Reporter charged after deadly police chase

Michigan Citizen article by Diane Bukowski (source: http://www.michigancitizen.com)

Detroit journalist Diane Bukowski is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow on five felony counts of assaulting, resisting and obstructing police officers. She was charged while reporting from the scene of a police chase and motorcycle crash that killed two people on the northeast side of the city on Election Day.

Bukowski, 60, a freelance reporter for the Michigan Citizen — the state’s only black-owned newspaper — is known for her reporting on police brutality. She has been a journalist since 2000 when she retired from a career as an analyst with the human rights department of the city of Detroit.

In her story for The Michigan Citizen Bukowski reported, “A Detroit motorcyclist returning from the polls Nov. 4, was allegedly hit by two Michigan state troopers during a chase on the city’s northeast side. The impact of the crash pushed him into a pedestrian who was also killed, then into a pole, according to one eyewitness.”

The motorcyclist, James Willingham, was 42, and a father to 10 children, she reported. The pedestrian was Jeffrey Frazier, 32, an autistic young man known for his kindness.

Police issued a statement saying Willingham had sped off when police attempted to pull him over for a moving violation and that the motorcycle was stolen.

Bukowski’s article quoted a friend of Willingham’s who disputed both allegations. Two witnesses told Bukowski who said that the area was crowded with pedestrians at the time of the incident, including children walking home from school. The bystanders, who asked that their names not be used, said the state troopers did not have their sirens on at the time of the chase.

Bukowski said she identified herself as a reporter to police and stood outside the yellow crime scene tape. As she photographed the covered bodies, she said a state trooper screamed at her, and said she was under arrest. The trooper seized her camera, erased the photos, and handcuffed her, Bukowski alleged.

Bukowski is well known for her reporting on police brutality. She broke the story of Officer Eugene Brown who killed three men in the late 1990s, she said. This case eventually resulted in Department of Justice oversight for the Detroit Police Department and a multimillion dollar jury verdict for the family of one of Brown’s victims.

Recently Bukowski has reported that police on Detroit’s southwest side are conducting illegal cavity searches of black men in public on city streets.

“Under state law you can’t do that without a court order,” she said. “It’s rampant.”

The charges against her are “in part retaliation because we have exposed the prosecutor’s office for failing to respond to widespread abuse by police,” Bukowski told Michigan Messenger. “It is also intended to have a chilling effect on the rest of the media.“

“As people are losing homes and jobs, repression is increasing because [the police] are worried about a repeat of 1967,” she said. “They want to silence any exposure of what goes on. The media generally only reports the police side of story.”

Bukowski told Michigan Messenger that she is scheduled to appear before magistrate Sydney Barthwell Jr. in Detroit’s 36th District court tomorrow at 1 pm.