Detroit journalist’s conviction viewed as political retaliation for reporting

Journalist Diane Bukowski was arrested Nov. 4 at the scene of a police chase crash on Detroit's northeast side.

The conviction of a Detroit reporter on felony police obstruction charges last week has prompted warnings about a chilling of press freedom as well as calls for a federal investigation of the Wayne County prosecutor’s office.

Diane Bukowski, 60, a reporter for the African American-owned weekly Michigan Citizen, was arrested Nov. 4 as she documented the scene of a police chase and crash that killed two people on Detroit’s northeast side. She now faces a possible sentence of up to four years in prison.

During the week-long jury trial before Judge Michael Hathaway in Wayne County Circuit Court last week, assistant prosecutor Thomas Trzcinski and troopers involved at the scene of the crash testified that Bukowski crossed a yellow plastic police tape and stood in a pool of blood as she lifted a tarp to photograph a dismembered corpse.

A state trooper, Eric Byerly, testified that he seized Bukowski’s camera and erased photos. Fifteen state troopers testified for the prosecution. Only three witnesses testified for the defense after Judge Hathaway partially allowed a motion by the prosecution to limit discussion about the fact that Bukowski was working as a reporter at the time of her arrest.

Bukowski denies that she ever crossed a police line and said she will appeal her conviction and will file a complaint against the police for destroying evidence.

She said that the case against her is a political attack in response to her reporting. Bukowsi said that police who testified against her committed perjury during the trial and that the prosecutor’s office suborned that perjury. She pointed out that a member of the Wayne County prosecutor’s office has been charged with perjury for lying under oath during another recent trial. In a statement (video here) delivered shortly after her conviction she called for an investigation of the Wayne County prosecutor’s handling of her case.

“I could not believe that they convicted her,” said Michigan Citizen Editor Teresa Kelley, who observed the trial. “One trooper said there was a nine foot gap in the tape — the Channel 2 film showed she was on the grass.”

In her work on the police beat for the Michigan Citizen, Bukowski has broken some significant stories, including the story of Eugene Brown, a Detroit police officer who killed and wounded several people in the 1990s. Bukowski used the Freedom of Information Act to force the release of the Shoulders Report, an internal Detroit Police Department investigation of Brown. The report, made public last year after a six year-long legal fight, included new information about crimes by Brown.

Bukowski pressed for a response by the Wayne County prosecutor’s office and during Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s re-election campaign last year, Bukowski reported on her refusal to bring criminal charges against Brown.

“It is a sad day for journalism in Michigan when somebody covering an improperly conducted police chase can be charged with felonies,” Kelley said.

“How can you have a trooper admit to erasing evidence? To me the trial should have stopped then,” she said.

Though the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in the case warning that it the case against Bukowski could appear as retaliation and could chill freedom of the press, the case has received minimal coverage in the regional press.

Charles Simmons, a professor of journalism and media law at Eastern Michigan University, said that the prosecution of Bukowski and the non-response by other media is ominous.

“This specific case is not just an attack on Diane Bukowski, it is a collective attack, particularly on Detroiters who already face a multitude of crises that are challenging them on every front.

“At a time when we really need information, the place where community folks can turn for information is the alternative media.

“We are dealing with the fundamental role of government and government misconduct particularly as it impacts on poor and working people.

“I am still shocked that reporters are not flocking to this crisis, it effects all journalists,” he said, “If they will do that to Diane Bukowski, they will do that to anybody.”

“Just because they are working for other outlets doesn’t mean they are safe.

“Local politicians would tend to protect each other so we have to go outside this region and that is why it necessary to have a federal investigation.

Simmons, a former legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. John Conyers said he expects that the Detroit Democrat who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee will take some leadership in addressing this issue.

“To what extent should the government interfere with the activities of a reporter who was causing no harm to government process and was actually covering something important to citizens.”

State Rep. LaMar Lemmons (D-Detroit) said that Bukowski “has been on the forefront of exposing police brutality and misconduct” and called her conviction “a travesty of justice.”

The lawmaker said he believes that the case is a political attack leveled at Bukowski because of her reporting on police abuse issues in Detroit.

“I don’t see how any sensible jury could look at the evidence and come to that conclusion unless they were guided by the judge and crucial evidence was not allowed to be introduced.

“I believe they were trying to protect themselves against a lawsuit,” he said about the police.

[Continuing her coverage of the Nov. 4 deaths in "Two lives lost after troopers ignore chase rules" which was pubished during her trail Bukowski reported that state police involved in the chase failed to follow department requirements that their sirens and lights be activated during pursuits.]

Lemmons said that Bukowski’s claim that the prosecutor’s office promoted perjury during the trial deserves investigation.

“Anytime perjury has been committed it ought to be investigated,” he added that it is especially important to pursue such claims when they involve the prosecutor’s office, and especially in light of Worthy’s prosecution of then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for perjury.

Bukowski said that her conviction will not stop her reporting.

“I don’t see it affecting my work,“ she said, “unless I’m locked up in which case I will be reporting on what goes on inside.”

Prosecutor Thomas Trzcinski said he did not know whether there was any legal precedent for charging a reporter with felonies for crossing a police line.

“I’m too busy to keep up with that sort of thing” he said.

“I think there are certainly a lot times when a reporter is given a ticket for crossing a police line but it rarely escalates to the point of a full-blown trial,” said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“Most incidents are caused by over eager police who feel a strong need to control the scene and that leads them to control the journalist who is just trying to do her job.”

“I think a felony conviction is rare,“ he said, “I guess I can’t figure out how crossing the police line would lead to a week long trial.”

The Metro Times observed Bukowski’s trial and issued this report.