New Haven police have once again gone too far in arresting a person taking pictures and seizing the camera used to photograph suspected bombs.
The two pressure cookers on the sidewalk that caused the bomb scare turned out to be harmless. But police couldn’t be sure at first, and it’s understandable if they were unnerved by the reporter for the New Haven Independent snapping pictures from across the street.
That, however, doesn’t justify them handcuffing the reporter and taking his camera. Nor should he have been charged with trespassing and interfering with police. These seem overreactions, given that he was on a public street that hadn’t been closed off from where he entered.
Connecticut state law allows a civilian to record cops doing their jobs as long as the civilian doesn’t interfere with police work. The reporter wasn’t in the way of officers, according to Independent editor Paul Bass, who arrived at the scene a short while later, nor did he cross a police line.
Police contend that the reporter, David Sepulveda, ignored orders to leave, but Mr. Sepulveda disputes that. In either case, police had no right to take his camera. Connecticut law requires a search warrant to seize journalists’ property.
It’s not the first time New Haven police have shown questionable judgment. An assistant chief was found to have broken department policy in 2011 by arresting a citizen videotaping an arrest and ordering an officer to erase the video. That case and others resulted in the state law, passed in 2015, clarifying that it is legal to film police performing their duties.
There are exceptions to the law. An officer can stop a citizen from filming to preserve a crime scene’s integrity, for instance. It’s hard to understand, though, how the New Haven Independent reporter was impairing the scene merely by snapping photos from across the street, where no police tape had been put up.
New Haven police seem to have a big problem understanding that they can’t take civilians’ cameras just because they’re rattled by them.
