On the surface, the WildSplash Rap and Reggae concert at Coachman Park in Clearwater, Fla., was a simple feature assignment for St. Petersburg Times photojournalist Kinfay Moroti. It turned into an assignment that developed many layers.
Moroti approached the coverage on March 8 using a technique that he learned at a Poynter Institute seminar a few weeks before: arrive early, build a relationship, and stay late. In the process, Moroti found himself documenting an emotional interaction between a concertgoer and a police officer that would make headlines days later.
The relationship layer
Moroti remembers his attention being drawn to the sisterly “unity and innocent fun between Ashley and Arkia” as they frolicked in the cooling spray of the medical technician’s water hose on a humid Florida afternoon before the concert began.
“We were having fun, I was looking forward to seeing 50 Cent. He is the bomb,” recalled Ashley Talley in a telephone interview with Poynter Online. “We were getting wet and passing people’s cameras around, takin’ each other’s pictures and stuff. It was just fun.”
Moroti says his instinct was to get to know the community that gathered for the concert. “In order to know the community, you have to document from the inside out. One way to overcome the anonymity factor is to engage individuals … I was not afraid of being vulnerable and letting down my guard. I knew that I had to get close.”
“I spent an hour and a half with them (Ashley and Arkia),” he said. “My goal on that afternoon was to be 100 percent open, like we demand of the negative.” (Moroti is refering to the days before digital, when photojournalists recorded onto film that was then processed.)
Drawing on what he learned at a seminar discussion on being “More than a Shooter,” Moroti explained his view that photographers are like latent images and need to develop.
“I have learned that sometimes I need to be 100 percent open with a subject; I must be like strips of film,” he shared.
Changing times layer
Moroti says that he was shocked and a bit stunned as the tables turned quite suddenly after the concert started. At 6:15 p.m., according to eye witnesses, while the group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony performed, the crowd — in excess of 15,000 — began pressing forward.
Talley, the second oldest of six, was responsible for her sister, 13-year-old Arkia Scott, and two other siblings at the concert.
She recalls, “We were being crushed. I was concerned about my sister, and I did get into an argument with the girl that was pushing my sister. I asked her to move and she said that she was not moving another f—ing step. I was arguing, and then they just yanked me out.”
Moroti, staying true to his photographic plan, was very close to the action. Four feet away, he was taking pictures as a Clearwater police officer removed Talley from the area, documenting the altercation with his Nikon D1H digital camera and 50mm lens.
“It is not a lens that is used a lot, but it is how the eye sees, and I was in single frame mode,” he says.
He managed to record 25 frames in 43 seconds, crouching his arms in the camera position. “Bam, Bam, Bam … I used my mouth as the motor,” he said.
Talley, a 110-pound, 5-foot-4-inch, 19-year-old nursing student who dreams of becoming a pediatrician, was taken into custody.
“I was so afraid as I sat in the paddy wagon,” she says. “I thought that I was been held for not leaving the area. I was trying to get back to my sister. Then the officer asked me my name and I told him. He asked me if I knew why I was there and I said for not leaving the park.”
“Then he said ‘What were you thinking about, you are going to jail for battery on a police officer,’ and then I just yelled, ‘NO!'”
Talley spent the night in jail, charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. She was released around 3 p.m. on Sunday.
The publishing layer
As the event played out, Moroti — who is African-American –- says he was hurting.
“I felt like my sister was being pulled over the barrier. When I saw the officer’s reaction to her attempt to confirm the safety of her sister, I kept saying to myself, ‘What are you doing?'”
When asked to further elaborate on his own feelings he said, “No question, it never crossed my mind that I should have dropped my camera to go and help her. There were many people closer than myself. I would have denied the images that tell the story. The image is the undeniable witness.”
“Through my camera I witnessed the truth,” he says.
Moroti was deeply troubled by what he had witnessed and documented. The 25 digital frames he recorded also presented the St. Petersburg Times with a dilemma.
After informing the Clearwater authorities of the content and nature of Moroti’s photographs, the Times decided to publish the entire series of photographs on the St. Pete Times website on Monday, shortly after 3 p.m.
Joe Childs, Managing Editor/Clearwater, says “The fact that we published the pictures says that we saw something there, and Moroti’s pictures show in clear and real terms what happened fully, every step of the altercation. It was wonderful visual coverage of an event.”
According to Sue Morrow, Assistant Managing Editor/Visuals, by publishing on the web, “We gave the readers a chance to see for themselves the range of emotions and severity of the situation. Kinfay captured an isolated incident, reminded us that people challenge us all of the time for not being there when these things happen. And in this instance, we were there.”
Both Morrow and Childs say the Times consulted its legal advisers to help guide them on the issue of showing the photographs to the police prior to publication. “They advised that prior restraint could come into play by not letting us use the pictures the way we saw fit. [President and Editor Paul] Tash suggested the use of the web as publication and it gave us the ‘space’ to publish the entire sequence, therefore letting readers be the judge.”
The Times followed up by publishing seven of the photographs, along with a written account of the incident, on the cover of Tuesday’s City & State section. The report was provided by Adrienne P. Samuels, who also wrote the review of the concert.
Staying with the story layer
The images on Moroti’s memory card were not just evidence, but visual insights about this controversial incident. Clearwater bureau reporter Samuels, who reviewed the concert but did not witness the incident, says that after seeing Moroti’s photos, “I thought ‘Wow, we need to find her,’ and then the reality of the daily deadline kicked in.”
To move the story forward, Moroti already had the names, ages and contact numbers for Talley and her family.
For Talley and the community, the story was far from over.
Feedback in the community layer
Samuels has received a lot of feedback about the story. “It seemed to strike a chord with older black men in their 80s who left messages stating the outrage for the young lady’s treatment … asking, ‘What is the NAACP doing about this?'”
Samuels has also received “numerous anonymous call from law enforcement types supporting the officer.”
And Childs (a very visible editor in the community) added, “We wanted to pursue a story and gauge whether the officer acted appropriately, but basically across the board nothing really over the top or nasty has been reported to me in either direction. People just have various opinions in both directions.”
The next step layer
It is said that luck is where preparation and opportunity come together. Kinfay Moroti agrees. “I felt, three minutes after documenting the images, focusing on frame 7, I knew that we had to publish these images. I let the paper know. I called my editors and other editors… this time I had something often talked about and rarely captured.”
As to what comes next, Talley’s family has some tough decisions ahead. Talley’s mother, Reneita Johnson says, “My family is hurting. I need to get these kids help.”
Talley’s 13-year-old brother was also detained, but not arrested.
“My son is shaking like a leaf, as if he has seen a ghost, and Ashley won’t come out of her room or get into my car. She has not been back to school and is missing her final exams at Concorde Career Institute. I need to help them, and then I can think about figuring out how to file a complaint. What they did to my kids is wrong.”
According to St. Petersburg Times reports, Clearwater officials support the unidentified officer’s actions.
Kenny Irby has been coaching and mentoring Kinfay Moroti for a little over a year.