Posted on 08/28/2015 3:53:16 PM PDT by csvset
BBC journalist Franz Strasser has filmed through rubber bullets and tear gas in Rio de Janeiro and has at times been told by police to stop filming while on assignment.
But he had never been ordered to delete footage until Wednesday, after he and a fellow journalist came upon the scene on Interstate 66 where Vester Lee Flanagan crashed a car following a pursuit by Virginia State Police.
A trooper told Strasser that police would need to seize his camera because his footage could be evidence, but then ordered him to delete the footage. The trooper watched as the journalist deleted it, Strasser said in an interview Friday.
Strasser tweeted about the incident on Wednesday. Corinne Geller, the State Police spokeswoman, tweeted back that police would look into it because such actions would violate police policy. Geller said Friday that after seeing tweets about the incident State Police began an administrative investigation by its Professional Standards Unit that is ongoing.
Strasser has worked as a video journalist for BBC in Washington, D.C., for six years, covering features and breaking news across the United States.
He reported on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, covered the fatal shootings of children and adults in 2012 in Newtown, Conn., and flew to Ferguson, Mo., numerous times to cover of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown last year.
After the fatal shooting of Roanoke TV journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward on Wednesday, Strasser and BBC White House reporter Tara McKelvey began driving to Roanoke in a rental car.
They heard police were in pursuit of the shooter but decided they should continue to Roanoke. As they drove on I-66 west, Strasser noticed no oncoming traffic and then saw about a dozen police cars and a silver car in the ditch on the other side of the interstate.
He knew what they had stumbled onto.
“Police were just standing around … so it didn’t seem like an active situation,” he said. “There was no commotion.”
He later realized they had arrived after Flanagan shot himself but before an ambulance had arrived. Flanagan later died.
Strasser stopped the car about 200 yards away, grabbed his camera and began filming as he walked through brush in the median to get to the other side.
He filmed the silver vehicle from 200 yards away. About six police officers then began running toward him, shouting, “Get back to your car!”
Strasser retreated to his car, where he opened the trunk to put his camera inside. An officer, presumably a state trooper, came up and closed the trunk.
“You’re not going anywhere. Your car is being towed,” the officer told him. “You’re parked illegally.”
The officer then asked about the footage: “What’s on that camera? That could be evidence. We need to seize that.”
The officer took the camera and fiddled with it for a few seconds. Strasser said he needed it to go to Roanoke. The trooper then told Strasser he’d need to first delete the video footage.
“He couldn’t figure out how to delete it,” Strasser said. “He gave it back to me and said, ‘I’ll watch you delete it.’”
As Strasser pulled up a prompt to delete the footage the officer said, “Now push it,” watching every step of the process.
The officer allowed Strasser to keep his camera and the journalists left for Roanoke. Strasser removed the video card, hoping he could later retrieve the deleted footage.
He tweeted about the incident but was more concerned about preparing mentally for the reporting they’d be doing.
“You kind of go a little bit on autopilot when you go to a scene like this because you have to talk to people, you have a job to do,” he said.
He said the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown were the worse tragedy he’s covered, but “this one hits really close to home as a fellow journalist.”
State Police are doing an internal investigation of the incident over Strasser’s footage following a complaint by BBC.
Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, has trained police in Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington and other cities in how to avoid overstepping their authority.
He said reporters and citizens taking pictures or video are interfered with, threatened or harassed on a daily basis by police.
There are narrow circumstances in which police could ask for video footage or obtain it with a search warrant, he said. For instance, if a serious crime was committed and police believe that if they didn’t seize a camera, evidence would be lost or destroyed, they can ask for consent to view the images or get a search warrant, he said.
In this case, the trooper violated the reporter’s First Amendment right to free speech, his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizure and his 14th Amendment right not to be deprived of property without due process, Osterreicher said.
“It would seem from that conversation that the trooper was very interested that whatever images (Strasser) had never see the light of day,” he said.
He wrote a letter to State Police about the association’s concerns.
Patrick Wilson, (804) 697-1564, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com
lol!
Good times,,,
I just read today that is apartment was practically across the street from the TV station. All he had to do was wait for them to go on assignment and then follow. Big TV truck not difficult to keep in sight from a distance.
Tell the cop everything you shoot is uploaded in realtime and so is the audio of this conversation...”anything you’d like to say to your boss?”
Yeah, it can be fun. But I don’t get bent out of shape over it. Its election season. Tensions run high. Have a good one.
I thought the car they were chasing originally was a silver Mustang but then that changed to a creme Dodge Charger. What is the truth?
good question. We’d all like to know.
He was fired 2 years before so he wouldnt have access that long after and Im sure they change security passwords regularly being a news organization.
You too, and oh yes, you signed up just in time. This election will be a world class donnybrook here. It will be warmly remembered for years.
Damn, still going...
A trooper told Strasser that police would need to seize his camera because his footage could be evidence, but then ordered him to delete the footage. The trooper watched as the journalist deleted it, Strasser said in an interview Friday. Strasser tweeted about the incident on Wednesday. Corinne Geller, the State Police spokeswoman, tweeted back that police would look into it because such actions would violate police policy.Put them on roadside litter pickup detail for a week, see if that helps their judgment.
I went by there, both ways, west then east, on my way to Winchester. You cannot see over the bank and down to where the perp’s car came to rest. I am wondering if this ‘reporter’ isn’t just an attention wh*re.
I also can’t imagine a professional reporter or cameraman letting a police officer say to him, ‘erase your images’, and then doing it....
When the perp’s info was accessed, it was reported he owned and was probably in a mustang. But he had ditched the mustang at the airport and was in a rented charger. This was all arranged before doing the shooting.
He had zero authority to do that and should find himself unemployed and banned from all gov. employment.
Not really buying this BBC “reporter” version of “the story”.
He/she/it has been playing the victim since he/she/it signed up.
Well either he was following her and learned her routine or something else was going on here.
WTF? did they want to charge him with destroying evidence?
Hard to tell what model but after looking at late model Chevy's I'd say it is a Cruze or Sonic LTZ
Yeah, it was a Sonic, I believe. I meant that he ditched his mustang at the airport( saw a photo of it being towed away) and rented a car to tool around in while he did his deeds.
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