By Carlos Miller
It is quite surprising – and refreshing – to see a mainstream newspaper take such a strong stance against last week’s arrest of a news videographer, but the video clearly speaks for itself.
The headline in last week’s Albuquerque Journal article states “City Cop Attacks KOB-TV Photographer”.
And the lede sentence reads “A KOB-TV photographer shooting video near a crime scene early Thursday morning was attacked by an Albuquerque police officer who had ordered him to move.”
Note the lack of the use “allegedly” which is the common journalistic disclaimer that prevents newspapers from getting sued for convicting someone in the press. In this case, the actions of the officer were so blatant, it would be a mockery to say he allegedly did anything.
The Journal also pointed out that last week’s incident marked the second time in two years that an Albuquerque police officer arrested a KOB videographer. In the previous incident, an investigation determined the officers acted inappropriately and were ordered to go through further training.
Obviously, that training was not implemented for all incoming officers.
In last week’s incident, Albuquerque police officer Daniel Guzman is shown circling around videographer Rick Foley before he pounces on him without warning.
Foley is a 25-year veteran. Guzman has been on the force just over a year.
Click below for a cut and paste of the Albuquerque Journal article, as they make you either register or sit through a lengthy video ad to read the actual article.
City Cop Attacks KOB-TV Photographer
By T.J. Wilham
Journal Staff Writer
A KOB-TV photographer shooting video near a crime scene early Thursday morning was attacked by an Albuquerque police officer who had ordered him to move.
And it was all caught on tape, which the station has been broadcasting on its newscasts and its Web site.
Channel 4 cameraman Rick Foley, a 25-year veteran, was covering a police standoff near Copper and Charleston NE when officer Daniel Guzman told him to move to a different location, according to an Albuquerque police report.
Foley at the time was some distance from the police cars blocking the street.
Before the incident, Foley asked Guzman to identify himself, and he asked for Guzman’s badge number.
Shortly after the officer told Foley he needed to move, the video shows the officer pacing and sizing up the photographer, then lunging at him.
Foley was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police car and cited for “refusing to obey an officer,” according to a police report.
KOB-TV said in its newscast that Foley was preparing to pack up his van and leave when the attack occurred, but he had kept the camera running while moving.
Foley was eventually released.
Guzman, who has been with APD a little more than a year, wrote in his citation: “Mr. Foley refused to obey my lawful order to relocate himself to Central and Rhode Island. Foley was asked several times to move as he filmed me, sticking his camera in my face.”
Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz said Thursday that he had not seen the video, although he was going to request that the city’s independent review officer investigate the incident.
“If the officer is wrong, we will clearly take responsibility for it and address it,” Schultz said. “This is one of those areas where we do periodic training, and this might be one of those instances we might have to do again.”
The incident marks the second time a KOB cameraman and Albuquerque police officers have clashed in recent years. In October 2006, officers detained KOB cameraman Jeremy Fine while he was filming the aftermath of a balloon crash.
Fine was asked by an officer to leave the area. Fine objected, saying he was allowed to go where the public could go.
Schultz said an investigation into that incident determined the officers acted inappropriately. They were ordered to go through further training, he said.
KOB-TV news director Rhonda Aubrey declined to comment when asked whether she thought there was a systemic problem with the way APD treats news cameramen.
“We felt (this incident) is newsworthy because of the way our photographer was treated,” Aubrey said. “He was out on a public street, he was not interfering with a police investigation, and he was not behind a police line.
“We are airing (the video) so people can draw their own collusions.”
Police spokesman John Walsh said Thursday that he had received complaints from other journalists saying that officers had asked them to leave the area of a crime they were covering.
Walsh said that each time he has addressed the incident with an officer and was able to reach a resolution.
“I don’t believe this is a systemic problem,” Walsh said. “Our officers interact with media representatives on a daily basis and have a very good working relationship.”
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9 responses so far ↓
1 MG // Jun 3, 2008 at 2:49 PM
Yes-I think the video speaks for itself also-for the officer involved. Ordinarily I would probably be more apt to really look and see how reporters rights might be infringed upon by police. I have viewed the full, unedited tape several times. In this instance, while I think the police officer may have been a little rough, I fail to see how why this reporter felt it necessary to goad the officer-not just once, but several times. He seems to want to pick a fight for some reason. Shouldn’t he have just moved when asked to? Shouldn’t he have turned his camera off? Why was he looking to film a scuffle? He has been involved with another incident where he scuffled with an APD officer-hmmmm something going on here?
I am very uncomfortable with the way the ABQ Journal reported and editorialized the story. I feel if this had been an Anglo/White cop-there wouldn’t have been any story. Usually, it seems, only Hispanic “crimes” or criminals are given front page or top of the fold placement on the A-section in the Journal. That’s why I am so suspicious of their editorial asking for APD to investigate and to police their own.
Does anybody really think that an Anglo cop doing the same thing would be met with the same notice in the Journal? Come on!
2 Carlos Miller // Jun 3, 2008 at 2:56 PM
MG,
When it comes to matters of police, the media only sees one color – blue.
I think the main factor in the cop’s behavior is his youth and inexperience rather than his ethnicity.
Perhaps the cameraman was goading him, but we don’t know what took place beforehand to prompt him to act that way.
Besides, police have to be able to handle people who goad them because it happens all the time.
They have to maintain their professionalism regardless if they are dealing with someone who is trying to antagonize him.
In this instance, the cop pounced on the videographer without warning.
The female cop can be heard telling him that he is “interfering with an investigation” but it was the cops who came up to the reporter, not the other way around.
