Photojournalist Shimon Gifter is
preparing to take legal action against the NYPD officer who attempted to arrest
him for publicly filming on a Midwood street while a stop-and-frisk action was
being conducted.
Photojournalist Shimon Gifter Speaks
Out on Avenue M Handcuffing Incident
A seemingly innocent act of news
reporting unexpectedly turned into an unsettling encounter with an aggressive
NYPD officer last Wednesday on Avenue M in Midwood, when well-known
photojournalist Shimon Gifter found himself in handcuffs while filming in the
vicinity of a police action.
As Gifter explained in an exclusive
interview with the Jewish Voice, he had learned that a disturbance involving at
least one cop was taking place on Avenue M and East 16th Street, so he went
there to check out what sounded like a news story worthy of coverage. “When I
got there, I saw a large crowd, and some people told me that a policeman was
trying to control a big fight,” he related. “At first, I only saw one young man
being held in a police van, with some cops standing around and talking. But
then I saw another young man of distinctly ethnic minority suddenly stopped by
some cops and put up against a wall. I started filming the incident, but when
one of the policemen told me to stop recording it because the alleged
perpetrators were‘juveniles,’ I immediately complied.”
According to Gifter, he shifted gears
and started to video the general scenery in front of a nearby store, but
another officer suddenly came up to him and accosted him. “After the cop said
‘Give me that – you’re under arrest,’ he grabbed my video camera, slapped
police handcuffs on me, pushed me up against a wall, and even took away my
phone,” the 38-year-old photojournalist recounted. “I told him that what he was
doing was totally illegal – which it is, because a member of the media has the
right to film in public – but he didn’t care, and he even purposely deleted all
the video files from the camera.”
Gifter explained to the Jewish Voice
that the only reason he was not actually placed under arrest was because an
onlooker quickly contacted Dominic Scotto, the head of Community Affairs for
the local 70th Police Precinct, who ordered the arresting officer to terminate
his action and let his prey free. “I never did anything against the law,”
Gifter insisted, “even though the officer was trying to incite me to respond to
him insultingly so that he could have a truly legitimate reason for arresting
me. I went down afterwards to the 70th Precinct to explain the circumstances
and file a report– which Officer Scotto had advised me to do – but the
commanding officer refused to speak with me.”
The intrepid photojournalist – who has
an established reputation for documenting news and events of concern to the
local Jewish community – said he subsequently realized that the cops on the
scene were most likely conducting a controversial “stop-and-frisk” procedure,
and they were thus apprehensive that his recording of their actions could lead
to their coming under legal scrutiny.
Gifter told the Jewish Voice he is
especially outraged that he has received no support whatsoever from the
leadership of the Orthodox Jewish community, citing Assemblyman Dov Hikind as
one prime example. “Whenever someone from our community appears to have been
mistreated by the police, Hikind takes on the case and makes a lot of noise
about it,” he noted. “Yet, for some reason, he has not responded to my pleas
for intervention.” Gifter also claims that members of the Shomrim patrol group
are in possession of a photo of him being handcuffed and held by the cop, yet
are refusing to give him the photo.
“It’s fascinating,” he commented. “I’m
getting virtually no assistance from my own community, but the many members of
major New York media outlets who know me are backing me up in this case. The
fact is that there have been a number of incidents in the past few years where
the NYPD harassed reporters and photographers who were just doing their job and
covering events out on the street.”
While Gifter spoke with the 70th
Precinct’s internal affairs division and was promised that they would
investigate the episode, he remains highly doubtful. “I think they’re lying. I
don’t think they’re investigating at all,” he said. “They didn’t ask for any of
the names of the witnesses – I have at least four – or for any other
information.”
The Orthodox photojournalist – who
happens to be a grandson of the renowned Torah sage Rav Mordechai Gifter zt”l,
the late Rosh Yeshiva of Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland – has retained an
attorney, Mickey Ostreicher, who serves as general counsel for the National
Press Photographers Association. The two were scheduled to announce the filing
of a lawsuit against the would-be arresting officer on Tuesday. Expressing his
determination to press charges and defend his rights, Gifter told the Jewish
Voice, “The cop was probably upset because I caught him committing an act
(stop-and-frisk) that was just recently declared unconstitutional. Hopefully he
will end up being fired for what he did to me.”