojas continued, underscores the need to create a civilian-led independent oversight commission for the Santa Ana police departments. The Santa Ana City Council is discussing creating an oversight commission.

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