Detroit Newspaper Photographer Arrested While Covering Police Action

Detroit Newspaper Photographer Arrested While Covering Police Action

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Until everyone challenges this **** continually, they'll keep on doing it. Police regularly abuse their rights - and it's not rare enough yet to just let a few cases go. They're obsessed with power, control, and domination.

Yes, I know there are good cops - the problem is it's not biased enough in that direction to be the norm.
 
Dunno about being arrested, but I've been threatened and manhandled by Police when photographing demos. I wasn't a photographer at the time, but I was at Orgreave when this incident happended (I didn't see it) to Lesley Boulton:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire...2/lesley_boulton_orgreave_photo_feature.shtml

So I'm well aware that the Police (OK, mainly the Metroploitan) will do whatever they can to stop images getting out (friends have Eye-fi cards to upload to the net as they shoot in case their cameras are seized or broken by Police; it used not to be uncommon for an Officer to grab a camera and open the back to expose the film). I've been arrested on trumped up (and frankly invented) charges on a couple of occasions.

I have respect for most Police, and have had good experiences of the Policing of those demos where the establishment hadn't decided in advance that they wanted a scrap. Many officers these days are more understanding and sympathetic. I can imagine that something like Black Flag's Thatcher's dead party in Trafalgar Square would not have been countenanced in the past, whereas the attitude was positive and smiley on the day.

Where they are up for a scrap, then things like the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson (by a POS who lives not far from me, as it happens) take place.
 
So press photographers official gear is an iPhone now? I'm sure if she was acting like a real press photographer, and had the proper equipment, things wouldn't have escalated, but I understand that police are sick of being filmed doing their jobs and having the videos uploaded on YouTube. Most probably they didn't even believe she was a real press person.
 
Unfortunately, half the time the police don't know anymore about how to do their job than the general public. They'd basically have to be lawyers to. A lot of police departments are simply behind the times and not putting enough focus on educating officers about how to appropriately deal with stuff like this, causing things to happen which aren't supposed to happen. It's hard to get mad at the individual for not being given proper instruction, but on the other hand if I break the law, ignorance is generally not a valid excuse.
 
mfunnell said:
Public servants doing their job in public. Of course nobody has the right to see that!

...Mike
Click to expand...

Well, it was an arrest scene, a sensitive subject. Police normally would like to use some force, some intimidation, in an arrest, and being filmed while doing that isn't exactly appreciated. I personally do not mind if the police uses force against a probably not so innocent angel, but how many police officers got in trouble or lost their jobs because they were filmed doing that. It's just part of what they do, and the general public doesn't really appreciate that and cries police brutality and what not. Who knows what kind of criminal they were arresting, a drug dealer, a rapist, a murderer. These people have no rights in my book.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
Who knows what kind of criminal they were arresting, a drug dealer, a rapist, a murderer. These people have no rights in my book.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm comforted that police never make mistakes or arrest people for buying bottled water or anything like that. Rights would only be needed if police (and all government agents and agencies) were less than perfect. But they are perfect, so that's all right then.

...Mike
 
So the deputy police chief will issue a memo reminding officers about the public's rights.

Yeah, that will end up in the round file.

What needs to happen is that the Detroit Police take out and pay for a full page ad in the DFP where both the Chief of Police and the officer in question apologize personally to the reporter. Then this "memo" reminding officers of citizen rights is copied and given wide distribution on a special insert of the newspaper.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
Well, it was an arrest scene, a sensitive subject. Police normally would like to use some force, some intimidation, in an arrest, and being filmed while doing that isn't exactly appreciated. I personally do not mind if the police uses force against a probably not so innocent angel, but how many police officers got in trouble or lost their jobs because they were filmed doing that. It's just part of what they do, and the general public doesn't really appreciate that and cries police brutality and what not. Who knows what kind of criminal they were arresting, a drug dealer, a rapist, a murderer. These people have no rights in my book.
Click to expand...

So, we're all presumed to be drug dealers, rapists, and murderers just because we've attracted the notice of a police officer; is that it?

Police officers are civil servants. Not only that, they are invested with an enormous amount of power that can have far-ranging negative effects on the lives of the people they interact with.

In my book, if somebody wants to take a few minutes of video while they go about their work, they can learn to deal with it.
 
It is a simple piece of business -- is this a free country or is it not? Can non-uniformed Storm Troopers molest anyone they want simply because they think maybe, perhaps, the photos will make them look bad? The cops broke the law, under the color of law. They should be on their way to jail. I remember one incident in Nevada where a cop asked a photographer, "do you have a license to photograph the police?" There was no such license and never was. The policeman made it up and got fired for it because his remarks were recorded on audio tape. Thomas Jefferson said "eternal vigalance is the price of liberty." Give a person a gun and a badge and you had better watch them closely.
 
I try to stay away from these situations. I've been threatened before also just for taking a photo at an accident scene. Needless to say, I dont feel that that experience benefitted me in any way. Not for me. I usually keep my camera down these days.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
So press photographers official gear is an iPhone now?
Click to expand...

Yes. At the Chicago Sun-Times it is, anyway.

I'm sure if she was acting like a real press photographer, and had the proper equipment, things wouldn't have escalated, but I understand that police are sick of being filmed doing their jobs and having the videos uploaded on YouTube. Most probably they didn't even believe she was a real press person.
Click to expand...

Too many cops have forgotten who they work for, and to whom they are accountable. If they can't deal with completely legal citizen documentation of their activities, they can get another job.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
So press photographers official gear is an iPhone now? I'm sure if she was acting like a real press photographer, and had the proper equipment, things wouldn't have escalated, but I understand that police are sick of being filmed doing their jobs and having the videos uploaded on YouTube. Most probably they didn't even believe she was a real press person.
Click to expand...

An iPhone is part of how I cover things along with my DSLR, most papers demand video as well. Some agencies want video in near real time, so yes an iPhone is an integral part of the job these days. "Proper equipment" or not, the cops would have likely done the same. Too bad that the cops are sick of being filmed doing their jobs, that does not afford them the right to arrest people who film them doing it. If it happens on a public street, it's fair game. End of story.
This is still allegedly the "Land of the free," is it not?
 
I would have thought the "Freep" (Free Press) management would have taken a firmer - and faster - stance.

Personally, I would lodge a formal charge of assault against the officer in question.
In most jurisdictions this does not require a lawyer, just a visit to the states attorney office.
 
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I'm sorry but there is more hostility in this forum towards cops than in Alcatraz during its days 😉 These people put their lives in danger for you guys. I think they deserve a little slack.
 
Assault, conspiracy, grand theft, kidnapping under the color of law, fraud for starters. I was hit on the head by one of New York's not-quite-finest in 1970. It turns out the photo I took made the cops look good.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
...

These people put their lives in danger for you guys. I think they deserve a little slack.
Click to expand...

Assuming, for the moment, that this is true, how do you proceed from there, to the proposition that police officers have some right against being photographed in public - a right, I might add, that is accorded to no one else in a public place, whether or not they are there in the course of their work?
 
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