Armed with nothing but a camera, Seattle photographer Bogdan Mohora was thrown in a jail cell last November and told he could be charged with disorderly conduct, inciting a riot and endangering a police officer after he photographed police making an arrest on a public street.
He was standing 100 feet from the officers when he snapped the photo.
Police kept him in the cell for an hour, allowing him to contemplate those threats before he was released. They didn’t even bother filing a report on the incident, which is a violation of Seattle Police Department policy.
Officers James Pitts and David Toner ended up getting reprimanded for their actions after the ACLU stepped in. The Seattle Police Department also agreed to pay Mohora $8,000 to prevent further legal action from occurring.
I hope Mohora invested some of that money on a telephoto lens.