I had another post that I was going to write today (and still will) about Flickr accounts being hacked, but before I go there, let’s talk about Carlos Miller. I mentioned him in an earlier post but after reading his account of what happened to him, it really deserves its own separate post.
Via Thomas Hawk, Miller gives his account of what happened to him:
Miller, who estimates he was about 20 yards from the officers, began to shoot. Immediately, a female officer he identified as Officer Reid turned to him and said, “Sir, may I help you?”
Miller identified himself, by name, as a journalist. Reid apparently was not impressed and, according to Miller, said, “You need to keep moving. This is a private matter.”
“This is a public road,” Miller responded.
When he didn’t move along the attention of the other officers was put on Miller, and one officer took him by the elbow, escorting him away from the scene and across the street, and Miller reached up with his free hand and took a photo of Sgt. Rahming, then a photo of the other officers who were still walking across the street.
They didn’t appreciate that act on his part and proceeded to slam him down on the ground, saying he was resisting arrest.
From his account:
“They were treating me like I was uncontrollable, a meth addict or something,” he said. “I tried to explain, but one of them said, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tase you.’”
He was then arrested, taken to the police station, and reminded that he was dealing with the Miami PD, who doesn’t ‘put up with that kind of crap.’
Now, the police claim that he was in the middle of the street, refusing to walk freely, he wouldn’t put his hands behind his back and he was ‘in the middle of the street obstructing traffic’.
A picture is worth a thousand words and certainly more than the claims of a pissed-off policeman who doesn’t like the idea of journalists holding him to account for his actions. In this case, the photos that Miller took clearly show that he was out of traffic, near the sidewalk, because there are two lines of traffic behind the officers.
Carlos Miller isn’t a hack amateur photographer. He’s a photojournalist with many years of experience, including four years as a police reporter. He’s not stupid and he understands what he is, and is not allowed to photograph.
So that we’re clear here, there is nothing illegal about taking photos of activities on a public street, whether or not they involve law enforcement officials. Even in Miami, Florida.
Thomas Hawk says this:
While I have a tremendous amount of respect for the police, have friends who are cops, etc. There is no room in this world for dirty cops. The law is the law and the law is clear. Cops are allowed to be photographed. If the cops don’t like this law, they can work to have it changed or move to a country that does not have this law. But when empowered with guns and arrest power they need to use this power only in legal ways.
Someone once told me that their definition of integrity is knowing that whatever they do in the dark could also be done in the light. It seems to me that there’s not much justification for any public servant to object to the documentation of them doing their job, as long as they had nothing to hide. But more fundamentally, they are accountable to the public they serve, and journalists play a crucial role in that accountability.
What bothers me more, even, is the heavy-handed physical threat they laid on to intimidate this photographer. I’ve been the recipient of the “one-armed escort”, and there is clear intent to let you know that they are in charge. However, if I’m not breaking any law and I’m on a public street behaving in a way that’s permissible under public law, there is absolutely no reason for any policeman to put their hands on me and force me to move away. Unless they want to hide what they’re doing?
If the issue was that they didn’t want their images published because it placed them in some sort of danger, they could certainly have explained that. Yet, they didn’t.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Miller is now charged with five counts of failure to obey a police officer and one count each of obstructing justice, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence.
Here’s my challenge: You read the full article on Category305 and decide for yourself whether Miller deserved such treatment and more fundamentally, should be charged with criminal charges for asserting rights guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you’re really, really brave, you can read the comments to that article. If the situation itself doesn’t scare you, some of the comments definitely should.
If this is what they do to a professional, I shudder to think what would happen to all of those citizen-journalists the newspapers want to use.
Technorati Tags: photojournalism, law, civil rights, police, crime
