OFF THE WIRE
Jim Morrill
charlotteobserver.com
Crime blogger says she was threatened with arrest when she tried to take a photo of police.
Shortly after midnight on June 23, police answered a call at an east Charlotte apartment complex and arrested a felon with an outstanding warrant.
It was just the kind of incident Kelly O'Neill might chronicle in her crime blog - except this time she became part of the story.
Her encounter with police drew the attention of the chief, the city manager and even the American Civil Liberties Union. It has become grist for bloggers across the country who see it as the latest test of First Amendment rights in the digital age.
O'Neill says a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer threatened to arrest her when she raised her camera to take a photograph of the arrest.
Police dispute her account, and Chief Rodney Monroe said the department doesn't prohibit journalists or citizens from photographing police activity.
No one tracks such encounters nationally. But news reports suggest clashes between camera-wielding citizens and law enforcement officers have soared in recent years.
News photographers and citizen journalists argue that photos and videos provide a necessary check on police procedures.
"This is a much bigger issue than just a woman in Charlotte threatened with arrest," says David Ardia, who, until joining the UNC law school faculty last week, directed the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard.
"We're seeing this all across the country and the facts tend to be pretty similar."
O'Neill's story
O'Neill's story started when she set out to prove to her apartment manager that a felon was living in the complex in violation of the apartments' policy. When she saw the man, she called 911. Before police arrived, he left. She followed.
As the man headed down the street, he ran into two officers responding to the call. O'Neill shouted: He was their suspect.
They cuffed the man. She raised her camera.
"Do you want to go to jail tonight too?" O'Neill says one officer yelled. "I looked up from my camera and asked, 'For what?'...
" 'Put the camera down, this isn't a show,' " she says he replied. " 'If you take a picture, I will take you to jail, ma'am.' "
In a memo written after the incident, the two officers disagree with O'Neill's account. They say they told her she was too close, within 10 feet - she claims it was at least 80 - and could be charged with interfering.
They say they never told her she'd be arrested for taking pictures.
Monroe, in a memo to City Manager Curt Walton, said the department would review its written policies to ensure they are clear.
"We will reinforce to our officers that photographs may be taken as long as no one's safety is jeopardized and the officers have an adequate safe zone," he wrote.
Few people would seem less likely to run afoul of police than O'Neill.
The stepdaughter of a New Jersey cop, she started the blog called "Crime in Charlotte" nearly six years ago after her car was stolen. She runs mug shots and news releases from the FBI, district attorney and local police departments. She links to sites honoring fallen officers.
The incident has gone viral on blogs and message boards.
O'Neill, 33, says more camera confrontations are bound to occur, particularly with next year's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
"What are they going to do when CNN comes here?" she asks. "Tell them to put their cameras away?"
The digital age
Since a filmed police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles sparked a national furor in 1991, the photographic and video recording of police has exploded with the proliferation of cell phone cameras and digital technology.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says reports of confrontations have become "astronomical."
On Memorial Day, Miami Beach police allegedly seized recording equipment from a citizen and a TV photojournalist after both witnessed officers shooting and killing a suspect on a public street.
Footage shows the shooting and officers later walking up to the citizen with the cell phone with guns pointed at his camera. He claims police smashed his camera and arrested him. Police deny smashing his camera and say he was detained for questioning as a witness.
Some incidents have been closer to home.
In 2009, WBTV photographer Travis Washington was on an embankment shooting the scene of a fatal accident on Interstate 485 near Beatties Ford Road. CMPD officers shouted to him to stop. When an officer tried to grab his camera, it crashed to the ground.
Washington was handcuffed, put in a cruiser and held for about an hour before he was released without charges.
Last year, Felicia Gibson of Salisbury was convicted in district court of resisting and obstructing a police officer. The case stemmed from a 2009 incident in which she was on her porch filming the officer making a traffic stop when he ordered her to stop and go inside. She allegedly refused. Her case is being appealed.
Her lawyer, Jake Sussman of Charlotte, says police departments equip more and more of their cars with video recorders that go on as soon as the officer turns on his blue lights.
"It makes perfect sense and protects everyone's interests," he says. "So it is confusing and contradictory for the same agencies to ... defend the actions of certain officers who interfere with and sometimes punish citizens who seek to record the very same public event, especially when the person is on her own property."
'Combustible mix'
In his note to the city manager, Monroe said officers designate a "safe work area" around the scene of a crime or arrest. Its size depends on the circumstances. The purpose, he said, is to "restrict anyone not related to the incident from being a distraction or danger to the officer in the performance of his duties."
UNC law professor Bill Marshall says while the public has a right to take pictures, "If it interferes with police activity, that right ends."
"The question," he says, "is when is the (photography) actually interfering with legitimate police activity?"
Dalglish of the Reporters Committee says sometimes police are justified because the person trying to record their actions is in the way. But sometimes they're just upset over being watched.
Marshall says police are "rightly sensitive about how what they're doing may appear in a quick clip," sometimes edited out of context and posted on the Internet.
Police say they know people have the right to film.
"As long as they're not obstructing the officers, they're totally within their rights to do that until the courts say otherwise," says John Midgette, executive director of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association.
As technology proliferates, so do confrontations.
"It used to be that those kind of news-gathering operations were largely done by professionals," says UNC's Ardia. "(Now) almost everyone has in their pocket a device capable of taking photos.
