Don't Steal My Soul

Trey Smith

It has been said that the famed Lakota warrior Crazy Horse never allowed himself to be photographed because he believed the camera would steal his soul. One has to wonder if this belief is shared by police officers throughout the country as they continue to clamp down on citizens photographing them in a variety of situations.

As John Grant reports in The Trayvon Blues,

The other day Boston cops arrested a TV news crew for filming outside a hospital, something TV crews do all the time when a news story ends in an emergency room. The cop told the photographers he had the power to overrule their First Amendment rights. While the cop had the muscle power, he did not have the legal power. Still, fact on the ground, the TV crew was removed.

In another case, two kids are videotaping in the parking lot of a Houston Walmart and a cop tells them to stop because he thinks he was in the shot. He was. The kid with the camera correctly tells the cop that he has the right to videotape police officers. The cop becomes hysterical and threatens to taser him if he doesn’t stop. The photographer wisely backs down.

I worked for years as a professional photographer, so I’m sensitive to this. I read about cops stopping photographers all the time. The fact that all police departments know very well that the law says a citizen has the right to photograph a cop doing his or her public job doesn’t seem to matter. Why? Because muscle seems to trump brains when it comes to bad police behavior.

What is it about cameras -- in all their configurations, shapes and sizes -- that seems to spook our men and women in blue? What are they trying to hide?

The irony here is that the police have developed a love affair with cameras -- PROVIDED that they are behind them. Police seem to feel they have the right to photograph, film and/or record citizen actions at will, even when there is no suspicion of any criminal activity! But put them in front of the camera and they too often go ballistic.

This is yet another development that does not bode well for democracy!