Police and the Working Media
Shooting the Shooter Cameras roll as Uptown contributor is handcuffed by police
Mark Warkentin
It’s all on video.
Cameras were rolling when Winnipeg police began handcuffing members
of the Critical Mass bicycle group at the intersection of Ellice
Avenue and Smith Street shortly after 4 p.m. on May 3.
Critical Mass is a loosely affiliated group of cyclists who ride
monthly through the streets of Winnipeg. Some riders choose to
wear or display signs protesting or criticizing a variety of issues
and ideas. On this day, several had expressed their opposition
to Exercise Charging Bison.
Local videographer Jon McPhail, filming the ride/protest as part
of the This Tour Has Seven Days project, captured footage of protester
Alex Wright being restrained by police as a throng of about 50
other cyclists milled about in confusion.
McPhail also filmed freelance photojournalist and Uptown contributor
Jon Schledewitz struggling to hang on to his camera while a police
officer tried to pull it from his hands.
Watching the footage, I was appalled to see Schledewitz yanked
forward by his camera strap, put in a headlock and handcuffed
— all while trying to do his job.
“I had already
crossed through the intersection, and when I saw them grab him
(Alex) I rode over so I could start shooting photos of it,”
Schledewitz said, adding that he was on his bike so he could keep
up with the protest.
“I know a police officer behind
me asked/demanded I move, and as I started to get out of the way,
as I was directed, another cop, who was in front of me, grabbed
my camera, which was hanging around my neck,” Schledewitz
wrote in an e-mail. “He pulled the camera toward him, in
the process pulling me toward him at the same time as the cop
behind me was trying to pull me out of the way of the other commotion.”
Schledewitz added: “As I was having my camera taken from
me I was yelling, ‘I’m working! I’m fucking
working...!’
“The one cop did get my camera over
my head and then put me in a headlock. At the same time another
cop was handcuffing me. My glasses were knocked off and lying
on the street, along with my hat. I’m handcuffed and walked
backwards about a truck-and-a-half length down Ellice to the back
of a paddy wagon.”
Schledewitz said he was detained for two hours before being released
and given a $230 ticket for “failing to obey a peace officer’s
instructions.”
“All of a sudden he’s being
brought down and I just see his camera flying about and he’s
being dragged off his bike,” said Natasha Peterson, a bike
courier who also took pictures of the incident.
“That
definitely shocked me when I watched it (the footage) at home,”
McPhail said. “I did not expect to see Winnipeg police officers
trying to take someone’s camera.”
It shocked me, too.
It also reminded me that these are the kinds of stories Uptown
should — and will — be covering on a regular basis,
because a journalist is a journalist, whether he or she is wearing
a suit and a press pass or a nose ring and a Ramones T-shirt.
As an alternative to mainstream media, Uptown relies on the contributions
of street-level freelancers and journalists working close to events
as they happen. Police have a obligation to protect these people,
not silence them.
Const. Jacqueline Chaput, Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson,
declined to comment on the incident. |
Uptown
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