Chicago police arrest photographer, take camera, and erase files
Chicago police arrested a freelance photographer, jailed him, confiscated his equipment and deleted photos, according to a story by CBS channel 2. Mike Anzaldi was covering a police shooting when he got into a dispute with officers. Police say he crossed a police line without permission and the photographer said he didn't. The photographer was cuffed, jailed for nine hours, and had his video camera and two still cameras confiscated. When he got the still cameras back police had erased more than 500 images. They kept his video camera.
An interesting detail that makes this situation more complicated than most is that the city of Chicago has an ordinance that allows journalists who have press credentials to cross police lines. Anzaldi says he has press credentials.
But regardless of who did what, the fact police would go to the trouble to arrest a photographer and confiscate his equipment is going too far. Even worse - deleting the photo images. What did they want to hide from the public? That, to me, is a form of flat out prior restraint. If a mayor walked into a newsroom and deleted photos he or she didn't like, preventing their publication, then we would be grabbing for torches and pitchforks. Chicago police should drop any charges against Anzaldi immediately, and apologize profusely for deleting his photos.