anzaldiphoto
One of more than 500 images police deleted from Mike Anzaldi’s cameras, which he later recovered
By Carlos Miller
First Chicago police arrested Mike Anzaldi for videotaping a crime scene while standing on private property with the owner’s permission.
Then they deleted more than 500 images from his still cameras before releasing him from jail nine hours later.
And now they are refusing to return his video camera along with the tape inside, claiming they need it as “evidence” to justify the arrest against him.
But Anzaldi says the confiscated video tape will only prove his innocence. And he fears police will erase the contents of the videotape just as they deleted more than 500 images from his two Canon EOS-IDs.
“That video camera is my livelihood, it’s how I make a living,” Anzaldi said in a telephone interview Thursday night.
Anzaldi was charged with obstruction against a peace officer after he refused to stop filming an investigation of an incident involving an off-duty police officer who shot and killed a man trying to rob him Tuesday night.
But the initial order for him to stop filming came from a civilian, a police spokesperson named Monique Bond who is not even a police officer. A flack without a badge.
Anzaldi, who has been covering breaking news in Chicago for 12 years, was able to retrieve the deleted images, one which is posted above this article and shows the body of the man police killed. I wonder when cops are going to learn we have recovery software that retrieves deleted images?
Anzaldi’s photos also show that he was clearly across the street, close enough to photograph the investigation but far enough not to interfere with it.
“I pulled up to the scene 20 minutes after the shooting because I heard it over the scanner,” he said.
As is customary during police investigations, they started expanding the crime scene with yellow ribbon.
“I started roaming around to find a legal place to shoot,” he said. “I was invited on somebody’s private property by the owner. There was about 20 other people there watching.”
Anzaldi started filming with his Canon XH A1. By that time, Bond had arrived on the scene to disseminate the news to the media. Instead, she did her best to censor the news.
“She told me to stop shooting, that you can’t shoot a crime scene that is under investigation.”
At first, he complied with her request, just to keep the peace.
“Then a family member of the victim arrived and she was very upset and distraught, so I picked the video camera back up and started filming.”
And that was when Bond made a beeline towards him, ordering him to stop filming. She was flanked by two cops, a sergeant and a detective.
“She said, ‘you can be there, you just can’t shoot’,” Anzaldi said.
Then she asked for his police-issued press credentials, which he had left in his car in his haste to get to the scene.
“She acted as if she didn’t know who I was, but she knew exactly who I was,” he said. “I’ve had run-ins with her before.”
Bond has been a public information officer with the Chicago Police Department for about a year-and-half, he said. But he’s known her from when she was a Chicago Department of Aviation media spokesperson.
“She insisted that you need to have credentials to shoot any news in Chicago, which is bullshit,” he said.
Anzaldi told her he had the right to continue filming and did just that. And that was when the police sergeant ordered his arrest.
Nine hours later, he was released from jail. When police returned his two still cameras, he discovered they had deleted his images. When he asked for his video camera, they told him it was being held as evidence.
Now he has hired an attorney to get his camera back. And the Society of Professional Journalists, who is protesting his arrest, will assist him in paying for his legal bills.
Police are claiming he crossed police lines, which is why they arrested him. But Anzaldi denies that, and it is hard to believe someone who has covered breaking news for 12 years would do such a thing.
Nevertheless, as SPJ’s David Cullier points out, Chicago has an ordinance that allows journalists with press credentials to cross police lines.
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.
Anyone who has followed my case knows SPJ has helped me tremendously in my legal battle.
For some reason, Anzaldi’s case hasn’t been picked up by the mainstream, other than a short story on Chicago’s CBS station. But it is beginning to get picked up by various independent websites and blogs, such as Discarted, which also dedicates itself to photographers’ rights.
“By taking my camera, they are preventing me from doing my job,” Anzaldi said.
Popularity: 4% [?]
15 responses so far ↓
1 Ms Calabaza // Oct 24, 2008 at 9:06 AM
. . . this is beginning to become a trend. It’s very scary because little by little we seem to be losing our rights and most people aren’t even aware of what’s going on. Oh, I forgot Dancing with the Stars was on last night!
2 Scott // Oct 24, 2008 at 9:25 AM
Yeah ok the police went much to far. I know that.
My own personal opinion about this however,
“Then a family member of the victim arrived and she was very upset and distraught, so I picked the video camera back up and started filming.”, is that the victim’s family in this circumstance has some right to privacy. I don’t have any legal backing on this one, just my own feelings.
3 Dina // Oct 24, 2008 at 12:27 PM
“I wonder when cops are going to learn we have recovery software that retrieves deleted images?”
