I am one of several american photojournalists who are arrested each year in our country by police officers. Some of us are assualted and some have their cameras, film and video tape seized. Many of us are prosecuted and sentenced to jail or community service.
What is our crime? We attempt to document and record visually the news that occurs in our
community - freely - without censorship.
In the case in which I have been sentenced to seven months imprisonment. I was arrested in Redlands, CA on December 24, 1997 at the scene of an in-field line up of four bank robbery suspects on a four lane road which was open to traffic. I tried to make my way along the road to an area where bystanders were watching a paramedic crew treat an injured police officer. I was told that the road and surrounding area was a "crime scene" (the police officers best censorship tool) therefore I could not enter and walk in those areas. Despite the fact that there was no visible evidence on the ground that needed protection from the feet of this photographer and despite the fact that cars were present on the road, bicycles and other citizens were standing in and walking in those areas.
I objected to my obviously being singled out as a news photographer and detention and being prevented from freely walking along an open public roadway while attempting to excersize my supposedly protected rights of news gathering and press freedom. When I protested the second time a Redlands "official" placed their hands on my person and told that police officer to "Get your hands off me buckwheat!" I was arrested.
I was charged with violating california penal code section 148: Delaying , obstructing, resisting a peace officer in the performance of their duties. Californias most broad and "catch all" penal code section for unlimited police use and abuse. Most journalists and photographers are arrested under this penal code section by police, other states have similar laws and news photographers in those states are also arrested primarily under those laws, Apparently it is the only one which is superior to the United States constitution and bill of rights and makes void the first amendment, if the police officer so chooses to apply it... at his discretion of course.. or wants to insure that he or his department control what pictures and other information are being relayed to the public.
The Redlands police officers conspired together and created a false scenario in order to have greater justification for my arrest than my calling a white police officer "buckwheat" and to insure my prosecution and make it more likely that I would be found guilty of some offense by a jury of mostly conservative - police supporting Redlands cititzens, before a judge who was once a deputy district attorney in the Redlands office and a Redlands police reserve officer and whose father was a police officer and who was strongly supported for election by the Redlands police officers union.
This is why I have been sentenced to the longest prison term ever handed down to a photojournalist while attempting to do his job, in the United States of America.
The same month that I was sentenced to my seven months imprisonment, two Yugoslavian reporters in Serbia were also given a prison sentence of seven months for their reporting that the government did not like. Apparently the police state mentality is the same the world over.
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