WARMINGTON

What is more alarming for you as a citizen in a free country?

A reporter at a big newspaper taking a picture of a news event?

Or that same reporter allegedly being struck by a passerby, his life threatened by a law enforcement official, snuck up upon by police and put in a headlock, handcuffed and then detained in the back of a squad car before being charged?

The powers that be decided the good reporter is the problem.

But if this keeps happening in a democratic society, we all have a problem.

This is not communist North Korea.

And we don't want it to be. It's not a police state!

Can somebody please remind the police? Forget what the phony rules are said to be in train stations and airports.

They are essentially public places and taxpayer owned.

Cameras are part of 2013.

You can have your picture taken--there is video surveillance everywhere no matter how loud you squawk about privacy.

You can take a picture -- everybody has camera on their phone now.

No matter what the rules say, it's a double standard that someone can't take a picture of people who work for us in action but those same people can take your picture with surveillance cameras owned and paid for by us.

But for some in government, particularly some in law enforcement, power seems to be their aphrodisiac.

Most try to reason with people and look for peaceful solutions but others threaten, arrest and hurt people over someone daring to challenge their authority.

It happened to Alex Consiglio over at the Toronto Staron the weekend. He was coming back from an event at the Rogers Centre when he saw GO Transit coppers going up to the track where there was a legitimate incident.

He shot some pictures and blah, blah they told him not to and then, according to Consiglio, some guy hit him twice.

Later, he says, he was out on Bay St. when he saw a wounded GO officer being taken by stretcher into an ambulance and he captured that.

"The next thing I know I was surprised from behind," he told me. "A police officer put me in a headlock and then put the handcuffs on me so hard that it left bruises."

Is this really good use of police training and time?

It was the same officer investigated by and cleared by the SIU in the violent Angela Turvey arrest in 2011.

Alex told me this officer locked him in the police car and took his information before a GO officer came by and gave him a $60 fine.

He also said he was told by a GO officer that if his picture ran he would "kill" him and perhaps gave him the finger.

If true, is this professional behaviour?

Did anybody look at the cameras to see what actually did happen? Anybody going to investigate?

The problem for the public is if the meathead mentality has control over everything, if those few have no oversight or repercussions for potentially abusing their power, it's going to get ugly and people are going to get hurt over, basically, nothing.

For example, as media reports have shown, a St. Catharines man named Karl Andrus is suing Toronto Police for $1.35-million for allegedly being "violently attacked" after filming an arrest at the Sheraton Centre Hotel. He claims he was struck so hard he broke several ribs.

The bottom line is nobody should be getting hurt. This is purported to be free society and we all should be very scared of a place run by people who have cameras on you but will physically harm, detain and charge you for pointing cameras at them.

We need an explanation of the laws and rules.

What is lawful and what isn't?

What reaction by security and police is okay and what isn't?

I sent questions over to Mark Pugash at Toronto Police for clarification and he has yet to respond.

So far no clarity.

But what is clear is law enforcement arrested and detained a reporter for doing his job in a country with freedom of the press.

For me that's most alarming.