The DA on Cops David Archibald There is a scene in Strike (Eisenstein, 1925) when a police spy, the aptly named Owl, uses a tiny camera, which is hidden in a pocket watch, to record images of a striking factory worker as he tears down an employer’s proclamation from a wall. It is an early cinematic representation of the way that photography was utilised to record and monitor protest. In his work on early cinema, Tom Gunning notes that the first mobile hand cameras were originally known as ‘detective cameras’. Gunning cites an article in the French amateur photographic journal L’Amateur Photographe in 1887, which welcomed the development of these movable devices, but warned that ‘(a)ny person one meets could be photographed without suspecting it in the least, even against their will... It is certain that the general use of this little camera could take some very bad turns, just as it could render inestimable services, informing equally police officers and amateur spies.’1 Fast forward a hundred years and ‘police officers and amateur spies’ were again in the public domain, but in a rather different manner. On March 3, 1991, after a prolonged car chase, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department
stopped, restrained, beat repeatedly and then arrested Rodney King. King suffered severe injuries, including a fractured skull, during the assault, which local resident, George Holliday, recorded using a video camera.2 When a section of this raw footage was screened on television screens across the United States and beyond, for many observers, the video spoke for itself, it told its own story: this was incontrovertible evidence of LAPD violence being inflicted on a black man. Bill Nichols points out that, in the subsequent trial of four of the officers, this was the approach taken by the prosecution whose argument, as he puts it, ‘hinged heavily on the positivist fallacy: the videotape offered the proverbial smoking gun. The prosecution could treat its images as raw evidence, as incontrovertible answer to a carefully formulated and often debated question: When are the police out of control? Answer: when they beat an errant motorist with metal clubs more than fifty times. The prosecution neglected to consider the image as symptom in need of diagnosis. The prosecution chose to treat the tape as evidence, exposing itself to compelling counter-arguments that it was no such thing (in and of itself).’3 On the contrary, Nichols argues that the defence ‘systematically set out to construct an interpretive frame in which the videotape itself would serve as confirmation. Confirmation of what? Of the rough and brutal nature of police work. Of the risk and uncertainty that confront officers in the street. Of the dire necessity of controlled force to safeguard the men in blue and preserve the lives of suspects who might otherwise be killed.’4 Moreover, they slowed the tape down and conducted close textual analyses of the images in an attempt to prove that every police action, every blow, was intended to prevent a
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potentially life-threatening act been carried out by King. The defence, as Frank P. Tomasulo argues, ‘were able to provide sophisticated ‘‘spin control’’ of the beating by repeatedly showing the infamous home video recording (in slow motion) and by telling the jury that Rodney King was behaving irrationally and was resolutely disobeying the officers’ commands to stop moving – a classic instance of the ‘‘reading against the grain,’’ ‘‘structuring absence’’ methodology valorised by many film and video scholars.’5 As is well known, four officers were cleared in the first trial, but two of the four were sentenced to 30 months in a subsequent federal trial. The trial is significant for the study of visual culture because it raises important questions about the referential nature of the image. It also brought these questions into an area well beyond the normal domain of academic discourse. As the capacity for making both still and moving images has grown exponentially, both in the hands of the state and in the hands of the public, these questions are increasingly relevant. A video tape which appears on the Guardian website purports to show footage shot by two police officers at the Climate Camp demonstration in Kingsnorth, Kent, on August 8th, 2008. What is significant about the footage is the officers’ concern with the activities of the photographers who were present, not just the protestors. At one moment the camera focuses on three journalists, which a Guardian narrator states are the crew of ITN Meridian Tonight. As the three men emerge from a field, the following exchange takes place between the two police photographers: ‘A lot of press officers aren’t there? They just think they can wander in and out of the field.’ ‘It’s wrong I think.’ ‘I agree.’ ‘I trust them less than the protestors.’6
