Charges against cameraman dropped

Charges against the journalist arrested by Suffolk police while he filmed the aftermath of a car chase will be dropped after the district attorney's office determined he was not interfering with the police investigation, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The decision to drop the charges against Phil Datz, 34, of Valley Stream, was made after a review of the arrest paperwork and video taken of the incident that involved uniformed and undercover officers, said Robert Clifford, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office.

Datz, who works for Long Island-based Stringer News Service, was arrested by a sergeant on the scene after being ordered to leave the area Friday. He was charged with a misdemeanor count of obstruction of governmental administration and given a desk appearance ticket to appear in court next week.

Clifford said in an email Tuesday that the decision to drop the charges against Datz was based on the office's familiarity with the cameraman and his news agency and their belief that had he been informed undercover officers were on the scene, "appropriate precautions would have been taken to conceal their identities," said a statement by the district attorney's office.

"Mr. Datz was not informed of the presence of undercover police officers and the situation culminated in his arrest," Clifford said in the statement.

Suffolk County police would not release the name of the sergeant who arrested Datz, citing personnel issues. Monday, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said in a statement that an internal investigation of the incident was under way and the department will "provide refresher training to all officers regarding the interaction between news media and department personnel."

Dormer did not mention that there were undercover officers at the scene. Yesterday, Suffolk police officials did not say if the sergeant was still on duty while the investigation took place or if he faced disciplinary action.

Footage of the incident, which was digitally pixelated by Datz to obscure images of officers, was posted on YouTube and by Monday night had been widely broadcast across the metropolitan area.

The footage shows the sergeant, from the Fifth Precinct, repeatedly ordering Datz to leave the scene of the chase investigation while other pedestrians stand nearby. Eventually the sergeant forces Datz to stop shooting footage and places him under arrest.

Datz said had he known there were undercover officers on the scene, he would have taken measures not to film them.

"Absolutely," Datz said. "As we've always done in the past . . . We would have blurred their images out."