A GuelphToday reporter was detained and his photography equipment confiscated while on the job at the scene of a fatal collision Wednesday morning.
Senior reporter and assistant editor Richard Vivian had arrived at the scene of a fatal collision on College Avenue and the Hanlon Expressway just seconds before being detained by an OPP officer.
“As I was walking up, they had the road closed sign up and pylons on the road, but nothing blocking the sidewalk, no tape or pylons or anything,” he said.
There were pedestrians using the sidewalk where he was standing at the time. Seeing that all the officers were busy, he began taking pictures in quick succession, but only captured about 10 before an OPP officer turned around and yelled at him to stop, he said.
“He came over and grabbed me by the jacket, my left wrist, so he had control of my left arm. He told me that he (was) seizing my camera.”
Vivian then handed over his camera and asked the officer to let go of his arm, but he said no.
“He informed me that had I not handed him my camera, I would have been arrested, and that officially it was seized by the coroner under the coroner’s authority to seize during an investigation,” he said.
The officer told Vivian to stand at the rear of an OPP cruiser, where he provided his ID and was detained for about 15 minutes before the officer asked if he was going to wait (for a warrant receipt for his camera).
“I pointed out that I had been detained,” said Vivian, noting that's when he was informed he was no longer formally detained.
The coroner's boss came to the scene, Vivian said, and according to the OPP officer, they decided they would give back the camera but keep the SD card, as it was “evidence in their investigation.”
During that time, no one explained how or when Vivian would get his SD card back, and did not give any more details as to why it had been confiscated. He did not have any direct contact with anyone from the coroner’s office, either.
Vivian noted that pedestrians were regularly using the intersection and crossing the Hanlon while he was detained, and that youth, potentially from the nearby high schools, were capturing the scene with their phones.
“No police were yelling at them or taking their cameras,” he said.
He was told he was detained because he was “on an active crime scene, and I was obstructing their investigation by standing way back away from the evidence and taking photos.”
In his more than 20 years as a reporter, Vivian has not once been detained or had his equipment seized while doing his job – and he doesn’t believe they were right to do so this time.
“I was not obstructing what they were doing in any way,” he said. “In fact, I started taking photos because they all appeared to be busy. My general plan for things like this is that I would approach the police afterward, and to see what they can tell me.”
He said that when he arrived there was something under a tarp, but he didn’t know what it was.
“The general approach is, I don’t know what anything is, I don’t know what’s going on, so I take the photos and then we decide after,” he said. “It’s not their choice what we take photos of and what we use."
He said that as a community news organization, GuelphToday wouldn’t run any inappropriate or identifying photos from the scene of a fatal collision, which was shared with the OPP officer.
“We don’t even run license plates in a fatality,” he said. “We’re very sensitive from that perspective.”
Wellington County OPP Staff Sgt. Karen Medeiros couldn’t speak to why Vivian was detained and his equipment seized, but said since there was a death, the coroner is conducting an investigation.
“So under the direction of the coroner, they can actually authorize a police officer to exercise any or all of the authorities into the coroner's powers that are listed under the Coroners Act,” she said.
Medeiros provided no further information on OPP policy when it comes to detaining reporters and confiscating their equipment, but said that in any death investigation, the police act under the direction of the coroner.
Efforts to reach the regional coroner's office for clarification and comment were not immediately successful.
There was no word when or if the SD card would be returned.
GuelphToday regional editor Tony Saxon said in 30 years covering the news he has never heard of a reporter having their work tools confiscated at the scene of a news event.
"We were there covering an important news event, doing our job. Police had no reason to prevent a journalist from doing his job and no grounds to confiscate his equipment. It's almost unheard of," Saxon said, adding that GuelphToday would never run photos of the deceased from such a scenario as this one and that was explained to the police officer in question.
