newjerseynewsroom.com

BY WENDY EKUA QUANSAH

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

It’s obvious someone didn’t get the picture, or perhaps he did and that explains the chaos.

For Ian Van Kuyk, a photojournalism student at Temple University, a course assignment soon turned to an arrest for obstruction of justice, resisting arrest and disorderly contact charges all for taking a photo of a police officer, Digital Journal reports.

Van Kuyk seized the opportunity to complete a night photography assignment after he saw a vehicle stopped by a police officer on the street near his house. When the officer saw Van Kuyk shooting, he demanded that he stop but to no avail.

Van Kuyk continued shooting, saying he was exercising his rights to take photographs in the public domain.

The officer didn’t take it too kindly and reportedly said, ““Public domain, yeah we’ve heard that before!”

The officer allegedly began shoving Van Kuyk and getting irritated by the lack of compliance. Van Kuyk said, “he…got real aggressive and threw me to the ground.”

After his arrest, the officer allegedly threw Van Kuyk's camera on the ground and his girlfriend, Meghan Feighan, tried to retrieve it. She, too, was arrested and held in custody.

Feighan later agreed to pay a $200 fine and 12 hours of community service while Van Kuyk is scheduled to appear in court April 16 to fight the charges.

Mickey Osterreicher, a lawyer for the National Press Photographers Association, is in full support of Van Kuyk, telling Temple News, “He was exercising a constitutionally protected form of free speech and free expression.”

After Osterrericher got wind of the situation, he wrote a letter to the Police Commissioner of Philadelphia.

"The elements of most criminal charges contain a number of things, but they all have to have contained intent … his only intent at that point was to take pictures. I think they would have a very difficult time proving beyond a reasonable doubt those charges,” Osterreicher added.