Pilot, News Director Could Be Charged With Police Interference - KING, King 5, News Director - KTXL
TACOMA - Tension between police investigating the fatal shooting of four officers at a Washington coffee shop and the media attempting to cover the unfolding investigation were evident Sunday afternoon when a spokesperson announced charges may be filed against a television station for alleged interference.
Ed Troyer, spokesperson for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, accused the pilot of a television news helicopter and the news director of KING Channel 5 in Seattle for interfering in the fatal shooting investigation of four Lakewood police officers, who were gunned down shortly before their shifts by an unidentified suspect at a coffee shop earlier that morning.
"We need you, and we need the public's help," Troyer told the media Sunday afternoon, "but we also can't risk having other people get hurt and having our operations jeopardized by a helicopter."
Troyer added the police department called KING's news director, Mark Ginther, several times to request a different location for the helicopter.
"They don't seem to care, or understand, or acknowledge the issue," Troyer said, following with a threat to reporters that if KING's news chopper showed up over the scene of the investigation again, "you're all out of here."
Ginther told Seattle ABC affiliate KIRO-TV the station complied with FAA regulations and moved their chopper every time he had spoken with the investigating agencies.
During a police investigation, reporters on the ground are subject to the same laws regarding a police investigation that ordinary citizens would be. Reporters may not cross yellow police "Crime Scene" tape to film, interview or gather news at the scene of a crime.
However, the same is often not true for television news helicopters flying over the scene of a crime, since news choppers often film from several thousand feet in the air in unrestricted air space.
Still, Troyer says the Pierce County prosecutor's office will attempt to file charges against the pilot of KING's helicopter and its news director.
Copyright © 2009, KTXL-TV
Who do you think is right then , the police or the reporters ?
I don't know, I wasn't there and don't anything about the way ENG works in the USA.