Fayetteville Reporter Arrested For Allegedly Failing To Leave Crime Scene

The Fayetteville Observer

is charged with resisting an officer after being told repeatedly to leave the scene of a homicide investigation.

Robert Boyer said a police sergeant asked him three or four times to move away from a house on Malloy Street, where a body had been found Thursday morning. Two men have been charged in the murder.

Boyer said yellow police tape had been placed around the front of the house. He said he told the sergeant that he had not crossed over the tape and was not interfering with the crime scene.

Assistant Police Chief Philip Cannady said the sergeant asked Boyer to leave numerous times.

A Freedom of the Press official agrees that police tape does not legally define a crime scene. However, she said reporters who do not obey an officer's command should expect to be arrested.