By Carlos Miller
Armed with nothing but a camera, Seattle photographer Bogdan Mohora was thrown in a jail cell last November and told he could be charged with disorderly conduct, inciting a riot and endangering a police officer after he photographed police making an arrest on a public street.
He was standing 100 feet from the officers when he snapped the photo.
Police kept him in the cell for an hour, allowing him to contemplate those threats before he was released. They didn’t even bother filing a report on the incident, which is a violation of Seattle Police Department policy.
Officers James Pitts and David Toner ended up getting reprimanded for their actions after the ACLU stepped in. The Seattle Police Department also agreed to pay Mohora $8,000 to prevent further legal action from occurring.
I hope Mohora invested some of that money on a telephoto lens.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 enhager // Jan 25, 2008 at 12:40 PM
I wonder how much money you could have gotten if you would have sued the Pasadena police department when they arrested you and kept you in a holding cell for six hours for taking their picture (with a disposable camera) as the cufffed people for smoking at a bar? And they didn’t bother filing a report either.
2 Carlos Miller // Jan 25, 2008 at 3:01 PM
enhager,
Man, I had almost forgotten about that one. But they did file some kind of report because I have – or had – a copy of it somewhere around here.
I’m going to look for it and maybe do a blog post on it.
For those curious readers – and prosecutors who would like to build up a pattern against me – I was hanging out with some friends in Pasadena a few years ago, back when I lived in Southern California.
We stepped outside a bar and Pasadena police had a bunch of people lined up against the paddy wagon because they had been smoking in a bar. This area is not exactly South Central LA.
I pulled out a disposable camera and aimed to take a photo and one of the cops told me not to take it.
Yes, same situation as with all these situations I document.
So I did what I do a hundred times over again. I took the photo. Then I kept walking because it wasn’t that big of a deal.
And this young cop, the young ones never have a clue, chased after me and arrested me.
I was so pissed. I ended up in a jail cell for several hours with several suspected cigarette smokers.
They released me at 6 a.m. when they realized they really couldn’t charge me for taking their photo in front of a popular nightspot.
I ended up calling my good friend, Enhager, who lived an hour away in Redlands to pick me up because I also lived in Redlands.
I was so mad that I started to compile a complaint against the Pasadena PD. But then I got recruited to work for the Arizona Republic, so I just neglected it.
So who knows what would have happened.
3 Rusty Carr // Apr 26, 2010 at 12:31 AM
I’m a strong advocate of sueing for a LOT of money and not settling out of court.
4 Rusty Carr // Apr 26, 2010 at 12:35 AM
“I was so pissed. I ended up in a jail cell for several hours with several suspected cigarette smokers.”
OMIGOD Carlos! I hope they didn’t exhale on you!!
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