DENVER (AP) — Body camera video of police detaining a Denver journalist photographing officers shows one officer taking her phone and another handcuffing her right after saying she would be arrested for interfering if she didn't stop.
Susan Greene, editor of The Colorado Independent, was put in a patrol car in July after trying to document police tending to a handcuffed naked man on a sidewalk.
An officer used his body and hands to block her. When she stopped to talk, he said medical privacy law trumped her First Amendment rights to record the scene.
She was handcuffed after she then tried to photograph his badge. Officers told her to stand up and "act like a lady" and to stop resisting and relax when she said they were hurting her. She was released after about 10 minutes.
The officers weren't charged in the incident but an internal affairs investigation is ongoing, the Denver Police Department said Wednesday. It said additionally that it had gone back over First Amendment protections with officers after the incident.