Carlos, maybe we need to quite posting that fact.
4 Mike // Oct 24, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Scott-
I respect your opinion. It is a valid point in a discussion worth having. Is it ethical or sensitive to photograph personal, emotional moments such as those experienced by family or friends of victims? Quality question, indeed.
5 Scott // Oct 24, 2008 at 12:58 PM
Well thank you Mike.
6 discarted // Oct 24, 2008 at 1:15 PM
carlos
please don’t act like “we” a la discarted have gradually picked this story up. other than the CBS story we were the first blog to publish Mike’s story AND THEN you were made aware of this story by us.
after writing the first blog post about Mike on the entire internet, my writer, who is really the one that broke this story, and is the catalyst for the attention this issue is now receiving made you aware of the incident after posting it on discarted.
so please give credit where credit is do because otherwise you, and everybody else, wouldn’t even have known about this issue if it wasn’t for this writer.
7 Carlos Miller // Oct 24, 2008 at 1:47 PM
discarted,
With all due respect, I first heard of this story when I woke up Thursday morning because I had received a Google alert at 5:31 a.m.
The Google alert included the CBS story, but not your story.
I didn’t post about it that morning because I had plans for the day and I was already running late.
When I got home later that afternoon, I saw that you had sent me a link to your story at 4:37 p.m.
So it is wrong to assume that I was clueless about this story until you made me aware of it.
And I really don’t understand this pissing match that you’re trying to start.
To be honest, once I had interviewed Mike, I wasn’t even going to link to your post because it was already irrelevant.
But the reason I did was because I was impressed that you had actually interviewed Mike instead of just cutting and pasting the story like most bloggers do.
But now that you’re getting technical about it, your writer missed some of the crucial elements of this story, such as the fact that Mike was able to retrieve his images (or at least was going to attempt to retrieve them).
Your writer also buried the fact that police were refusing to return his video camera, which is a significant part of the story.
And she completely missed the part that it was a civilian – not a cop – who gave him the initial order to stop filming.
As I said, your story was already irrelevant once I had written my story.
8 Jeremy Jojola // Oct 24, 2008 at 7:42 PM
I would think police would have needed a search warrant to look through the digital contents of his cameras. Also, wouldn’t deleting of the images by police be tampering with evidence too?
This is too absurd and heavy handed.
9 OneByTheCee // Oct 25, 2008 at 6:07 AM
When the police illegally keep your lawful property, isn’t that, in effect, stealing?
Why not file a stolen property report and name the police as the thiefs?
10 Jeff // Nov 14, 2008 at 10:56 AM
This just got picked up by Second City Cop, a blog run by Chicago cops that tends to ruffle the features of the top brass.
They sided with Mike in this case. Consider it a big win, as their typical ire toward the media is pretty legendary.
11 Dave Burda // Nov 14, 2008 at 12:22 PM
This is how freedom dies in Barack Obama’s America: A police state. First this, next comes the Fairness Doctrine for radio, then they’ll repeal the 2nd Amendment.
The only solution is a white revolution.
12 Scott // Nov 14, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Police State, everyone keeps going on about it. Well it is not anywhere near a police state. If it was, I wouldn’t be able to look at a blog like this. And I will bet you Mr. Burda, that none of those things you mention EVER happen during Obama’s presidency. What the hell is a white revolution anyway?
13 Carlos Miller // Nov 14, 2008 at 5:31 PM
Jeff,
I’ve been keeping up with that blog post and it’s very refreshing to see that the majority of commenters, many who appear to be officers, also agree that this arrest was BS.
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2008/11/monique-quashes-1st-amendment.html
14 hamburgler // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:09 PM
the person the officer shot IS NOT A VICTIM but rather an OFFENDER who brought a knife to a gun fight. because this officer had the means available to defend himself does not make the robber with a deadly weapon a victim but yes monique bond is an idiot.
15 scrappy // Dec 1, 2008 at 1:59 AM
And do we wonder why chicago police refuse to shoot a tv show like,”cops”or “48″ probably not because the chicago police do not follow proper police standards . years ago friends of city politicians were admitted into the police force by who they knew and for years lots of court cases have been thrown out do to not following proper police procedures with out violating peoples rights,however there are some of these stupid ass cops out here that dont solve any cases and that constantly fuck up and end up working a desk job fucking up police reports cause they cant fuckin spell,couple more years and this wave of fine officers will hopefully be retired and then we might have a t.v series based in chicago. MONIQUE BOND IS AN IDIOT.
Leave a Comment