Purdue Cops Throw Student Journalist To Ground, Seize His Camera And Detain Him For Three Hours
from the we'll-let-you-know-what-your-rights-are-once-we've-finished-violating-th dept
Cops vs. cameras: the apparently never ending battle continues. A student photojournalist at Purdue found himself on the receiving end of a little extra "attention" while attempting to cover Tuesday's on-campus shooting.
In the midst of Tuesday’s shooting, an Exponent employee was detained by the police while trying to fulfill his journalistic duties.While it's somewhat understandable that the campus police might be a bit on edge while looking for a shooter, that doesn't excuse any of the actions they took when they came across Takeda. (You can see his article on the shooting here.) It shouldn't have taken three hours to determine whether Takeda was involved in the shooting and his presence in a building that hadn't been "locked down" should not have been greeted with the use of force. Those who say people who are "doing nothing wrong" shouldn't fear police officers might want to reexamine that assertion in light of Takeda's experience. One also wonders whether the presence of the camera escalated the officers' physical response.
Exponent photo editor Michael Takeda, a junior in the College of Technology, was slammed to the ground by the Purdue Police after being found in the Electrical Engineering Building taking photos. The area had not been closed off to the public at the time.
The officers confiscated Takeda’s camera and photos, detained and questioned his whereabouts within the building, which was then on lockdown after being held by the police for roughly three hours.
The police finally let Takeda go after detaining him for three hours but they had no interest in returning his equipment to him until someone higher up the ladder at Purdue interceded on his behalf.
[I]it was only after Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, prodded the University that Takeda’s belongings were bequeathed to him.By "retrieve," I assume LoMonte means "seize." Notwithstanding this oral typo, what LoMonte says next is both unsurprising and sad.
“They were very cooperative, and they recognized right away that this was a serious situation that required their immediate attention,” LoMonte said.
LoMonte said, though the University was helpful in releasing Takeda’s belongings, it was just the police’s instinct to retrieve his belongings, despite the possible infringement of a federal law.
“Honestly I think almost nobody knows that is the law, not even lawyers,” LoMonte laughed.LoMonte may be laughing but I don't think I'll be joining him. People who are charged with enforcing laws or keeping clients out of jail should be familiar with the laws that are an integral part of their jobs. The law LoMonte refers to isn't a recent development prompted by the ubiquity of smartphone cameras. It's been on the books for more than 30 years and was crafted in response to an incident at another college, Stanford University.
“(It) specifically says that the police cannot confiscate or search where journalists keep their unpublished work product unless they first go in front of a judge and give the journalist the chance to argue his side,” LoMonte saidNow, police have ways around this limitation -- the always-useful "exigent situation" exception. This is supposed to be used only when the safety of officers or the public is immediately threatened. In reality, the exception is most frequently used to ask for post-rights violation "forgiveness." The Purdue officers didn't cite this exception, but it will probably be deployed if Takeda decides to make some more noise about his treatment. Is it really too much to ask for law enforcement officers to know and respect the laws governing their actions?
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Filed Under: journalism, michael takeda, photography is not a crime, police brutality, purdue
Companies: purdue university
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Ahem.
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The list of features are things like: settings for shutter speed, exposure, etc all accessible by dials instead of a menu. Swappable lens. A really fast flash sync speed. Probably, be somewhat "rugged".
Oh, and expensive enough that professional photographers normally can't buy one ;)
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Normal cameras are those with fewer features and lack of good optical zoom, semi-professional are those that allow much more fine tuning without changing lenses and professional are those that accept multiple types of lenses depending on the need and allow further tuning. I'm not saying that professionals must use them. I've seen pros using mobile phone cameras and getting awesome shots.
At the end of the day, a camera, any camera, is just a box with a hole in the end of it to let light in.
That line clearly shows you know nothing about photography. While the physics behind them are the same the quality of various components of the camera are key for a quality shot.
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And he should be fired.
"executive director of the Student Press Law Center"
Laughing and ignoring a law he should be well aware of, he is at worst incompetent at best has no business running ANYTHING that has to do with law if he is this ignorant of something that isn't a 300 yr old weird law about walking a duck on a leash on a sunday.
As for the officers I expect we will see charges for violating the law that they are duty bound to uphold, isn't the quote ignorance of the law is no excuse?
If we allow them some sort of pass, then why have any laws at all? If we don't feel like it and won't be punished what is the point? Or is this one of those do as we demand, not as we do?
The job is to uphold the law and the absolute failure at every level at this University should require a serious review of what exactly they are paying these people to do, because none of them did what their job requires.
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Minor correction (credit where due)
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LAWSUIT!!!!
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Really? Who died?
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The First Amendment of the Constitution of The United States of America.
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Yeah, it's the law because I just made that shit up = now stop resisting
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jan 24th, 2014 @ 5:18am
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Stop trespassing.
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As for suggestions, perhaps police could learn the gorram law they're trying to enforce(rather than just going off of what they think and/or want it to be), that would seem to be a good start.
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Re: Stop trespassing.
Police Department Rewards Officer Caught By An Online Pedophile Sting With Full Retirement Benefits
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The actual interpretation makes more sense, though of course it's highly objectionable.
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Also, trespassing what if he is a student there and therefore is allowed in the campus?
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Duh!
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Yes, yes it is, apparently.
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Edgy stuff.
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LEO's
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retrieve
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Welcome to the Jeu World Order
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Sad but ye
Sad but yes. Ignorance of the law is only innocence if you are an authority. That fact that these people are the ones that "should know" the most is irrelevant to them.
Here is what Lamonte meant to say “Honestly I think almost everybody knows that is the law, especially lawyers, However, it is considered rude to ask police officers to follow proper procedure and law.”
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Constitutional Rights
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Idiots!
Campus police is where you go when you're not smart enough for a job as a prison guard. Those guys need a thorough raping.
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Purdue
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