New York Times Says NYPD Brutalized A Photographer
The New York Times has complained to the city’s police department after one of its photographers said he was assaulted by officers who arrested him on Saturday.
Robert Stolarik, a freelance photographer, claimed a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer “slammed” his camera into his face before he was dragged to the ground, kicked and arrested.
Stolarik was on assignment with two other reporters in the Bronx when he was stopped by police on Saturday evening.
Police ordered Stolarik to stop taking pictures of a teenage girl being arrested. When he refused, an officer reputedly grabbed Stolarik’s camera and dragged him to the ground.
Stolarik claimed he was then kicked in the back and received scrapes and bruises on his face, legs and arms as a result of the arrest. He was charged with obstructing government administration and of resisting arrest.
The New York Times reported that a video of the arrest taken by another journalist showed Stolarik face down on the pavement beneath a huddle of about six police officers.
The police claimed that Stolarik “inadvertently” struck an officer in the face with his camera when he refused to leave the scene and stop taking photographs. A spokesman for the NYPD said the force had no further comment to make on Monday.
It is the third time since December the paper has written to the force about its treatment of Stolarik, who covered the Occupy Wall Street protests for the New York Times.
Police obstructed Stolarik from taking pictures of an arrest at an Occupy Wall Street rally in December 2011, and again in January.
More fun with the NYPD — Bloomberg’s personal army, the seventh largest in the world. Having a personal police force is a great investment for Bloomberg, a billionaire whose fortune was made in part through the sale of Bloomberg screens to Wall Street traders.
I had posted something about this earlier but this bears repeating.
I mean, what else can the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information (DCPI) at the New York City Police Department be doing here but lying through his fucking teeth?
This is a photojournalist from the New York Times, who more than likely (aaaah Hell, I’ll say definitely) has an NYPD-issued press pass, which allows him to shoot at police and fire scenes, and this is what the fuck the NYPD allows its police officers to do — BEAT UP JOURNALISTS?
I cannot believe that a single journalistic organization on Tumblr will allow this to slip by. If you’re a practicing journalist, then for fuck’s sake pick up on this story tomorrow and demand that DCPI Paul Browne go on the record with a full account of this incident and definitively back up his Department’s claims that it was Stolarik that initiated this criminal act.
Don’t take this bullshit from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly or his minions anymore. For fuck’s sake, this isn’t Russia and the Police Department isn’t run by Vladimir fucking Putin.
