Industry News


Photographer Wins Lawsuit Against D.C. Metropolitan Police

May 10, 2021

By Hillary K. Grigonis

© Kian Kelley-Chung

Freelance photojournalist Kian Kelley-Chung was covering Black Lives Matters protests in Washington, D.C., last summer when he was grouped with more than 40 protestors, arrested and then jailed for 18 hours. Now the photographer has won an unlawful arrest and seizure of photographic equipment lawsuit against the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

According to the National Press Photographers Association, Kelley-Chung was photographing the BLM protests on August 13, 2020 following the death of George Floyd. The photographer was capturing images and video for an upcoming documentary when he and more than 40 other people were surrounded by police and arrested. Kelley-Chung told the police that he was a photojournalist covering the protests. The photographer was jailed for 18 hours and later released with paperwork stating that he had been arrested for felony rioting but that no charges were being pursued.

[Read: Met Wins Case Against Photographer In Fair Use Lawsuit]

Kelley-Chung, the son of a Jamaican-American father and half black half Japanese mother, was working with film partner Andrew Jasiura at the protests, who was not arrested. Kelley-Chung told The DCist that the different outcome for his white college suggests racial bias, along with two later D.C. incidents resulting in the deaths of Deon Kay and Karon Hylton.

During the arrest, officers took Kelley-Chung’s two cameras, his smartphone, and his media cards containing the images of the protest. The NPPA says that Kelley-Chung did not receive those items until ten weeks later. After the gear wasn’t returned in the first week, the NPPA attorney began working to get those items returned.

[Read: Photographer Sue Hilary Duff Over “Creep” Claim on Instagram]

The lawsuit stated that the equipment seizure violated the Privacy Protection Act of 1980. That act, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, was enacted to prevent journalists from being required to “turn over to law enforcement any work product and documentary materials.” The lawsuit also said that the arrest violated First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as a false arrest and imprisonment, and included compensation for lost work (as a result of the arrest) and equipment confiscation.

With legal help from the NPPA, Kelley-Chung, an NPPA member, won the lawsuit when the MPD settled out of court (under the settlement, the photographer won a “substantial” amount of money, which wasn’t announced.) “We are gratified we were able to achieve some measure of justice for Kian without protracted litigation,” said Bob Corn-Revere, the photographer’s attorney, after the judgement was made, “but we remain concerned that the lesson has not yet sunk in that respecting the rights of photographers and reporters is not optional for police officers.”

According to Kelley-Chung, the outcome of the lawsuit is a step forward, but he still cautions other photographers. “It is important that people remember the power they have when they hold a camera, and their ability to hold the system accountable.”