LOS ANGELES : TV Stations Subpoenaed for All Riot Footage
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Federal investigators served subpoenas on Los Angeles television stations late Tuesday and demanded tapes of all un-broadcast footage of riot-related violence, but officials at the stations said they would fight turning over the material.
“We don’t feel that the government has the right to come and get this,” Warren Cereghino news director at KTLA-Channel 5, said of the material.
That view was echoed by officials at KNBC-Channel 4 and KCOP-Channel 13, where FBI agents also served the subpoenas Tuesday. The subpoenas seek footage depicting damage to “persons or property” during the riots.
Southern California stations already have turned over hundreds of hours of broadcast footage, and that material is being reviewed by a task force of local police officers and FBI agents. But the stations have balked at turning over material that has not been broadcast, just as newspapers have refused to turn over unpublished photographs.
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