Carlos Miller on Photography is Not a Crime, Be Your Own Media!
Carlos Miller on Photography is Not a Crime, Be Your Own Media!
This post was shared with me via a social networking site and was originally published at Blip.TV. -Kate
As part of the Peaceful Streets Project’s 2nd Annual Police Accountability Summit, Carlos Miller speaks about his experience filming and photographing the police.
Photography is Not a Crime aka PINAC was launched in 2007 after Miami multimedia journalist Carlos Miller was arrested for taking photos of five Miami police officers while working on an article for a local news site.
Charged with nine misdemeanors, Miller created the blog to document his trial, thinking he would run it for a few months at the most.
But as his trial was prolonged for longer than a year in a series of rejected plea deals, judicial resignations and prosecutorial scandals, the blog grew in popularity with readers from around the country sending him stories of photographers getting arrested, which he documented on the blog, revealing an epidemic crackdown against citizens with cameras.
By the time he went to trial a year later, he was acquitted of all charges except resisting arrest, a conviction he had overturned on appeal by representing himself.
He has been arrested a couple of more times since then, beating those charges as well, earning the nickname, the “Teflon Photographer” from the South Florida Daily Blog.
