 |
| Patagonia Town Marshall Joe Patterson |
Here's the story from Nogales International via Twitter:
Town says it's 'taken action' after marshal's encounter with young journalist
By Jonathan Clark and Nick Phillips
The young media reporter's video of the encounter with Patterson had generated more than 8,380 views on the Orange Street News YouTube page as of Wednesday evening.
A version of the video posted to the YouTube page of News Now Houston had generated nearly 33,000 views and more than 500 comments.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Town of Patagonia says it has taken unspecified action after Marshal Joseph Patterson was video-recorded telling a pre-teen journalist that it was against the law for her to put his image on the internet during an interaction in which he also allegedly threatened to have the girl arrested and jailed.
The video by Hilde Kate Lysiak, reporter/publisher of the website Orange Street News, was reportedly recorded at around 1:30 p.m. Monday while she was biking down Roadrunner Lane in Patagonia in pursuit of a news tip. In a story posted to the site, Lysiak wrote that Patterson stopped her and asked for ID, and she identified herself as a member of the media.
“I don’t want to hear about any of that freedom of the press stuff,” he reportedly told her during a portion of the conversation that does not appear in the story’s accompanying video. Patterson also allegedly told the girl: “I’m going to have you arrested and thrown in juvey."
Federal courts, including the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that includes Arizona in its jurisdiction, have established that citizens have a First Amendment right to take video of the police in public. In 2016, Arizona State Sen. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) introduced a bill that would have required people to be at least 20 feet away while recording law enforcement activity, but he withdrew the measure following a fierce backlash.
Dan Barr, a lawyer with the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona, called Patterson’s assertion that Lysiak couldn’t post his photo on the internet “complete nonsense.”
“It is perfectly legal to post such a photo online,” he wrote in an email, adding: “I hope this is not reflective of the Patagonia marshal threatening people with other nonexistent criminal violations.”
(Patterson has previously tried to claim legal protection from being recorded while performing his police duties.)
(Patterson has previously tried to claim legal protection from being recorded while performing his police duties.)
_________________________________________________________________________________
According to an October 2017 profile in The New York Times, Lysiak, who was 10 at the time, began covering family news on notecards soon after she turned 6. With the help of her father, a former reporter with The New York Daily News, she later began publishing a newspaper focusing on events in her hometown of Selinsgrove, Pa. that inspired a series of Scholastic chapter books based on her experiences.
