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Amtrak photo contest participant arrested by Amtrak police

by Aaron Hotfelder (RSS feed) on Jan 6th 2009 at 1:00PM

When photographer Duane Kerzic first heard about Amtrak's "Picture our Trains" photo contest, he never imagined that Amtrak police at New York's Penn Station would confuse his picture-taking for suspicious activity and arrest him. Amtrak's police and marketing department have to communicate better than that, don't they?

Well, we already know the answer to that. Kerzic was charged with trespassing after refusing to delete the photos of the trains from his camera.

Kerzic, the alleged victim of all this, is not taking this incident lying down. On his blog, he's encouraging people to write to their Mayors, Senators, the CEO of Amtrak, and even the President to help make sure this doesn't happen again. Kerzic has also composed a detailed account of his arrest called (really) "Amtrak Police Intentionally Injure My Right Wrist" and he says he'd like criminal charges to be filed against the arresting officer.

Don't hold your breath, Duane.

For more on this incident, go here. For photos of Kerzic's injured wrist, go to (where else) his blog.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Consumer Activism

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

D. Kirkpatrick Jan 6th 2009 8:52PM

Actually, the fellow has a serious case against those who arrested him, specifically from their demand to erase his photos. That is actually a federal offense that is actionable. No police officer or any person can demand erasure of photos from a camera or destroy film. It may be seized as evidence when there is an arrest but not destroyed.

An increasing number of photographers are being harrassed for taking images in public places, and this is specifically so for railroad photographers. So much so that many now reference this web site:

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

This link gives a clear understanding of photographers rights and is pattented after ACLU materials on the subject. It is presented here by an attorney.

Amtrak openly invites people each year to photo their trains in motion all over the country and submit those for consideration in a contest. Winning photo is featured on their annual calendar.

The problem here is that the station police were either unaware of Amtrak's policy or didn't care. Mind you, Amtrak has held this policy and contest for several years now. Clearly someone was asleep at the switch.

In the end their lack of understanding regarding laws surrounding photography may put them in serious waters. A decent set of attorney's on both sides will make this wash away - maybe with a few free train rides thrown in.

caspar Feb 3rd 2009 6:01AM

check out yesterdays colbert report on this:
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=217337

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