AN OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY student journalist was detained and arrested by university police when he wouldn't stop photographing runaway cows.The student, who shoots pictures for the school newspaper, heard that a pair of cows from the agriculture school were loose and roaming campus. So he grabbed his gear and ran to the scene.
Someone from the agriculture school told him he wasn't allowed to take pictures. The student journalist said that he was on public property and allowed to take pictures.
University police later told the student that he could not take pictures from where he was because he was in danger. The student journalist moved and continued shooting elsewhere. He continued shooting as the cows ran. At one point, the student journalist bypassed a police barricade by walking through a university building.
Did the student journalist do a good job by getting the images? Or were the police correct - the student journalist put himself in danger by not listening to police?
6 comments:
I felt like the journalist did the good job at getting the pictures to an extent. Before he was warned by the police that he could not take pictures, I feel like he was right that it was public property. But I also believe that when the student went through a University building to get to a certain area, that was closed off by police that was going againist what the police told him to do, completely. But him being a journalist I feel as if he did, what he had to do to obtain pictures, but he did take it to far at a point.
The photographer probably should've called it a day after he had taken photos from the first few locations he went to, but I think he knowingly risked legal complications when he went through a building to get around the police barricade. The police might not have necessarily needed to arrest him, but he didn't have to keep pressing the issue.
It's hard for police and other employees in a situation like this because you really never know when an animal could become frightened and bolt off, and if someone got hurt because the police didn't secure the area they'd probably lose their jobs.
It's hard to judge the situation without having actually been there.
I don't think the photographer did anything wrong until he went through the police barricade. It's one thing to take full advantage of your rights as a citizen, but it's another to deliberately go somewhere that you aren't supposed to go.
Also, what is definition of land that police block off? I would assume that it no longer is "public property" for the time being, if only for the fact that police are trying to keep others out of the area for everyone's safety.
I think this story is a bit ridiculious because these are cows we are taking about not bulls. Thhe kids just wanted the best picture. I mean i can see if the police were blocking people from seeing the cows if it was an accident or some harmful but i feel in this case it was not anything like that.
They were both right. The cows looked fairly dangerous especially when one of the videos on the site has the cows bulling a guy that was running around on the field. Also someone standing around taking pictures might be unaware of a police car that it is about to run into them as the police were using their cars to heard the bulls. I can see the field as being a potentially dangerous place and the police just trying to not only insure the safety of the citizens but keeping the citizens away from interfering with their plans to capture the cows. Especially if they are planning to use live ammunition, one doesn't want someone whimsically running around taking pictures. That being said I think the journalist did a great job at getting pictures. He certainly was persistent. Although he pissed the police off enough to get arrested right before they started to use live ammunition. Thus he did not document the police shooting or lassoing the cows which would have been neat.
I believe that this student originally was doing a good job to try and get the footage of the cows breaking out. But as soon as the police becomes involved in a situation like this, he should have backed down and not crossed a police barricade. I also checked out the video that was linked from the article and the cows were dangerous and running towards and into people, so this student deliberately ignored warnings that were meant to keep him safe.
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