Casualties In The ’Couv

[January 2nd, 2008]

The police and the press have more in common than either might think. They carry little notebooks. They are suspicious. They screw up. They often overreact.

In Vancouver, Wash., these tendencies recently turned a couple of everyday flaps into avoidable courtroom clashes. Last month, two journalists pleaded guilty to minor crimes committed while covering cops for The Columbian . Despite murmurs from some journos of “war” between Vancouver’s police force and its daily newspaper, the result might instead be a weakened press corps, given that neither journalist received legal representation from the paper.

“The next time around, is some [reporter] going to be less aggressive? Nobody in that kind of job has the money to pay a lawyer,” says Kelly Adams, a Columbian reporter of seven years who left the paper in October to work for the Council for the Homeless.

While still a reporter, Adams accompanied freelance photographer Kristina Wright to the scene of a September shooting. On Dec. 3, Wright pleaded guilty to obstructing a law enforcement officer and received a six-month suspended sentence and a $300 fine. Wright admits she ducked under police tape, but even an officer at the scene was surprised to see her charged.

“Not that she didn’t commit [a crime], but because of the potential politics of the situation,” says Sgt. Scott Creager.

Wright says she was “devastated at the beginning” but now jokes, “I think that makes me a real photographer now.… All these really respectable shooters, they’ve got records.” But she has not received any more assignments from The Columbian .

Less than three weeks later, on Dec. 20, veteran reporter Don Hamilton, formerly of the Portland Tribune and The Oregonian , avoided a felony charge by pleading guilty to an obscure computer crime, which he says he didn’t commit. He was sentenced to five days of community service and $343 in fines and court costs.

Hamilton was covering the July shooting of a police officer, who was treated at Southwest Washington Medical Center. There, Hamilton found the ambulance that had transported the officer. Hamilton’s attorney, Steve Thayer, told The Columbian an ambulance crew member gave his client permission to check the vehicle’s computer for information—which was not forthcoming from official channels.

Police later charged Hamilton with first-degree computer trespass, a crime in Washington that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The law applies only to accessing a computer “without authorization.” However, prosecutors found witnesses to testify that Hamilton hadn’t been given permission to use the ambulance computer.

Hamilton refuses to comment, as do several others affiliated with the paper. But WW has learned the paper didn’t cover his legal bills, and that newsroom colleagues took up a collection to help Hamilton with his court fines. Columbian editor Lou Brancaccio declined comment on the legal expenses. And he says the paper’s relationship with the police (“I’m not pretending we’re going to Christmas parties together”) wasn’t really at issue in either case.

“When you don’t break the law, you don’t get drug into court,” Brancaccio says.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says neither Wright nor Hamilton seems to have had the law on his or her side. On the other hand, times have changed. “In the olden days, we all did things like that. That was part of reporting,” Dalglish says.

Her advice to reporters: “If you’re going to be covering the cops, always keep 50 bucks in your pocket. You might be able to just pay the fine at the jail and go home.”

Just don’t expect reimbursement.