Eric Hartley: Censorship shows police culture of overreach

As a native of Puerto Rico, Antonio Amador has seen police officers cross the line before.

He thought he had left that behind when he moved to the United States in January so his two daughters could attend good schools. Amador admires America and the fact that its institutions serve the people.

But after the experience he had with Anne Arundel County police two weeks ago, he's not so sure.

" 'I guess police are the same anywhere' - that's what I said," Amador recalled last week.

Police would not comment on the facts, but what Amador described is a blatant violation of free speech rights and the county Police Department's own rules.

Amador, a 41-year-old photographer and graphic designer who lives in Severn, was awakened by his power flickering off and on about 4:30 a.m. Oct. 24. A while later, he saw police car lights outside, grabbed a point-and-shoot camera (not his professional gear) and went outside. The disturbance turned out to be a car that crashed into a utility pole, killing the 20-year-old driver.

Amador took a few pictures, chatted with a neighbor and decided to take more pictures after a truck blocking his view was moved.

"I snapped one, and by the second shot I hear this scream coming from my side: 'Hey, hey! Delete the pictures. Delete the pictures!' " he said.

Amador said he never raised his voice, but tried to explain to the officer that he had been concerned for months about speeding in the neighborhood.

The week before, a car had crashed through a fence and damaged two cars near a neighbor's home. Amador had photographed that accident, too, for a file he was compiling to ask the county to put up signs warning people to slow down or take other steps to reduce speeding.

"All I did was say, 'Sir, let me explain to you ...' They couldn't care less," he said.

Two other officers came over. Amador said police threatened to handcuff him and stood next to him until he deleted the five or six shots he'd taken. They then demanded his identification and ordered him to leave the scene, though neighbors were still watching.

Amador said he never got close enough to interfere with officers. But if police had asked him to back up as they collected evidence, or even to stop taking pictures, Amador would have complied out of respect. That is, if he'd been shown any respect.

"They treated me like I had done some crime," he said. "No respect at all - like I was some delinquent."

As for an explanation of why police were so insistent? "They kind of said, 'This is a criminal investigation,' " Amador said.

That's nonsense - anyone in a public place is allowed to take photographs.

Police said the law bars them from identifying the officers involved or commenting on Amador's official complaint because it is part of a personnel record.

Amador said he was afraid to ask the officers their names, though he knew he had the right to. With his wife and girls inside and his dog on a leash beside him, he had no interest in risking arrest.

Lt. James Fredericks, a county police spokesman, said the allegations don't reflect how officers are instructed to treat journalists or regular people.

"Anyone's entitled to take photographs of a scene, and we even allow closer access for the media when it's feasible," he said.

The department's own rules say: "Media representatives may photograph and report anything they observe when legally present at an incident scene. Where publication of such coverage would interfere with an official investigation or place a victim, suspect or others in jeopardy, the withholding of publication is dependent upon a cooperative media, not upon department censorship." (Emphasis added.)

And journalists don't have special rights. The First Amendment applies to everyone.

But this is not an entirely isolated incident. There's no evidence of other cases where police have ordered people to delete pictures, but officers have repeatedly hassled photographers from The Capital who were shooting traffic accidents and were nowhere near interfering.

One mistake is human error; a pattern suggests bad training, a culture where openness is not taken seriously or both.

Amador said the Internal Affairs lieutenant who called to get his account of what happened seemed sincerely interested in addressing the problem. And he said he's not looking to get anyone in trouble.

"I just needed to say this so it somehow gets better, so they get better. I'm not after anybody," Amador said. "They should get better training, get better consciousness. They just have to change the attitude."

Read more on police openness in Eric Hartley's "Arundel Outtakes" blog at www.hometownannapolis.com/blogs.