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This lack of trust on the part of these officers might shed some light on the fact that one freelance photographer, Jess Hurd, was stopped and searched four times by police on this day.7 But to return to the video, when the police photographers are taking close up shots of two photographers covering the protest, one officer states, ‘(h)e don’t like having his photograph taken’. As they zoom in on one of their subjects, Marc Valle´e, he smiles, awkwardly, at the camera. Valle´e was involved in organizing a demonstration of photographers outside Scotland Yard on February 16th, 2009, the enforcement date for Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which makes it illegal to ‘publish or communicate any information about a member of the armed forces or a police officer which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.’ This new legislation builds on Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which made it an offence to make or possess a record, including a photographic record, ‘of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’. Breaching the law carries a jail sentence of up to ten years. Perhaps understandably, there is currently a dispute over the implications of this bill with both the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the British Press Photographers’ Association (BPPA) arguing that it criminalises journalists’ activity. From the perspective of the police, this apparent attack on the right to take photographs in public places of individuals in positions of power might make some kind of sense. It certainly seemed to after the events in London in April this year. No doubt much will be written about the footage which was shot by a US businessman at the G20 protests in London on April 1st; the footage appears to show a police officer striking Ian Tomlinson with a truncheon and then pushing him in the back which results in Tomlinson falling to the ground.8 Tomlinson later died and the officer
has been questioned under caution, therefore, it would be inappropriate to comment further on this specific case. Although, not surprisingly, it sparked discussion of another death on a demonstration after a member of the public had come into contact with the Metropolitan Police. On March, 1979, Blair Peach, a 33-year-old teacher from New Zealand died while attending a demonstration against the National Front in Southall in London. Although he was killed as a result of a blow to the head administered by a member of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Patrol Group (SPG), an inquest found that Peach died as a result of misadventure. It emerged later that the SPG members involved with the incident had a collection of illegal weapons stored in their lockers and that one had Nazi memorabilia in his home.9 The 2001 film, Injustice, directed by Ken Ferom and Tariq Mehmood, explores the deaths of over 1000 people who died, either in police custody, or after contact with police officers between 1969 and 1999. The filmmakers note that not one police officer has been convicted for any crimes associated with these deaths.10 In an article in the wake of Tomlinson’s death, The Economist cited a figure of 400 deaths in the last 10 years.11 Charles de Menezes is only the most notable recent addition to this long list. Significantly, the CCTV footage of the shooting, which should have been taken from cameras that were located inside the train in which de Menezes was shot in the head by police officers, was absent because, as police sources claimed, the cameras were not working.
mark the death of Tomlinson near the Bank of England, a Metropolitan Police Inspector addressed a group of photographers and camera crew (including a Sky News crew) with the following words: ‘ladies and gentlemen of the press, I have been asked to ask you to leave the area for the time being under section 14 of the Public Order Act that can be imposed by the senior officer on the scene. What this means is that I want you to go away for half an hour . . . You have got a choice, you either go away now or you spend the rest of the afternoon in the cell. What do you want to do?’12 It is not yet clear what action the police did not want photographed. The NUJ is taking the police to court over these actions claiming that this was a misuse of this legislation. Indeed, the day before this incident, speaking in Parliament, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Shahid Malik, had stated, ‘(l)et me start by saying that our counter-terrorism laws are not designed or intended to stop people taking photographs. That is simply not their aim. People have the right to take photographs in public places for legitimate reasons and we will do everything we can to uphold that right.’13 It seems not everyone in the police force shares that view. Yet, despite the attempted restrictions on the right to photograph protests, it later emerged that footage was taken on a mobile phone of what appears to be a member of the Territorial Support Group (formerly the SPG) striking a female protestor across the face with the back of his hand and then hitting her on the legs her with a truncheon.14 It is one of scores of videos taken by protestors and photographers, which appear to show orchestrated violence against protestors and photographers on both April 1st and 2nd.
