Is This Cop an Asshole or What?

First of all, he, in his infinite wisdom, the bounds of which obviously exceed that of the Founders of this country, who, in their judgment, believed that freedom of the press was as necessary component (a sine qua non, if you will allow lawyerly language) of an open society, but who cares what some old white men thought, right?, so, in His infinite wisdom, this one, lone cop decides a press photographer shouldn’t take a picture of a breaking news event that’s happening at 14^th Street and 4^th Avenue – the middle of Manhattan for God’s sake!

That’s #1.

But then, as if that wasn’t enough, this asshole, otherwise known as Patrolman Evans, in the presumptively legitimate exercise of his discretion to maintain order, Asshole Evans makes our humble press photographer sit at his feet like some kind of captured war-prize that he’s entitled to have his way with, notwithstanding the fact that she’s newly-wed and quite possibly pregnant.

That’s #2.

Now, given what, on its face, seems like extreme action on Patrolman Evan’s part, one would think that the news event our press photographer, who, by the way, is Julia Xanthos of the Daily News, one would think that the news event Julia was trying to cover was of some extraordinary sort that necessitated secrecy in order for the objective of the police action to be obtained. If this was the case then one could understand, though one might still disagree with, the Patrolman’s decision to arrest Julia.

But this was emphatically not the case. A two-alarm fire broke out on 4^th Avenue and 13^th Street, bringing the City’s press corps to the scene. As the fire was burning, a woman got her foot run over by a car. So when Julia arrives and sees medics attending to a woman on a stretcher she does what every other press photographer in the world would have done – take her fucking picture. Ordinary run-of-the-mill stuff. But this day it results in an arrest.

That’s #3.

So is this cop an asshole or what?