BREAKING NEWS

LAPD OFFICER CAUGHT ON TAPE HARASSING LA BLOGGER WITH
CAMERA

WRITER LUKE FORD CONFRONTED ON STREET BY LAPD COP

IF HE HAD ONLY CLAIMED TO BE A PAPPARAZZO!

HE‚ WOULD HAVE HAD NO PROBLEMS!

(Nov 2nd, 2007 8:15AM PST)

BY ERIC LONGABARDI

Luke Ford is a well known blogger and writer in Los Angeles. Luke tells ERS he was on his way to the library on Halloween to drop off some books he had checked out. He stumbled across what could be a crime scene, a dead guy with a white sheet over him and the LA Fire Department on scene. Some yellow tape was up, but the cops had yet to arrive. Luke had his cell phone with him and took some snapshots and cell phone video. A member of the LA Fire Department asked Luke not to take pictures. Luke moved on and headed home. At home, he got his video camera and returned to the scene. The LAPD was there and the area was sealed off with crime tape. Luke had a video camera and what transpired next can be seen here.

Why this LAPD cop saw fit to harass Luke Ford, we don't know. What the video shows is an LAPD cop who seemly needs a little "media training". When confronted by the cop Luke follows his demands, although the officer had no right to be trying to stop Luke from documenting the scene from a public street, in a public place. Luke as you can hear on the tape, was nothing less than friendly to the officer when he demanded to see some kind of ID from Ford. He wanted to see a "press pass", the one issued by the LAPD. Although Luke supplied an LA Press Club identification, which the officer noted was expired, Luke offered to provide him his business card but the officer wasn't interested. The officer was extremely hostile and confrontational. In the end, Luke thought the better of it and left the scene.

ERS views this incident as a great example of how the LAPD operates on the streets of LA in recent years. We've had our own run-ins with them on occasion, both in the "official" mainstream media way and in what we'll call the "new" media way. The LAPD seems to believe it can determine who 'legitimate" media is and who isn't.

Note to LAPD, you can't and you shouldn't. An attitude of we'll decide who the MEDIA is and who it Isn't is not the way it works in a country with a free press. Last year ERS co-founder Eric Longabardi exposed the LAPD's ineptness and indifference when it came to the ever burgeoning explosion of paparazzi on the streets of Los Angeles. People like Luke Ford, who have nothing more than a camera and the ability to take a picture from a public place, have every right to do so, even if they don't have a LAPD issued "press pass". ERS thinks the LAPD might be behooved to give its officers a little "media training" before sending them out in the City of Angels. If they did so, incidents like this might not happen as often as they do.