A nationally recognized photographer was arrested while covering a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility and is now attempting to recover his impounded camera equipment.
Dave Decker, a well-known photojournalist in the Tampa Bay area, was covering a Sunrise Movement protest outside the Krome Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County, Florida. 52-year-old Decker was on assignment for three media outlets — News2Share, Zuma Newswire, and CL Tampa Bay — when he became one of 30 people arrested at the event.
According to CL Tampa Bay, Decker described the situation as initially appearing routine.
“A liaison for [Sunrise Movement], I heard them saying, ‘As long as you stand on the grass, you’re OK,’” he said, noting that concrete barriers separated protesters from restricted areas. “It just felt normal to do the work of photojournalism and document from the sides, to document the detainments as they were happening.”
Decker, who was wearing press credentials around his neck, says he received no warning before an officer made eye contact and placed him in handcuffs while he photographed officers detaining protesters.
“I said, ‘Hey officer, I’m a member of the press.’ They said, ‘’You were warned, you’re getting arrested,” Decker adds.
He recalled speaking with a Florida Highway Patrol sergeant, presenting his credentials from the National Press Photographers Association and his Part 107 drone pilot license, and explaining that he was documenting the protest.
“He said, ‘I don’t care about any of this. And he said, ‘You’re going to get arrested too.’ So he arrested me, and then he isolated me on another side of the road,” Decker explains.
The photographer eventually persuaded officers to place his camera gear in his car.
“Eventually, a trooper, a detective, took my gear, put it in my car, and then they impounded it and they did an inventory of it,” he added.
According to CL Tampa Bay, Decker describes being held with other protesters on the ground, cuffed and zip-tied for hours as night fell and mosquitoes swarmed in the parking lot outside Krome. Miami-Dade County records indicate that Decker faces charges of trespassing on property after warning and resisting an officer without violence. He was released on bond early Monday morning and is actively working to retrieve his vehicle and camera equipment from a Miami impound lot.
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help Decker with his bond, getting his camera gear, and navigating the consequences of the arrest. According to the GoFundMe campaign, it remains unclear how much the photographer will need to recover his vehicle and camera equipment as well as cover any potential damages to his gear.
Decker has worked as a freelance photojournalist for the past six years, and this is not the first adversity he has faced this year. On September 27, while covering protests outside a U.S. ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, he was shot in the lower legs with pepper balls by federal officers, which also damaged one of his camera lenses. Following these incidents and a series of reports on photographers, a U.S. federal judge has temporarily barred Homeland Security agents from using riot control weapons on journalists in the Chicago area.
Image credits: Header photos via GoFundMe.