Michigan photojournalists settle federal lawsuit stemming from arrests


Five years after they were arrested for attempting to photograph a neo-Nazi rally in Toledo, two Michigan photojournalists settled a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Part of the settlement will require Toledo police to revise policies on how they interact with journalists covering events, according to The Detroit News.

Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed, if in fact, there were any.

The settlement stemmed from a 2005 incident where photojournalists Jeffrey Sauger, Jim West and Jeffery Willis were arrested before a neo-Nazi rally.

According to the 2005 National Press Photographers Association article:

Jeffrey Sauger, a freelance photojournalist from Royal Oak, MI, and an NPPA member since 1990, told News Photographer magazine that he was arrested for “criminal trespass” while in the “media pit” (an area set aside for journalists) that was within the boundaries of a cordoned off area that police had specifically set up for the rally and counter-protesters.

The photojournalists were arrested “for crossing police lines,” according to today’s story in The Blade, and that Jeff Willis, a Toledo Journal photographer, was the first to be arrested – even before the rally started. Also arrested was freelance photojournalist Jim West, a newspaper and magazine editorial photographer based in Detroit for more than two decades.

Sauger said, “I did not have the ‘temporary media pass’ as I was told by officers that I could not get one by the time I had arrived to cover the event for EPA (European Pressphoto Agency). I had already been in and out of the ‘media pit’ several times w/out incident. When I first arrived I asked a couple of different officers about being told that I could no longer get a pass and that others had said it was no problem. All of the area concerned was on a public street.”

Sauger ended up convicted but later had that conviction overturned in an appeal.

Comments

Anonymous
Anonymous

Ohio sounds like a pretty crummy place to live or visit-I think I will boycott.

Anonymous
Anonymous

David Socarras: Up Close and Personal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29332662/David-Socarras-MBPD-2010

Anonymous
Anonymous

The place that you are from/live (sucks/is terrible/insert nasty adjective) and I will not live in visit or (insert nasty verb) in. GO TROLL some where ELSE!!!!

Anonymous
Anonymous

Any one know what the price tag was? I am certain there was money here.

Anonymous
Anonymous

So for a victory story that was reported ten (10) days ago we have four (4) comments? Where are all of the activists for the freedoms we’re so laboriously arguing over? (Arguing in the sense of photographers and the authorities)

Where are the comments of support and the “atta boys!” for the guys that won their case? The cheers and the celebratory party?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Carlos,

Just stumbled upon this. Thanks for the mention. Roger, if this entire five-year ordeal were all about money, I must be a cheap date. Of what settlement there was, most went to my lawyers —who cut their rates and billable hours at least in half as a bargaining chip to get the TPD policies officially changed for the better. What went to me did not equal the loss in business I incurred due to the times I had to turn down work to be in Toledo. Neither Jim nor I were beaten or anything, but, our rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution were trampled on and that’s why we stuck with this.

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