Pictures tell a story. Sometimes, the process of gathering them is a story in itself.
Over the past three months, I’ve been working on a cross-border investigative project examining the little-known purpose-bred dog breeding industry in the U.S. These large-scale breeders specialize in supplying dogs to scientific researchers for experimentation in the development of drugs and medical devices. One of those companies is Marshall BioResources in North Rose, New York.
Federal inspection records detail a string of violations over the past several years at Marshall’s facility that include injuries to the animals, mouldy food and overall poor conditions.
My reporting partners, The New York City News Service and the Investigative Journalism Bureau, had asked the company numerous times to meet for an interview. We called. We wrote long emails. In the end, they declined to meet with us and sent a written reply that only addressed some of our questions.
Last month, I drove to the Marshall BioResources. Since we were close to publication, I wanted to photograph the company’s entrance sign and film a short aerial video of the facility for our article.
After arriving in town, I photographed the Marshall BioResources sign from the road, before driving further down the road and parking at a cross street. (The Federal Aviation Administration controls airspace over airports and above certain heights. A drone can fly over private property in New York for newsgathering if the pilot has an FAA license, which I have.)
I thought I was on public land, and didn’t see any signs telling me otherwise. I took out my drone and prepared it to fly. About a minute later, and before I could launch the drone, a man in a black SUV pulled in behind my car. He walked over and told me I was on private property. It turns out, I was on a side access road instead of a main street. I pulled my car out and parked it across the street on the nearby shoulder of Lake Bluff Road, a main thoroughfare.
Taking out the drone again, I flew it above the facility’s tall trees, which block the view of the property. As I watched my phone screen transmit the drone camera’s view, I was stunned by the number of windowless industrial agricultural buildings that appeared. In some cases, they were nine rows deep, spanning the length of the complex, several football fields long — long enough to drain the battery. Though an occasional vehicle appeared as a tiny dot on the nearby ring road, there were no signs of any dogs or other animals.
After about three minutes, two cars with flashing lights parked behind me—a police car and a U.S. Marshal’s truck. As a police officer and a marshal approached me, my drone battery signalled it was low. I tried to guide it back, but was distracted by the police officer who began speaking to me. After I lost control of it, the drone landed far out of sight, in an apple orchard.
The police officer told me I had been accused of trespassing. I explained that as soon as I had learned during my earlier interaction that I was on private property, I had left. It didn’t matter that I had left, the officer told me, adding that security at Marshall’s was going to check their video cameras to confirm I had been on their private drive. While we waited, the officer asked for my ID and press credentials, which I handed over, explaining I was photographing the area for a story involving Marshall BioResources. At some point, the officer told me she had heard from the company — they were going to press charges.
I asked if I could leave my car to look for my drone, but the officer said I could not, advising me to wait in my car. I texted and called my editors, and was on the phone with one of them when the officer came back to my car with a man in a grey fleece jacket that had Marshall BioResources written on it. Marshall had decided not to press charges, the officer said, adding that Marshall owns the apple field where my drone landed.
The man in the jacket said they were anxious about strangers on their property; they have previously had protestors demonstrate outside their entrance. When I explained who I was and gave him my card, he declined to give me his name or title.
I asked him if I could retrieve my drone, but he said he was not allowed to let anyone onto the Marshall property. At this point, it was around 5 p.m. The man said there would be staff available in the morning who could decide whether or not I could have the drone back.
The following day, I met with a Marshall spokesperson who returned my drone.
Last week, I asked Marshall for comment on what happened that day and its deliberations over laying trespassing charges against me. I didn’t get a response.
From my perspective, the decision to escalate to law enforcement felt unjustified over what had been a peaceful exchange. As a journalist, when an in-person meeting isn’t possible, I often photograph a company’s building as a way of documenting its presence. The physical condition of its signage, landscaping and architecture reveals a company’s character in ways a press release won’t. For this story, I drove more than five hours each way, far from my colleagues and editors.
The experience of gathering images for this story left me shaken, but also clear-eyed about the stakes involved in doing investigative work. I will continue to photograph corporate facilities from public land. I will research property boundaries using land parcel records. And I’ll carry a small video camera to document interactions with police or security.
Being a woman alone in an unfamiliar town, facing a large corporation with law enforcement apparently at its disposal, left me feeling exposed.
The stakes became clearer later, when I looked into applying for a New York City press credential. The application asked whether I have ever been charged with a misdemeanor.
That misdemeanour charge could have cost me my press credentials and the ability to do work that I believe serves the public interest.
