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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Champaign County State's Attorney Drops Eavesdropping Charges Against Martel Miller for video taping and audio recording police interactions with residents; Patrick Thompson Still Charged |
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by Kimberlie Kranich
Email: kakranich (nospam) yahoomail.com (unverified!) |
24 Sep 2004
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Champaign County State’s Attorney John Piland today dropped eavesdropping charges against E. Martel Miller for video and audio taping police stops of residents after a month of intense organized community pressure followed by requests made public yesterday by the Urban League of Champaign County and Champaign Police Chief RT Finney and City Manager Steve Carter requesting that Mr. Piland drop the eavesdropping charges. |
Since early September, community residents, both black and white, have organized together in support of Mr. Miller and Mr. Thompson and bombarded Mr. Piland with requests that the charges be dropped.
The NAACP sent a similar request. CU Citizens for Peace and Justice, a multiracial local grassroots group, held a press conference September 10 before a group of 40 supporters calling for the charges to be dropped. At that press conference, a statement from the ACLU of Illinois was read condemning the eavesdropping charges.
Community radio station WEFT, 90.1FM, provided extensive coverage of the issue featuring interviews with Mr. Miller, Nikki Lamers of VEYA, and voices of community support for Mr. Miller and Mr. Thompson on several of its programs including "Speak Out," "Higher Ground" and “Media Geek.”
The News-Gazette editorialized against Mr. Piland’s handling of the case on three separate occasions.
Fifty supporters attended Mr. Miller’s September 8 arraignment at the Champaign County courthouse.
Mr. Miller was charged with three counts of eavesdropping after video taping and audio recording Champaign, Urbana and U of I police interactions with black residents. He faced probation or 4 to 15 years for each charge.
Patrick Thompson, an organizer along with Mr. Miller who was also charged with eavesdropping, has not had his charge dropped.
The News-Gazette reports that Mr. Thompson is also charged with home invasion, intimidation, unlawful restraint and criminal sexual abuse in a separate incident and is in Champaign County jail in lieu of $250,000 bond.
“I’m really happy that my charges were dropped,” said Mr. Miller, “but they should have dropped Patrick’s eavesdropping charge, too, since we were charged at the same time.”
Mr. Miller and Mr. Thompson are co-founders of VEYA, Visionaries Educating Youth and Adults, a nonprofit, community based organization dedicated to providing education for the prevention of the incarceration at-risk youth, and to reduce the recidivism rate of incarcerated adults.
One of VEYA’s programs is Citizen Watch, which involves video taping and audio recording police stops of residents.
A documentary made by VEYA that features these stops by police was to air on Urbana Public Television (UPTV) on August 25 but was turned over to police by UPTV staff and was being used as "evidence" against Mr. Miller and Mr. Thompson in the felony charges. Two of the eavesdropping charges resulted from the documentary itself.
A copy of the original documentary was submitted for broadcast but Urbana City attorney Steve Holz refused to air the program. He said the city and its employees could be criminally liable if they aired a program thought to contain illegal material by the state's attorney.
Formal complaints against the city of Urbana administration for refusing to air the documentary are before the Urbana Public Television Commissioners. A hearing was set October 11 to hear the complaints. At the September 20 UPTV Commission meeting, Urbana City Attorney Steve Holz said the documentary would air if the charges were dropped. Mr. Holz was unreachable at the time of this writing.
The community organized public screenings of the documentary at the Champaign Public Library, the Douglas Branch Library and the Art Theater. Hundreds attended the screenings.
On Wednesday, more than 300 U of I students attended a screening at Smith Hall hosted by VEYA and Afro-American Studies.
“I’m thankful for all of the community support, “ Mr. Miller said. “I still need the community support. We have a lot of problems to deal with. There’s still a lack of trust between the police departments, the state’s attorney office and the citizens.”
For more information, visit VEYA’s website, www.veya.org.
The question remains:
Can members of the community now video and audio tape police interactions with citizens without fear of being charged with eavesdropping? |
This work is in the public domain |
