Culture

Vancouver cops under fire for camera seizures

by mtippett | April 7, 2009 at 08:05 am

414 views | 49 Recommendations | 7 comments

Vancouver police are under fire for their rough handling of a newspaper photographer during an incident where a man was shot. The photographer surrendered his camera under the threat of arrest but later the cops admitted their mistake

Police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said Monday that “it’s not our policy to take video or cameras away from the media.”

But McGuinnes went on to say that:

But she said police may have to seize phone or video evidence from individuals at a crime scene. The incident with Payne is being investigated internally, she said.

But who's footage is it? People have the right to free speech. In the digital age, photographs and video are no less a form of speech than the printed word. Taking someone's camera is a supression of that right.

Let's not forget the role played by the video of Robert Dziekanski. Dziekanski was repeatedly tasered by police after becoming disoriented at the the airport. Testimony from police was directly contradicted by the video evidence shot by Paul Pritchard who was in the airport at the time.

If police have the right to examine crime scene evidence then there should be very clear rules about how to handle that footage. As the Dziekanski story demonstrates, there will be times when police have a vested interested in not having that material made public.

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lefty_liberated

at 08:33 on April 7th, 2009

Interesting incident and its important for people to know about it. Kudos to the police department for admitting its mistake.

HarryH (not verified)

at 09:20 on April 7th, 2009

Just another example of the corruption runs, like blood, through the veins of the BC establishment. The BC police force have proven time and again that they are simply legalized thugs - scared to be seen doing their job, which frequently involves murdering the general public.

It's about time the politicians stood up for decency and radically changed the way the police operate in BC. The problem with this, of course, is that it is not in the ineterests of the politicians in power to do this.

Take for example the new Mayor of Vancouver... slipping so smoothly in to the shoes of the mayor that went before him... it's all schmoozing along the road of a huge personal ego trip... the election campaign promises long forgotten...

Uwe Paschen

at 10:21 on April 7th, 2009

Japanese Police would not come under fire for such seizures ever.

Nor am I happy about it either.

steffanileman

at 09:12 on April 8th, 2009

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice McLachlin said to an American audience that while there are many good reasons to live in Canada, freedom of speech is not one of them. I'm not sure if this was the speech I'm thinking of, but here's a link.