Paparazzi protest claims
■ The photographers say
they are seen as scapegoats
in Princess Diana’s death.
PARIS (AP) - Paparazzi pushed
away the first police officer to rush to
the scene of the Princess Diana car
wreck, police said Wednesday. But
the photographers protested they are
being turned into scapegoats.
“There is enormous government
and public pressure,” Jacques
Langevin, a photographer being
investigated in the case, told The
Associated Press.
Another photographer, one of the
first on the scene, said he opened the
car door hoping to help.
“I saw die princess sitting on the
floor, her back to me,” Romuald Rat
told France-2 television. “I said in
English to stay calm, that I was there,
that help would arrive.” Doctors later
said she was unconscious.
But now, Rat’s boss said “a total
injustice” is being done to the photog
rapher through the criminal investi
gation.
Langevin, Rat, four other photog
raphers and a photo-agency motorcy
clist are under investigation on alle
gations of manslaughter and failing
to aid an accident victim fa the deaths
of Diana, her companion, Dodi Fayed
and their driver. They were killed
when their car crashed at high speed
in a tunnel along the Seine River early
Sunday.
Driver Henri Paul, whose blood
tests indicated he was drunk, appar
ently had been trying to elude photog
raphers following on motorcycles.
Paul was an employee of the Ritz
Hotel, owned by Fayed’s father,
Mohamed A1 Fayed.
The Paris daily Le Monde report
ed Diana’s family and the British
royal family are considering joining
the case as civil parties, which would
give them representation in court and
access to documents. A lawyer for the
elder Fayed has said he also would
join the case.
In central London on Wednesday,
thousands of mourners thronged the
royal palaces for a fourth straight day,
leaving flowers and other remem
brances on sidewalks, and waiting for
hours in line to sign books of condo
lence at St. James’s Palace, where
Diana’s coffin lay inside a closed
chapel, awaiting Saturday’s funeral at
Westminster Abbey.
Fearing an unmanageable crush
of crowds Saturday, Buckingham
Palace extended the funeral proces
sion route by more than 2 miles. It
will now start from Kensington
Palace, Diana’s home.
The royal family said it was
“deeply touched and enormously
grateful” for the nation’s response.
Some had criticized the Windsors for
their stoic near-silence in public since
the tragedy.
There were earlier reports the pur
suing paparazzi tangled with police at
the accident scene, but Wednesday’s
article in the Figaro newspaper was
the first of an official police account.
Citing initial reports by investiga
tors, Le Figaro said unidentified pho
tographers pushed back the first offi
cer at the scene. All the first police
man could see was “a blonde head” in
the crushed vehicle, investigators’
reports said.
“They pushed back and blocked
the officer from coming to the aid of
the victims,” the newspaper quoted
the police report as saying.
Rat’s boss, Didier Contant, chief
editor of the Gamma photo agency,
said his photographer, who has first
aid training, was one of the first at the
scene and was quickly at Diana’s side.
“He took her pulse and said, ‘Do
not move, please. Help is coming.’As
soon as help came, he moved back
right away,” Contant said.
Rat said in the TV interview he
did not call for help because he heard
someone else saying he would do so.
He said he began shooting photos
after help arrived.
“He is in shock because he saw a
terrible drama and he thinks a total
injustice has been done to him,”
Contant said. He blamed “diplomatic
pressure” to show that France is tak
ing action on the British princess’s
death.
Langevin, a journalist with more
than 20 years of experience covering
dangerous stories from Beirut to
Beijing, called the charges “exagger
ated”
ii
Baldwin
lawsuit
rejected
OMAHA (AP) - A judge
Wednesday rejected former
Nebraska football player Scott
Baldwin’s $1 million lawsuit
against the city of Omaha, saying
two police officers were negligent
in a shooting that left Baldwin par
alyzed, but Baldwin was more to
blame.
Baldwin’s attorneys said fhey
will appeal.
Douglas County District Judge
Michael Amdor said Baldwin did
not take his antipsychotic prescrip
tion medicine, and he should have
known that not doing so could
result in a violent encounter with
police.
Baldwin, 28, has been diag
nosed as having bipolar disorder.
He remains paralyzed from the
chest down as a result of his
injuries. A bullet is lodged in his
spine.
Baldwin was shnt the nitrht of
Sept. 5, 1992, after losing control
in a psychotic episode during
which he took off his clothes and
ran through the streets of north
Omaha.
Officer Anna Doyle shot him
after finding him naked and ram
ming a glass door of a house.
When she and Officer Peggy
Truckenbrod ordered him to put
his hands behind his back, he
resisted, and a struggle and the
shooting followed.
Amdor’s 38-page ruling called
Baldwin’s lawsuit a “close case.”
The judge found that Doyle,
Truckenbrod and the city were
negligent and their negligence
caused the officers to use deadly
force against Baldwin. But Amdor
said Baldwin’s decision to not take
his medicine was “intentional” and
a “heedless course of conduct”
that suggested recklessness on his
part.
“We’re disappointed,”
Baldwin’s attorney, E. Terry
Sibbemsen of Omaha, said of the
ruling. “We don’t feel there was
any factual evidence that would
substantiate that Scott was negli
gent.”
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appropriate section editor at
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\ dn@unlhtfo.unl.edu.
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