Constitutional Law

Photographer: New Orleans cop ordered no photos of body

By By The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS ? A news photographer who witnessed some of the aftermath of a deadly shooting in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina testified yesterday that he was ordered by a police officer not to photograph the victim's body.

Alex Brandon was working for the Times-Picayune newspaper when he said he walked up to a makeshift police headquarters at a school and saw the body of 31-year-old Henry Glover, who had been shot.

Glover's charred remains were later found in the back seat of a burned car, and five former and current police officers are being tried in Glover's death and an alleged cover-up. The shooting happened on Sept. 2, 2005, four days after Hurricane Katrina passed and flooding from failed levees plunged the city into chaos.

Brandon, who now works for the Associated Press in Washington, said he was ordered by one of the current defendants, Officer Greg McRae, not to take any photographs of the body or of a confrontation between police and the three men who brought Glover to the site for medical care.

"It was, for lack of a better term, an order," Brandon said.

Former Officer David Warren is charged with shooting Glover outside a strip mall. Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann and McRae are accused of beating the people who tried to get medical help for Glover and of later burning Glover?s body in a car. Former Lt. Robert Italiano and Lt. Travis McCabe are accused of falsifying a report to make it appear that Glover's shooting was justified.

Brandon also testified that he was friends with Warren from firearms-training classes they both taught. About a year after Katrina, Brandon said Warren mentioned he had shot somebody who approached him in a car while he was guarding a police station after Katrina.

Prosecutors have said Glover wasn't armed and didn't pose a threat when Warren shot him.

Brandon said he suggested to Warren that the person he shot could have been the same person he saw at the school.

"And he said, 'Maybe so,'" Brandon recalled, adding that Warren told him he had been cleared of the shooting.

Brandon said he didn't see police beat any of the three men who brought Glover to the site, but the photographer said he had been concerned for the men's safety because it appeared to be a "volatile situation."

"I felt like the guys on the ground were very smart-alecky," he said, referring to the three men who were handcuffed by police.

Although Brandon followed Officer McRae's orders not to take any photographs of the scene, a federal agent who was with Brandon did. Photos by David Millen, then an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are being used as evidence in the trial.

Brandon recalled reminding Millen that they were told not to take any photos of the scene.

"I don't work for them. They're not in my chain of command," the agent responded, according to Brandon.

Brandon said he asked McRae about the incident soon after it happened. McRae looked at him and said, "NAT," which is short for "necessary action taken," Brandon said.

"I got the impression that that was the end of the conversation, that he did not want to discuss it further," Brandon said.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on November 17, 2010 (boomark / email).