- On May 3, police obtained a warrant to search the student's San Francisco home for the photographs, other possible evidence and even obtain his DNA. They seized some items, but it is not clear whether they found the photos.
The student has not returned to the apartment and has not been in direct contact with police, investigators say. He is being represented for free by an attorney who works with San Francisco State's journalism department, who says he will try to quash the search warrant on the grounds that the student is covered by the state shield law.
"The shield law is designed to allow reporters to cover events without becoming witnesses," said the attorney, Jim Wagstaffe, an expert on First Amendment law. Without that protection, he said, journalists could be forced to become "shills for police."
"In this case," Wagstaffe said, "it would appear the police have other information, and we would hope they would turn to that other information."
3 comments:
Hope this kid is well hidden. He not only has to worry about retaliation by the killer but by the cops as well.
It would seem that the San Francisco police put very little effort into solving crimes, so why are they working so hard on this one, going to the extreme of searching this kid's apartment? Interesting that even though they searched his home, they couldn't find the killer.
This kid really isn't a journalist. We don't even know his name and he hasn't published a thing about this incident. The shield law became a convenient way for a witness to protect himself. I glad for that. Nobody wants to see him die. But he's abusing a privilege real journalists need. This case seems to water that down.
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