TV reporter charged with insulting officer

Channel Seven television reporter Keith Swift was arrested on Monday during an anti-crime operation and charged today with a mischievous act and insulting a police officer. He maintains he did nothing wrong and that the officers began taunting HIM from the moment they approached him at the corner of Kraal Road and Waight Street, a block from his home. According to police, Swift was on Kraal Road at 11:45 p.m. with a group of eight or nine young men they described as being of “questionable background” when a police patrol stopped and searched the members of the group for weapons and drugs. The officers said everyone was asked to give his name and each complied, except for Swift. When he refused to identify himself police say they put him in the vehicle to take him to Eastern Division Police Headquarters. According to Christie Castillo, Police Press Officer, Swift called her on his cell phone while in the police vehicle and told her he had been picked up by quote “some idiot rogue officers.” She says she instructed him to cooperate and give his name, but he again refused. For his part, Keith Swift told News Five that he did nothing wrong except stand up for his rights. He says the officers’ claims that he was with a group is a “total lie” and said he had been speaking with one friend, Jason Belisle, at the corner and they had already finished their conversation and were going in separate directions when a police truck pulled up. He says one of the officers immediately said “Well, if it isn’t Keith Swift” and then got out and searched him and Belisle. He says when they asked his name he told them they obviously already knew it. They put him in the truck and he claims they verbally harassed him all the way to Eastern Division commenting on his job as a reporter. Swift says amidst the comments he called Christie Castillo to ask her what to do. He admits making a comment about “rogue officers” but says he said this to Castillo, not the officers. He said once at the station the officers wrote his name down on their report so when they asked him for it again he refused. He spent the night in the police lock-up and appeared in Magistrate Court this morning. He pleaded not guilty to both charges and released on one thousand dollars bail. He is to reappear in court on March twenty-second.