Posted on 01/24/2008 5:12:04 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084
Newark police are facing more legal troubles stemming from a Sept. 6 confrontation with local journalists who found a woman's decomposing body in a garbage- strewn alley.
Roberto Lima, editor of the Brazilian Voice newspaper, charged in a lawsuit yesterday that police ordered him not to publish any pictures of the body, then confiscated a digital camera that held photographs of the crime scene. Later, when he agreed to give up the photos but refused to hand over electronic copies, they cuffed him to a bench in an East Ward precinct station.
"This is America, my friend," Lima said in an interview at the Newark headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which filed the lawsuit along with the Seton Hall University Center for Social Justice. "We have the First Amendment, freedom of the press. And that should be taken seriously."
The lawsuit comes nearly two months after state Attorney General Anne Milgram recommended disciplinary charges against Newark Deputy Chief Samuel Demaio for asking Lima and his freelance photographer, Geraldo Carlos, at the scene if they were in the coun try legally. The question violated new state directives that prohibit police from asking crime victims and witnesses about their immigra tion status, Milgram said.
In response, the department put a letter of reprimand in De maio's personnel file, officials said.
But Lima, a naturalized U.S. citizen, said he also wanted the police to be held accountable for their treatment of him and Carlos as journalists. So he filed the lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Newark, a city that has a long history of money troubles just as well get out the checkbook, there’s no way they come out of this on top here unless the facts have been severely misrepresented.
The facts aren’t really misrepresented at all. The liberal Star Ledger initially reported it as a sad case of what happens with the new law requiring police to ask about immigration status of someone committing a serious crime or DWI.
It stemmed from the illegal immigrant who killed 3 college bound students a few months ago even though he was known to be here illegally.
The original witness is illegal. The photographer who was handcuffed is legal and I don’t see where he violated any law at all.
I’ll skip over the part of where New Jersey is more concerned with the rights of illegals than the rights of citizens.
The police had no right to confiscate lawfully obtained property. While the publishing of crime scene photos could very well compromise an investigation, I believe the DA should go to a judge and get an injunction against the guy who had the photos. Another tactic would have been to ask nicely and get him to sign an agreement to not publish for a certain period of time.
This is going to be a continual problem with so many cameras, video cameras and cell phones being everywhere. People are going to have these when crime scenes are discovered. The police are not going to be the first on the scene with a camera any more. There will be more instances like this until the law gets more settled on the issue.
It’s the confiscation of the Camera and images that will cost the big bucks, asking some wetback where he’s from isn’t going too far as a court case in my opinion.
You’re right. The ironic thing was that the photographer, when asked nicely and explained to him like a human being, agreed to not publish the photographs.
They had no right to detain him and threaten him without a court order. They decided to use Gestapo tactics because they could.
I’m not a fan of frivolous lawsuits and ambulance chasing trial lawyers, but there is one area where they serve an important role in society...keeping a check on “authorities” who would have no other check on their monopoly power to use brute force against citizens.
The illegal alien being questioned by the Newark police was just a silly meaningless thing that was used by the PC liberal media to show what would happen if untrained local police attempted to enforce immigration laws.
Newark, NJ a Sanctuary City since about 6-3-07 !!
It was a sanctuary city until an illegal killed 3 young people.
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