Cops beating up, stealing cameras of New Orleans photojournalists!

[theearthisround]

Two veteran photojournalists - NPPA member Rick Wilking of Reuters and Getty's Mark Wilson - were robbed of cameras and computer equipment today while on assignment in a neighborhood in New Orleans, and a photojournalist and a reporter were confronted at gunpoint and slammed against a wall by police following a shoot-out between looters and cops that left at least one person dead.

Another photojournalist - Lucas Oleniuk of the Toronto Star - was knocked to the ground by police, his gear taken from him initially, when he photographed them shooting at looters and then beating one. In response to the growing violence and an increasing sense of despair among the stranded survivors, some television networks have hired armed private security firms to protect their journalists as they work to cover the story.

.......
Toronto Star staff photojournalist Lucas Oleniuk was taken to the ground by police in the Spanish Quarter after he photographed a firefight between looters and police, and police were then reportedly “beating on” a looter. A coworker at the Toronto Star told News Photographer magazine tonight, “The cops saw him and put him down, and took his gear. At first they were going to take all of his cameras, but he talked them into only taking the memory cards and letting him keep the cameras.” Oleniuk’s coworker says the photojournalist, who was not injured in the incident, went to New Orleans the day after the hurricane hit.

(more)
http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=1002

[fooj]

1. OMG!

:cry:

[LiberalFighter]

2. I hope he did a memory card switcheroo

[mcscajun]

3. On reading the story....seems bogus...Why?

...there are no links back to the news organizations for which these reporters work.

If their reporters had been attacked...there ought to be at least Some mention somewhere.

Here's Rick Wilking's first-hand account of the storm and its aftermath, filed this afternoon:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=229514+06-Sep-2005+RTRS&srch=Rick+Wilking

[caligirl]

6. that was worth the read. thanks for posting.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. There needs to be a quick way to upload these pix as soon as they're shot

Whether it's now in NO or over the past few years where under the Patriot Act cameras are seized for taking pictures of verbotten areas, this sort of 'enforcement' needs to be taken out of the hands of the local thugs.

[2Design]

5. rumormongering n/t