GO Transit officials are reviewing an incident in which a Toronto Star reporter was arrested, put in headlock, handcuffed and ticketed with trespassing for taking pictures of an injured officer at Union Station.

Two GO Transit officers were thrown onto the train tracks — one breaking his ankle — following a skirmish with a man trying to open the doors of a moving train early Sunday morning. The station was packed with people heading home from two major events at the Air Canada Centre and Rogers Centre.

News photographers are not allowed to take photos without permission at Union Station, said Anne Marie Aikins, media relations manager with Metrolinx, which raises questions about the viability of stopping media, and onlookers, from recording news as it happens in an age of smart phones and social media.

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“People take photos on the subway all the time. I’ve taken photos on the subway. So there could be an expectation that you’re not doing anything wrong,” said University of British Columbia journalism professor Alfred Hermida.

“Handcuffing a reporter and ticketing them does seem to be applying the law a little bit too literally, without acknowledging that you have a job to do as police, and a journalist has a job to do as a journalist.”

After witnessing several Toronto police officers rush toward the GO Transit track level, Alex Consiglio followed and took a photograph of an injured transit officer crouched beside the track. “I took the picture and they came over to me saying I couldn’t take pictures. They told me to leave, so I left. I was trying to figure out what was going on,” Consiglio said.

Aikins said working journalists need to sign a waiver before taking photos in Union Station — even though the public takes photos in Union Station all the time on their smart phones.

Aikins said the increased popularity of social media and smart phone cameras are adding new challenges for GO officers during potentially dangerous situations.

“We review the situation every time an incident occurs, as we are in this case. There are things we have to adapt to now that citizen journalism has become pretty common.”

Aikins said officers will clear the area of anyone taking photos if a potentially volatile situation develops, “for the public’s safety, as well as for the officers’ and that may mean asking people to leave and to stop taking pictures,” she said.

“There are two issues here. If you’re taking pictures in the official capacity of your job (journalist) that’s where there is a liability issue. If people are using their cellphones and taking pictures or even using their cameras to take tourist shots there isn’t that kind of an issue because it’s not in an official capacity,” said Aikins.

“With regards to members of the public taking pictures (when an incident occurs) officers try to remove people from the incident area so that people don’t get hurt.”

Hermida said journalists must balance such concerns against the perceived public interest of the situation they’re covering — if they’re witnessing a glaring injustice, for example.

As Consiglio headed for the station’s exit doors he noticed a crying woman leaving the terminal with a man. He overheard them talking about the incident by the train tracks and he asked them if they knew what happened. The couple said they didn’t want to talk to him.

“They get escorted out by GO officers and I went outside and snapped their picture as they came out,” Consiglio said. Transit officers intervened when Consiglio said the man slapped him after he took their picture.

He said the couple went to the subway and he went around the corner to see the injured transit officer being put into an ambulance on a stretcher. “I take his picture and then I’m arrested,” he said.

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Toronto police had by now taken two people into custody from the initial track-level incident.

“As the (GO) train was moving someone on one of the trains forced open the door creating a potentially dangerous situation by putting people’s lives at risk,” Aikins said. “Some people were trying to evade getting arrested in the incident.” One officer suffered a broken ankle and another received minor injuries.

Consiglio said he does not understand why a Toronto police officer put him in a headlock before he was handcuffed and put in the back of police cruiser when he wasn’t resisting arrest. Although outside the building, he was apparently on Union Station property at the time.

“He was told to move back, and he didn’t, and he was very challenging,” explained Toronto Police communications director Mark Pugash, speaking from reports of the incident from Toronto police and transit officers, who claimed Consiglio responded he didn’t have to move back “because I’m media.”

“If somebody is, in the view of the people who are there, in the way … if they refuse to move back, then they can be arrested and officers are allowed to use reasonable force,” said Pugash. “Requests by police for members of the public apply to every member of the public, whether they’re journalists or not.”

After the Toronto and GO Transit officers talked, Consiglio was released, his camera equipment and phone returned to him, and handed a $65 ticket for trespassing.

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