Thugs in blue

from The Guide, February 1996

Thugs in blue

Policing art crimes

Completing your end-of-term class project at Harvard University doesn't usually lead to police handcuffing and choking you, smashing your head against a wall, and taking away your child. But that's what happened to Toni Marie Angeli, in what is, as they say, a sign of the times.

Angeli, a 33-year-old Harvard student, took Prof. John Leuders-Booth's introductory photography course last semester. For her final project, she proposed doing a nude study of her son Nico, who is four years old. Her professor said fine, and Nico was up for it, so Angeli went to work, shooting a roll of film that included pictures of her son getting out of the bathtub and playing with his father. She dropped the film off for developing last October 26th at Zona Photography in Harvard Square.

When Angeli went to pick up the negatives, spouse and Nico in tow, clerks stalled. One claimed there had been a problem with the developing machine. Another said her order was lost in a jumble of boxes. Meanwhile, other store employees were phoning the Cambridge, Massachusetts police. The negatives turned up just around the time the two plainclothes officers did. They confronted Angeli, son in her arms, demanding to see her negatives and telling her that a "crime has been committed." Angeli assured them it was all a mistake, that they should talk to her professor. But the cops pressed on, threatening to take away her son.

"Haven't you something better to do with your time," Angeli shot back. "Why don't you go to the schoolyard and find some crack dealers." In an ensuing scuffle, the cops dragged Angeli, scream ing, into a back room in the photo lab, handcuffed her, held her down in a choke hold, and smashed her head against the wall, while a store employee grabbed her son away. When her husband protested, the cops tackled him to the ground. Police put Angeli under arrest and took off with her to city jail.

After an outcry from artists and civil liberties groups, Cambridge prosecutors seem to be shying away from pressing child porn charges against Angeli, who is out on bail. But it is expected they will press ahead with charges of disorderly conduct and assault and battery, for allegedly hitting a store employee with a lamp. Angeli says she knocked it down accidentally while police were assaulting her.

Meanwhile, kiddie porn panic continues around the country. Kansas City prosecutor Linda Senff is charging 21-year-old Andre Paine under the state's child pornography law for buying, among other gay-themed films, a video of Not Angels But Angels, a documentary about teenage hustlers in Prague that showed last year at gay film festivals in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. A UPS delivery person reported Paine to police after opening a package addressed to him. Cops raided Paine's home and arrested him. He is out on $25,000 bail.

The Los Angeles Times described the putatively criminal film as "A riveting. . . matter of fact. . . compassionate documentary on the lives of the teenage male prostitutes of Prague." But when it comes to kiddie porn laws, art and compassion are small safety against hysteria. **

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