Teen arrested for innocently photographing security guard mall arrest

Sunday, November 04, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: security guard, police state, photograph

(NaturalNews) 16-year-old Jakub Markiewicz of Vancouver, B.C., in Canada is an aspiring journalist with a knack for old-fashioned film photography and live, on-scene reporting. But his recent capture of an arrest that took place at the local Metrotown shopping mall in Burnaby, a town just east of Vancouver, led to his own unprovoked take-down and arrest by shopping mall security guards and local police, who tried to demand that Jakub delete the photos from his film camera, which anyone familiar with photography knows is impossible.

It all started when Jakub was walking through the mall one day back in September and observed what he believed to be a newsworthy event. Mall "rent-a-cops" had pummeled a man to the floor, and were in the process of arresting him as Jakub began snapping pictures of the tumultuous incident. Believing his actions to be perfectly legal, which they absolutely were, Jakub was shocked when security guards suddenly began yelling at him, demanding that he immediately "delete" the photographs from his film camera.

Jakub tried to explain that film-based photos cannot be deleted, and proceeded to walk away towards the exit, snapping one more photo on his way out. But as he was leaving, the security guards decided to illegally detain him by first attempting to grab his camera, and then forcing him to the ground. While this was taking place, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrived on the scene, presumably to handle the other arrest, but were also called on to arrest Jakub.

"They're just yelling and screaming, and just telling me to stop resisting," recalled Jakub in a recent interview with Canada's CBC News. "I was like, just perplexed. I was like, 'What's going on here, why am I being treated like this?'"

Police state grows more violent, now attacking innocent children for merely taking pictures

While being forced to the ground by both mall security and police, Jakub says he clenched his body around a bag he was holding that contained two of his cameras in an effort to protect them from being damaged. But the thugs proceeded to rough Jakub around, cutting the camera bag with a knife from his back, and demanding for a second time that he delete the photos from his camera. Jakub was eventually escorted outside into an RCMP cruiser where he was hauled off, but later released without charges.

"There's no real threat to anyone by having a camera and snapping a picture," said Zbigniew Markiewicz, Jakub's father, to CBC News. Douglas King, a local lawyer from Pivot Legal in Vancouver, agrees, having told the news station that neither mall security nor local police have the right to seize individuals' cameras or demand that they delete photos, even on private property.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.cbc.ca

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com