A Wasilla newspaper has filed a complaint with the Department of Public Safety after an Alaska State Trooper pulled over a reporter and seized his camera memory card.
The Alaska Dispatch News reports that the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman says the trooper’s actions violated constitutional protections of freedom of the press and against unlawful search and seizure.
According to the complaint, when the reporter went to cover a reported shooting in Willow on Wednesday he took a number of photographs of the man being arrested from a public road about 100 yards away. The reporter drove a few miles from the scene when the trooper pulled him over and took the memory card, saying it was potential evidence.
The Department of Public Safety says it is investigating.
