PACIFICA REPORTER MAITLAND TO FILE CHARGES

PACIFICA REPORTER MAITLAND 
TO FILE CHARGES AFTER POLICE ATTACK

by Adrienne Lauby

WBAI reporter Errol Maitland will file charges against the New York City Police Department for an incident which occurred while he was covering the funeral of Patrick Dorismond. Dorismond, a Haitian-American who was fatally shot on March 16 by an NYPD officer, is the fourth unarmed black man killed by NYPD officers in thirteen months.

WBAI listeners heard Maitland¹s arrest for themselves as it occurred while he was broadcasting a live report. Maitland, 49, who sustained heart damage in the attack, is currently recuperating out of the state and uncertain when he can return to work. Pacifica listeners heard a rebroadcast of the arrest, which ended in Maitland's hospitalization in an intensive cardiac-care unit, via Democracy Now!

"A journalist simply reporting the truth has been viciously attacked," Maitland's lawyer Michael Tarif Warren told The Freedom Forum Online. "You have a journalist being beaten while performing his fundamental responsibilities, the reporting of the news. You also have the preventing of listeners from receiving his observations. The very heart of the First Amendment."

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called upon New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to investigate the "alleged" beating and arrest. Executive Director Ann K. Cooper wrote Giuliani that her organization, which is dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, was "deeply troubled" by reports of Maitland's attack and arrest by police.

On the tape, Maitland, of Jamaican heritage, can be heard describing the scene before him. Then he says: "The police are surrounding this woman, and they're beating her down to the ground... and she's down on the ground... and one of the cops is yelling 'Stop, stop.'"

In the background, intermingled with Maitland's descriptions, frequent amplified police instructions are heard: "Leave the area." "Leave the area." "We need to restore order." "Leave the area, or you'll be subject to arrest."

Maitland then says: "... and he's telling one of the officers... because they are getting ready to break out here on the crowd... and this woman is down on the ground, and they are yelling 'disperse' while she's down on the ground."

At this stage, Maitland said, "You're live on WBAI." He apparently approached an officer and asked for a statement as to "what's going on."

What happens next is difficult to decipher. Maitland's voice becomes unclear and for the most part muffled. But he can be heard to say: "I've just been pushed by a policeman... and he's been told to f- me up...I'm down on the ground...now on my back...and I'm still broadcasting because this is how the police department in New York..."

Police Sgt. Andrew McInnis, department spokesman, said Maitland was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after he forced his way through police lines.

"He did not possess any press credentials, any broadcasting equipment, nothing that identified him as press," McInnis said. "He forced his way through police lines. After police told people to leave the area, as a result, not having anything on him that identified him as press, he was arrested. Even if he did have credentials, that gives you access to go behind police lines, you still have to follow the rules."

"He tried to interview the police and tried to get some insight from them, and then there's a statement from him, 'We're live on WBAI' and then he goes down," Warren said. Maitland can be heard on the tape saying, "We're live on WBAI."

"It's pure madness here. You have no idea," said striking PNN reporter Eileen Sutton describing current conditions in NYC. "You can no longer enter City Hall. It is locked down with police guard 24/7, and as a reporter, when I go there for press conference, I have to, along with everyone else, go through metal detectors, etc. City Hall is a private encampment for the mayor and those who work there, no longer open to the public. Only fifty people can stand on the steps of City Hall at any one time, per the mayor's dictum."

"Years ago, when everything started to open up here," Sutton continued, speaking of other news media in the area, "Amnesty International investigated the NYPD. Everything that report said back then is true today, only a hundred times worse. Back then, the New York Times buried the report in the middle of the Metro Section."

Thanks to: Stephanie Siegel and Ralph Izard of "The Freedom Forum Online" for transcription of the tape and some interviews used in this report.