3 enhager // Jun 3, 2008 at 3:37 PM
That’s pretty scary – that a police officer would walk a good 20 feet away from the “scene” to arrest someone with a camera and be so chicken shit to not do it until he was hoping the camera was off. Normally doesn’t a policeman say, You are under arrest. Here the officer tries to sneak up on him from behind. Terrible training this guy had. Those NM cops – I’ve heard bad things about them before.
Have you checked that rate a cop site?
4 MG // Jun 3, 2008 at 3:40 PM
Well-Carlos -I guess I agree with you on some points:
1. cops do need to be able to handle people who are trying to antagonize them-yes-but should this antagonizing come from reporters?
2. We don’t know what happened right before the reporter turned on his camera. You’re right.
I do think though, that the reporter was interfering because if he hadn’t of been causing a dispute by his actions, the police wouldn’t have had to go over to where he was.
I don’t (and didn’t)mean to get racial, but I feel-(and I am a Journal subscriber!) that the Journal does tend to maximize Hispanic person’s alleged crimes, arrests, whatever-while minimizing others.
Oh well, this is a very hot topic! Thanks for letting me comment and hope more people come by to do just that!
5 MG // Jun 3, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Ooops! I made a mistake! It was Jeremy Fine that had a previous tussle with APD, not Rick Foley. Sometimes I wonder if TV reporters try to get the next hot story in ways that are a little too excessive. Wonder if KOB-TV has a “policy” of asking reporters to get the story any way they can??
6 Carlos Miller // Jun 3, 2008 at 4:03 PM
MG,
I actually use to read the AJ on a daily basis when I lived in Deming and worked as a reporter for the Las-Cruces Sun-News.
I always found the AJ to be an excellent paper, the best in the state at the time.
Of course, that was in the late 1990s and most newspapers have gone downhill since then, so I don’t know how they are now.
That would be an interesting study to see if the paper actually maximized Hispanic crimes while minimizing others.
I covered crime throughout most of my newspaper career, including California and Arizona, and there was never a policy to maximize Hispanic crimes.
The truth is, there was a higher rate of crimes from the Hispanic population in the areas I covered, mostly due to economic circumstances, but also due to the fact that there was human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
As far this topic, the cop walked over to the reporter to tell him where to go, not because the reporter had been interfering.
I am very interested to hear what happened before the video was rolling because the reporter seemed to be pretty pissed at the cop about something.
And the fact that he can be heard later in video saying that he thought the cop was going to hit him tells me that perhaps the cop had threatened him earlier.
Why else would the reporter ask for his name and badge number?
I’ve covered hundreds of late night incidents like that and have been confronted by rude cops, but I never felt it got so bad to the point where I needed to ask for their name and badge number (my arrest being an exception, of course).
As far as your first question goes, should reporters antagonize cops? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean reporters don’t have the right to stand up for their rights as citizens.
That doesn’t mean reporters don’t have the right to ask for a cop’s badge number if they felt the cop has been abusive towards them.
In this case, we can clearly see the cop is unable to control his temper, so who knows how he acted beforehand.
7 MG // Jun 3, 2008 at 8:21 PM
I don’t know…I have definitely seen a pattern of bias with the Journal in my lifetime of living in ABQ. I think other progressives-white, black and Hispanic have seen this also.
There are many many Hispanics here in ABQ, and in NM. Does this mean that every allegation of a crime deserve to be on the A section? Are there not Anglo crimes? And why is every little crime or allegation of wrongdoing (a rowdy party, speeding, fistfight at a high school) placed so upfront while others aren’t. Why do we have to see mugshots of every person arrested?
Let’s face it, the Journal is biased towards the readers who generally subscribe to it-older, conservative whites.
I am still not totally convinced about the cop thing. I would like to hear more about it. I think the cop was probably rude to the photog, he was rough on him, but the way some people have been writing in about this (all over the Internet)is sometimes a little too much. They’re making this cop seem like a Nazi or something. Lets get a little perspective here.
8 Ashamed of KOB // Jun 5, 2008 at 3:26 AM
ABQ Citizen wrote:
§ 12-2-19 RESISTING, OBSTRUCTING OR REFUSING TO OBEY AN OFFICER.
Resisting, obstructing or refusing to obey an officer consists of either:
(A) Knowingly obstructing, resisting or opposing any officer of this state or any other duly authorized person serving or attempting to serve or execute any process or any rule or order of any of the courts of this state or any other judicial writ or process; or
(B) Resisting or abusing any judge, magistrate or peace officer in the lawful discharge of his duties; or
(C) Refusing to obey or comply with any lawful process or order given by any police officer acting in the lawful discharge of his duties; or
(D) Interfering with, obstructing or opposing any officer in the lawful discharge of his regular and affixed duties.
9 Ashamed of APD // Jun 9, 2008 at 8:22 AM
?Freedom of the press is the guarantee by a government of free public press for its citizens and their associations, extended to members of news-gathering organizations (journalists), and their published reporting” – Wikipedia
Journalists expect to be able to do their job without being harassed and censored by a police. It’s guaranteed by the US Constitution –you know, that thing cops take an oath to uphold.
“The NYPD Patrol Guide, code 116-53, clearly affirms the First Amendment of the Constitution as it states:
‘Members of the service will not interfere with the video taping or photographing of incidents in public places. Intentional interference such as blocking or obstructing cameras or harassing the photographer constitutes censorship. Working Press Cards clearly state, the bearer “is entitled to cross police and fire lines.” This right will be honored and access will not be denied. However, this does not include access to interior crime scenes or areas frozen for security reasons.”
Maybe the APD should adopt such a policy… Hey, if it’s good enough for NY, it surely should be good enough for Albuquerque.
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