Baltimore photographer arrested while covering event

A Maryland photographer working with the Baltimore City Paper is fighting an arrest after being taken to jail while covering a concert that police were closing down last week.

The police were already on scene when Noah Scialom arrived at a concert venue. Scialom said in an interview that, although he started by taking photos in the vestibule, he moved to the sidewalk and was standing with a group of 10 to 15 people when he was “blindside tackled” by a police officer. He said it is an “undisputable fact” that he was on the sidewalk, out of the way. “You can see [in the photos] that that is where I am; you can see the vestibule,” he said.

The police department says that Scialom was blocking the vestibule and sidewalk, which they say can be verified by security camera footage, and that Scialom attempted to discard a bag of marijuana while in custody.

“Someone found a bag of weed on the ground next to a trash can and they said it was mine. That’s the extent of that situation,” Scialom said.