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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police have launched an internal investigation into a confrontation between an officer and a WBTV (Channel 3) photographer in which a camera was damaged and the photographer detained.
The incident occurred near midnight Friday. Travis Washington, a photographer with Channel 3 for about three years, was sent to the scene of a fatal accident on Interstate 485 near Beatties Ford Road.
Washington and a photographer for WSOC (Channel 9) were shooting video of the scene from an embankment overhead, next to the Beatties Ford Road bridge, said Dennis Milligan, news director of Channel 3.
“A couple CMPD officers started shouting orders at him to stop shooting. And they approached and continued to shout orders to take his camera down.
“He felt like he was doing his job. He asked them why. A female officer stepped up and started to grab the camera out of his hands, and it fell to the ground. She told him, ‘Because you're not showing proper respect to people in the accident.'”
Washington was then handcuffed and put into a cruiser, where he was held for about an hour before being released without charges. He was treated afterward at an emergency room for a minor back injury related to the confrontation, said Milligan, who went to the scene after the station's assignment desk alerted him.
Police took no action against the Channel 9 photographer.
Milligan said the dialogue during the confrontation was recorded by the camera, but he wouldn't release a copy because it hadn't yet been made available to investigators.
Police declined Tuesday to give an account of the incident.
“It would be inappropriate for us to comment right now because there's an internal affairs investigation,” said spokesman Rob Tufano.
Washington is on vacation this week and couldn't be reached for comment.
“We have a difficult situation here because it's not up to the Police Department or any police officer to decide what a newspaper or television station or radio station gathers at the scene of an accident,” Milligan said. He said the photographers were not creating a safety hazard to motorists or lingering close to the area where emergency crews were working.
“I'm hoping this is a limited situation with a police officer who, for whatever reason, had a lapse of judgment. We're concerned about our First Amendment rights being compromised in this situation.”
Robin Whitmeyer, Channel 9 news director, said it's common for officers to tell photographers to back up if they're too close to a scene, but she'd never heard of police ordering cameras shut off. “We control the content, and they control the scene,” she said. “It's not their choice to tell us what to shoot or not to shoot.”
Milligan said the camera had about $1,000 in damage from a broken viewfinder and other parts. He said he plans to ask police to pay for repairs.
Deputy Police Chief Kerr Putney is to meet with WBTV executives today .