"Couple that with the ease with which the Internet allows them to disseminate those images to the world and you've got a pretty combustible mix."
Jim Morrill: 704-358-5059
It was just the kind of incident Kelly O'Neill might chronicle in her crime blog - except this time she became part of the story.
Her encounter with police drew the attention of the chief, the city manager and even the American Civil Liberties Union. It has become grist for bloggers across the country who see it as the latest test of First Amendment rights in the digital age.
O'Neill says a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer threatened to arrest her when she raised her camera to take a photograph of the arrest.
Police dispute her account, and Chief Rodney Monroe said the department doesn't prohibit journalists or citizens from photographing police activity.
No one tracks such encounters nationally. But news reports suggest clashes between camera-wielding citizens and law enforcement officers have soared in recent years.
News photographers and citizen journalists argue that photos and videos provide a necessary check on police procedures.
"This is a much bigger issue than just a woman in Charlotte threatened with arrest," says David Ardia, who, until joining the UNC law school faculty last week, directed the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard.
"We're seeing this all across the country and the facts tend to be pretty similar."
O'Neill's story
O'Neill's story started when she set out to prove to her apartment manager that a felon was living in the complex in violation of the apartments' policy. When she saw the man, she called 911. Before police arrived, he left. She followed.
As the man headed down the street, he ran into two officers responding to the call. O'Neill shouted: He was their suspect.
They cuffed the man. She raised her camera.
"Do you want to go to jail tonight too?" O'Neill says one officer yelled. "I looked up from my camera and asked, 'For what?'...
" 'Put the camera down, this isn't a show,' " she says he replied. " 'If you take a picture, I will take you to jail, ma'am.' "
In a memo written after the incident, the two officers disagree with O'Neill's account. They say they told her she was too close, within 10 feet - she claims it was at least 80 - and could be charged with interfering.
They say they never told her she'd be arrested for taking pictures.
Monroe, in a memo to City Manager Curt Walton, said the department would review its written policies to ensure they are clear.
"We will reinforce to our officers that photographs may be taken as long as no one's safety is jeopardized and the officers have an adequate safe zone," he wrote.
Few people would seem less likely to run afoul of police than O'Neill.
The stepdaughter of a New Jersey cop, she started the blog called "Crime in Charlotte" nearly six years ago after her car was stolen. She runs mug shots and news releases from the FBI, district attorney and local police departments. She links to sites honoring fallen officers.
The incident has gone viral on blogs and message boards.
O'Neill, 33, says more camera confrontations are bound to occur, particularly with next year's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
"What are they going to do when CNN comes here?" she asks. "Tell them to put their cameras away?"
The digital age
Since a filmed police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles sparked a national furor in 1991, the photographic and video recording of police has exploded with the proliferation of cell phone cameras and digital technology.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says reports of confrontations have become "astronomical."
On Memorial Day, Miami Beach police allegedly seized recording equipment from a citizen and a TV photojournalist after both witnessed officers shooting and killing a suspect on a public street.
Footage shows the shooting and officers later walking up to the citizen with the cell phone with guns pointed at his camera. He claims police smashed his camera and arrested him. Police deny smashing his camera and say he was detained for questioning as a witness.
Some incidents have been closer to home.
In 2009, WBTV photographer Travis Washington was on an embankment shooting the scene of a fatal accident on Interstate 485 near Beatties Ford Road. CMPD officers shouted to him to stop. When an officer tried to grab his camera, it crashed to the ground.
Washington was handcuffed, put in a cruiser and held for about an hour before he was released without charges.
Last year, Felicia Gibson of Salisbury was convicted in district court of resisting and obstructing a police officer. The case stemmed from a 2009 incident in which she was on her porch filming the officer making a traffic stop when he ordered her to stop and go inside. She allegedly refused. Her case is being appealed.
Her lawyer, Jake Sussman of Charlotte, says police departments equip more and more of their cars with video recorders that go on as soon as the officer turns on his blue lights.
"It makes perfect sense and protects everyone's interests," he says. "So it is confusing and contradictory for the same agencies to ... defend the actions of certain officers who interfere with and sometimes punish citizens who seek to record the very same public event, especially when the person is on her own property."
'Combustible mix'
In his note to the city manager, Monroe said officers designate a "safe work area" around the scene of a crime or arrest. Its size depends on the circumstances. The purpose, he said, is to "restrict anyone not related to the incident from being a distraction or danger to the officer in the performance of his duties."
UNC law professor Bill Marshall says while the public has a right to take pictures, "If it interferes with police activity, that right ends."
"The question," he says, "is when is the (photography) actually interfering with legitimate police activity?"
Dalglish of the Reporters Committee says sometimes police are justified because the person trying to record their actions is in the way. But sometimes they're just upset over being watched.
Marshall says police are "rightly sensitive about how what they're doing may appear in a quick clip," sometimes edited out of context and posted on the Internet.
Police say they know people have the right to film.
"As long as they're not obstructing the officers, they're totally within their rights to do that until the courts say otherwise," says John Midgette, executive director of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association.
As technology proliferates, so do confrontations.
"It used to be that those kind of news-gathering operations were largely done by professionals," says UNC's Ardia. "(Now) almost everyone has in their pocket a device capable of taking photos.
"Couple that with the ease with which the Internet allows them to disseminate those images to the world and you've got a pretty combustible mix."