Can you see me now?

Gorilla case highlights cell phone vigilantism

By Andy Giegerich

The Portland Tribune, Nov 28, 2003, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The hip-hop fans who chronicled last week’s gorilla-on-a-grill incident at Ringlers restaurant may have launched the age of technological vigilantism in Portland.

However, the new era’s conduit, a technology that allows wireless phone users to snap and e-mail photos with their cellular handsets, brings with it several questions regarding privacy and propriety.

The questions come as the technology Ñ consisting simply of a camera attached to a cell phone Ñ has become affordable (ranging from $100 to $250) and widespread. As such, users of cell phone cameras have found applications for their pictures that range from heroic to vulgar.

In the Ringlers case, at least two patrons at a Nov. 18 hip-hop show used their camera phones to document a police car that parked in front of the West Burnside Street club with a stuffed gorilla attached to the car’s grill. Because of the racial overtones, the incident became a news story: Some of the photos were printed by the Tribune and shown on several television stations.

Portland police say they’ve not used cell phone photos as evidence in any cases, but the Independent Police Review Division of the city auditor’s office plans to use the Ringlers pictures to investigate the gorilla incident.

“We still don’t have the photos ourselves, but since it was in the paper, it obviously establishes beyond any doubt that there was a stuffed gorilla on a Portland Police Bureau car,” said Richard Rosenthal, the police review board’s director. “It’s not an issue that’s being disputed by anybody.”

The growing popularity of camera phones definitely rubs both ways. It’s been used for good: In New Jersey, a teenager used a cell phone camera to snap pictures of a would-be abductor, as well as of the man’s license plate number. The man was quickly apprehended and arrested.

On the other hand, national reports have surfaced that some health club members use the phones to photograph nude people in locker rooms. New Jersey legislators are considering a law banning the phones in locker rooms altogether; the national YMCA leadership has recommended that each branch ban them.

Owners of Portland area health clubs say they’ve fielded no reports of impropriety involving use of camera phones.

Still, the trend could reach new levels next week when Sprint unveils the industry’s first video-shooting cellular phone. The phone will allow users to shoot 10-second snippets and send them online.

“Someone said to me that with these cell phones, Big Brother has turned into Little Brother,” Rosenthal said.

“Most people don’t carry around a camera, but everyone carries a cell phone,” said Dave Mellin, a Sprint spokesman. “Because of that alone, we’ve been able to document life in ways we haven’t been able to in the past.”

Proving a point

At Ringlers, camera phone users snapped their gorilla photos as the cruiser idled outside the bar during the hip-hop show. One person there, Calvin Washington, said he wanted to accurately document what he perceived as a racial slight.

“It’s one of those situations where you don’t look for meritorious reward or gain from the deal,” he said. The police officers “disrespected a group of people, and that’s the way it should be looked at,” he added.

Another who took pictures was Mello Cee, a DJ performing at the event.

He said he took the pictures because he was angry. “That was the main thing,” he said. “People were shocked.”

Police said earlier this week that the stuffed gorilla was attached to the hood because officer Darrell Shaw did not want to tote it inside his vehicle. Confiscated from a drunken patron at another bar, the toy reportedly reeked of vomit and alcohol.

A police spokeswoman, Sgt. Cheryl Robinson, conceded that the cameras give police watchers a handy tool with which to chronicle officers’ actions.

“Ten years ago, video cameras were large and unwieldy, but people were using them,” she said. “Now we have something people can hold in the palm of their hand.

“I don’t think that, in terms of law enforcement, we go out with the expectation we won’t be captured in some type of medium. But our expectation is that we behave appropriately.”

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