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SUFFOLK COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT PAYS
$200,000 TO FREELANCE VIDEOGRAPHER IN CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (Combined sources)
NPPA member Phillip Datz won a major settlement from
the Suffolk County Police Department in a civil rights suit
stemming from Datz’s arrest while filming police activity on
a public street. Under the terms of the settlement, Suffolk County agreed to pay Datz $200,000 and implement a new training program (including a training video), and create a Police-Media Relations Committee.
Rather than take the case to trial, the SCPD agreed to the settlement payment, and a series of relief measures aimed
at educating its officers on the rights of the public and press
to observe and record any police activity. As a part of these measures, SCPD officers will now be annually required to watch a training video explaining these rights. In addition, a newly created Police-Media Relations Committee consisting
of representatives of SCPD and local media will be charged with promoting better relations between press and the police and will address complaints regarding police-media relations. Its membership will include a SCPD commanding officer, the executive officer of the SCPD’s Public Information Bureau
and members of local print and broadcast media outlets, as
well as a freelance videographer or photographer. The SCPD also revised its rules to instruct officers that “members of the media cannot be restricted from entering and/or producing recorded media from areas that are open to the public, regardless of subject matter.”
The training video further
stipulates that "it is improper to expand a crime scene
perimeter for the sole purpose of interfering with the right
of the media and the public to observe and record police
activity".
CLICK HERE to take a look at some recent incidents where law enforcement attempted to or did violate FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
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SEE THE ENTIRE STORY ON CNET. CLICK THE LINK BELOW
Passaic County prosecutor returns Record cameras seized by Paterson police
April 29, 2015, 11:05 PM Last updated: Thursday, April 30, 2015, 10:11 AM
By PETER J. SAMPSON and JIM NORMAN
staff writers |
The Record
Paterson police seized the cameras of a photographer from The Record on Wednesday morning after he refused to delete several photographs taken at the scene of the city’s seventh homicide this year.
Police turned the cameras over to the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office and after lawyers for the publisher of the newspaper objected to the seizure, the prosecutor agreed to return them without deleting the images or looking at them, said Jennifer Borg, general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, the publisher of the newspaper.
The photographer, Mitsu Yasukawa, had positioned himself behind the crime-scene tape near the site of the shooting at Fulton and Mercer streets when he noticed a woman walking toward detectives who were huddled around a car.
When she saw him with his camera, the woman screamed and turned her back to him, Yasukawa said. He snapped several photos of her back from a distance of about 40 feet, he said.
A Paterson police officer then approached and told him to stop taking pictures, and that police would give him plenty of time to take pictures later, Yasukawa said. Two detectives soon approached and “told me I have to delete those pictures I just took,” he said.
Yasukawa said he told the detectives he had to speak with his editor before he could delete any photos, and the detectives agreed to let him make a call.
Jon Naso, the director of photography for the newspaper, said that during that call he spoke with a detective at the scene and also with the detective’s supervisor, Capt. Heriberto Rodriguez. The detective told Naso that police believed Yasukawa had photographed a witness, and the captain demanded that he surrender the camera and delete the photos, Naso said.
The conversation became heated, with police threatening to take the cameras, Naso said. The telephone call was disconnected, and when Naso was able to reach the photographer again, he learned police had taken two camera bodies along with their data cards containing all the images the photographer had shot, Naso said.
Michael DeMarco, the Passaic County chief assistant prosecutor, later agreed to return the equipment, with the data cards intact and unreviewed. They were delivered to the newspaper’s headquarters in Woodland Park shortly before 5 p.m.
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VIDEO OF PHILLIP DATZ' ARREST.
SCPD TRAINING VIDEO
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Photographers must bear witness to tragedy
By Abby Drey
adrey@centredaily.com
I always tell people how fun my job is and I enjoy that it’s different every day.
But in the different, sometimes it’s not something so fun. In addition to all the sporting events, all the giggling children’s events and all the uplifting stories, there are tragic events.
I’m there photographing those stories to bring to our readers. I don’t see covering these events as fun, but it’s news and I’m a photojournalist. My commitment to my job involves standing at crash scenes, watching families’ possessions in flames and witnessing the investigations of accidents that leave families mourning.
My emotions were wearing on me after photographing some recent events. We bear witness to a lot of things that I hope many people do not have to. In the most respectful way we can, we document that tragedy so the world may know.
The truth — that’s what we’re there to show viewers. People want to see what has happened. Some of the most historic events across the world have been captured and summed into single photographs.
Sometimes words can’t paint the picture strongly enough. Though the photograph may be too strong, that’s what the public wants to see.
There are photos we don’t take, or ones that we do, but are never shared. Those images sit hidden in digital files on our computers. Those images many don’t care to see, but being there, at someone’s tragic story, is ingrained in our mind. Photographers are visual people, and sometimes those visions linger longer than we’d like.
We are not there to point fingers and cause blame. We are not there to disrespect the situation. We are there to show all those who work their best to help and be heroes . We are there in hope that through photographs and sharing the truth, others will learn a lesson.
We are there to capture history in whatever form it comes.
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@citywideradio
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