Rakesh Sharma vs. NYPD
News: Last summer, an Indian filmmaker was hauled into custody for shooting footage in Manhattan. Now he's taking the New York police to court.
January 19, 2006
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Award-winning documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma filed suit last week in federal court against the city of New York and five members of the NYPD for violation of his constitutional rights. According to the suit, Sharma, an Indian citizen, was searched and detained without warrant in May for filming taxis emerging from the tunnel that runs under the Met Life building on Park Avenue. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which has taken up Sharma’s case, says his is the first suit to challenge the constitutionality of New York’s film-permit practices, which in the post-9/11 atmosphere expose low-budget and independent filmmakers to risk of arrest simply for documenting public places.
Sharma, who lives in Mumbai, was in town to attend a screening at Columbia University of Final Solution, his award-winning 2003 documentary about right-wing political violence in the western state of Gujarat, and had decided to shoot footage for his next project on (of all things) changes in the lives of taxi drivers and other ordinary people post-September 11, when the bearded, dark-skinned filmmaker caught the eye of an NYPD plainclothesman. The officer demanded Sharma’s passport, called over two uniformed cops to “guard” him, and then allegedly pushed Sharma to the ground, called him an “asshole,” and grabbed his camera when Sharma attempted to show the officer his innocuous footage. Sharma was detained for several hours and questioned by two more police officers, and his bag was searched and hand-held camera damaged, he says—all without a warrant.
Sharma was told that he’d have to contact NYPD precincts before filming in their jurisdictions, though he says he saw white tourists snapping pictures and filming without incident in the exact same location as he had. In November, when Sharma returned to the city to have another go at filming, he was told he would need a permit to film on New York streets, which he was denied without explanation, though he admits he couldn't meet the $1 million insurance guarantee the City requires for motion picture permits.
NYCLU’s executive director, Donna Lieberman, says Sharma’s arrest and detention violated his civil rights and that the city’s permit policy (which is largely unwritten) violates the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment. "In a democracy, people have the right to document activity in public places without being arrested," she declares in a press release on the organization’s website. "When the city tried to stop people from taking pictures in the subway, we objected and the city backed down. In the same way, we are challenging the city's arbitrary film permitting scheme, which exposes legitimate filmmakers to risk of arrest for taking pictures on the streets of New York."
The case will likely come up for review at the New York district Federal Court late this summer, but in the meantime, Sharma’s blog (which strangely carries an ad by Google for NYPD caps—the great algorithm has a dark sense of humor) gives periodic updates on the case, as well as thoughts on Gujarati history and censorship in the Indian film industry.
Rina Palta is the Assistant to the Editor at Mother Jones.
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