As this disturbing alleged situation demonstrates, you may be ordered at some point to delete photographic or videographic evidence of an event without appropriate justification.
While there may be situations in which security concerns are justifiably paramount, there are also many situations in which those who have authority simply wish to avoid facing any accountability for their actions. Given the conflict of interest involved for those law enforcement officers on the scene, it seems prudent to retain any photographic or videographic evidence you have produced, even if you are asked by them to delete it.
After all, any impartial evidence that exists can only help in any subsequent official proceedings. The absence of such evidence is likely to strengthen the bias of impartial adjudicators towards those with authority, as opposed to those who simply happened to be witnesses.
Prior relevant posts:
[18 December 2008] Zoom has posted an update about this matter.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
So purple!
As far as I understand, that police officer was acting outside his sphere of authority. The fact that tall men with badges can infact make you do things does not itself mean they have legal justification to do these things.
It’s not that interesting that the police break rules, they do so all the time. Sometimes death is the result. What’s interesting is doing something about it, like explicitly saying it on a blog, and maybe spawning a protest which would draw news coverage and the need for an official response and apology.
Cop seen on video knocking over bicyclist has been indicted
“No wonder police officers sometimes confiscate and destroy the cameras of people who videotape them committing illegal acts — the officers occasionally end up having to pay for their crimes, just like civilian law breakers do.”
Tristan,
I am not sure if you followed the link above, but that is precisely what Zoom is doing.
Excellent for Zoom!
More Zooms!
I heard stories like this all the time from other Quebec city protesters. The big media companies never went near the rough parts of the protest and therefore did not get much coverage of police brutality. The small independent ones got picked on, ordered to leave, arrested, etc…I met one who was shot with rubber bullets for recording police brutality. I was in the medium-risk areas and saw some aggressive cop behaviour, one person getting swarmed, excessive and unstrategic use of teargas and water cannons, eye-wash tents being ordered to shut down, and actually I suspect based on some incidents that while hundreds of legal protesters were arrested, the police intentionally let the real criminals (vandals, molotov-throwers) stay on the streets.
That was before the age of YouTube and cell phone cameras. I think if the same thing had happened today there would have been more acknowledgement of unlawful behaviour on the part of police and media.
I applaud Zoom’s actions regarding the bully police officer. However, I do think that the blog description is more than enough to get the idea about what occurred.
Is putting someone’s life to risk by circulating images of him/her on the internet worth the gratification of blog-world show and tell? It’s possible that this officer has been in extremely vulnerable circumstances (undercover in a gang, etc.) and this is the sort of thing that could put his life in danger.
I suppose the question is whether it’s worth putting a police officer’s (or anyone’s) life to risk to emphasize a point already made in the text of a blog post.
Police wanted photos erased, blogger claims
By Neco CockburnDecember 17, 2008
“Ottawa police Chief Vern White has ordered a review after a blogger alleged being ordered by an officer to stop taking photographs of an arrest in Centretown.
The blogger, who goes by the pseudonym Zoom, claims to have come across three officers arresting a woman near Hartman’s grocery store, on Bank Street near Somerset Street, on Monday afternoon.”
“Chief White said he had no problems with photographs he saw posted, which include a male officer kneeling beside the woman, who is lying on the ground while three or four other officers look on, and a paramedic and police officer tending to the woman while a pair of male officers look toward the camera.”
“Is putting someone’s life to risk by circulating images of him/her on the internet worth the gratification of blog-world show and tell? It’s possible that this officer has been in extremely vulnerable circumstances (undercover in a gang, etc.) and this is the sort of thing that could put his life in danger.”
Emily, this is a very serious question, but the answer is totally obvious. The dillema seems to be between the public’s duty to keep the police in line, conflicting with possibly damaging the police’s ability to do its job. But it’s clear which is worse – a slightly less effective in specific circumstances and yet just police force, or one with slightly greater capability and yet corrupt, bullyish, unjust. Which state would you want to live in?
My argument isn’t that we shouldn’t call them on it. I think that Zoom standing up to a violation of her rights is admirable. My question was whether we can justify putting a real individual’s life at risk for the sake of emphasis and demonstration, when the point was clearly made in the blog text.
Without the photos, the blog text would lack credibility.
Admittedly, the photos could have been conveyed privately to the people now conducting the investigation, but without the discussion created by the public blog posts and photos, there may never have been an investigation to begin with.
“a real individual’s life at risk for the sake of emphasis and demonstration, when the point was clearly made in the blog text.”
If the question is whether we can put an individual police officer’s life at risk for the sake of keeping the police the purveyors of justice, then absolutely the answer is yes.
“Photographer Duane Kerzic was standing on the public platform in New York’s Penn Station, taking pictures of trains in hopes of winning the annual photo contest that Amtrak had been running since 2003. Amtrak police arrested him for refusing to delete the photos when asked, though they later charged him with trespassing.
Obviously, there is a lack of communication between Amtrak’s marketing department, which promotes the annual contest, called Picture Our Trains, and its police department, which has a history of harassing photographers for photographing these same trains.”
Another London photographer arrested for “terrorism” (i.e. “taking a picture of a public building”)
By Cory Doctorow on Photo
A photographer who spent his whole life photographing and painting around his home neighbourhood of Elephant and Castle in London was arrested under anti-terror laws and jailed, his DNA and fingerprints taken. He was released after five hours, once his Member of Parliament intervened. Under current policies, his DNA will remain on file forever — though the EU has ordered Britain to cease this practice.
UK to introduce “photograph a cop, 10 years in jail” law
By Cory Doctorow on Photo
The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about (members of armed forces) … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.
A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.
Bank Street Bully – final update
Posted by zoom! on April 5, 2009, at 8:27 pm