On April 2nd 2009, there were times when the cameras were not working: this time it was under police instruction. At a memorial to
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As the Metropolitan Police banned journalists in London from covering their attempts to deal with conflict, two other countries have adopted a similar position this year. In May, the Sri Lankan government banned journalists from covering the conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in the north east of the country. In response to accusations that the deaths of civilians took place as a result of shelling, they state that the ‘Sri Lanka Defence ministry vehemently denied the fabricated news item carried on some international media and pro-LTTE websites alleging the security forces shelled at a hospital inside the "Civilian Safe Zone" (CSZ), killing at least 45 civilians, according to LTTE and alleged hospital sources.’15 Expelling journalists, however, has not prevented images of the conflict from coming to light, although, in this instance it is not the result of mobile phone technology. The Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project, part of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science released a report which included what they describe as ‘high resolution commercial satellite imagery collected by Digital Globe’s World View and QuickBird satellites’, the purpose being ‘to determine possible evidence of shelling and other heavy weapons fire, as well as movements and conditions of IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), especially as indicated on May 10.’ The report appears to show images of craters which were not evident prior to the alleged date of the Sri Lankan government shelling and also evidence of destroyed structures, although the report states ‘what caused the IDP structures to be removed en masse is uncertain based on the imagery.’16 In January this year, as Israeli tanks rolled into the Gaza strip, the Israeli Government also prevented journalists from entering Gaza. Yet, at the same time as the Israeli government try to control the production and flow of images from the war zone, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has, since January 2007, distributed over 100 video cameras to Palestinians who have been on the receiving end of attacks by Israeli settlers and the Israel Defence Force. As they write on their website, ‘(w)e provide Palestinians living in highconflict areas with video cameras, with the goal of bringing the reality of their lives under occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public, exposing and seeking redress for violations of human rights.’17
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Violations of human rights bring us back to the US. On 13 May, 2009, Barrack Obama announced that, contrary to previous statements, the US Government would not be releasing further photographs of torture at Abu Ghrab arguing that it would endanger the lives of US serviceman serving abroad. Seymour Hersh, addressing the 2004 American Civil Liberties Union (UCLA) Membership Conference gave a glimpse as to what may be contained in these photos: Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men . . . The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what’s happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking.18 Journalist, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) magazine, carries four pages on the G20 protests including a series of photographs of conflict between police and photographers.19 In a quote which recalls the Rodney King controversy, the magazine claims that ‘the pictures speak for themselves’. Images, whether
of London protests, war zones, or egregious human rights abuses, might not speak for themselves, but the indexical relationship with their referent works to shape the interpretations that are placed on them. As Nicholls suggests, ‘No image, can show intent or motivation. Images, whether in real time, slow motion, or freeze frame, can, however, help corroborate a narrative account of what happened.’20 If that is not the case, then a lot of people in positions of power are going to a lot of trouble for nothing.
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Notes 1
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Tom Gunning, ‘Embarrassing Evidence: The Detective Camera and the Documentary Impulse’, in Collecting Visible Evidence, Jane M. Gaines and Michael Renov (Eds.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1999, pp. 46 – 64, p. 50/1 Some of the footage is available at http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROn_ 9302UHg&feature=PlayList&p= 54B4333565D77058& playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3 Bill Nichols, Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1994, p.22. Ibid. Frank P. Tomasulo, ’"I’ll see it when I believe it" Rodney King and the prisonhouse of video’ in The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, Vivian Sobchack (Ed.), Routledge, London and New York, 1996, pp. 69 - 88p, p 75. The video is available at http:// www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/mar/06/ police-surveillance-climate-camp-journalists, accessed on May 10th, 2009. The police subsequently apologised for their actions. ‘Sorry We Searched You,’ Journalist, May/June 2009, p. 17. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/ ian-tomlinson-g20-death-video, accessed on May 10th, 2009. For a number of years the Friends of Blair Peach Campaign demanded the release of information about the death of Blair Peach. The campaign is now run under the auspices of Inquest. More information is available at http://inquest.gn.apc.org/ For more information see http:// www.injusticefilm.tv The Economist, ‘The camera is mightier than the sword’, April 16th, 2009, http:// www.economist.com/world/britain/
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displaystory.cfm?story_id=13497460, accessed on April 20th, 2009. A video of this incident is available at http:// www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/15/ g20-protests-police-press, accessed on May 20th, 2009. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090401/halltext/ 90401h0005.htm, accessed on May 23rd, 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/ 14/g20-police-action-tomlinson-memorial, accessed, May, 20th, 2009. The Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence website contains further information: http:// www.defence.lk/ new.asp?fname=20090512_13, accessed on May 12th, 2009 Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and the Conflict in Sri Lanka’, p. 5. http://www.btselem.org/English/Video/ CDP_Background.asp A transcript of Hersh’s speech is available at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ article6492.htm, accessed 13 May 2009. Journalist, May/June 2009, pp. 14 – 17. Nichols, p.33.
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