Charges dropped against college student arrested after taking video of friends being arrested

Charges were dropped Friday against a Center Moriches man who was arrested by police after he videotaped the arrests of two friends, the Suffolk County district attorney's office said.

Charges against Thomas Demint, 21, a student at Suffolk County Community College, were dismissed in First District Court in Central Islip, the prosecutor's office said.

"It has taken 18 months for the district attorney's office to do the right thing," Demint's attorney, Kenneth Mollins of Hauppauge, said after the court proceeding.

Demint was arrested May 21, 2014, and charged with obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest after he videotaped Suffolk police officers arresting his friends.

The attorney and Demint held a news conference in August to make the eight-minute video public and demand that the charges be dropped.

Demint said it had taken him more than a year to release the video because he had received veiled threats from patrol officers during traffic stops and feared police would retaliate against him.

Suffolk County police declined to comment Friday.

After the August news conference, police released a statement about the arrests, saying: "While police were attempting to calm down those involved, Thomas Demint interfered with officers by shouting obscenities toward police officers and paramedics as well as entering the scene several times after he was told not to."

Shortly after he stopped recording, Demint said police forced him to the ground, arrested him, took his cellphone and attempted to delete the video he had recorded. They ended up erasing the wrong video, Mollins said.