Environmental Activist Draws Attention of Police When Filming Protest Video

Drew Wheelan, conservation coordinator at the American Birding Association, wanted to find an evocative setting for a video calling on BP to stop using a chemical known as corexit to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico. So he filmed it in a field across the street from BP headquarters in Houma, La.

What he ended up with was a video that showed officers from the Terrebonne Parish sheriff’s department trying to stop him from filming and pulling him over after the shoot. The officers explain that BP doesn’t want anyone filming but acknowledge that Mr. Wheelan isn’t breaking any laws.

As Mr. Wheelan talks to the officer who pulled him over on state highway 311, he says, “I guess that’s what happens when you deal with a $97-billion company.”

BP denies that it asked law-enforcement officers to prohibit filming of its property.

“It’s a public roadway,” Daren Beaudo, a spokesman for BP told The Chronicle. “We have no authorization to tell people what they can or cannot video.”

Mr. Beaudo said that he was not aware of the incident but that there have been situations in which contractors or others have said that BP has instructed them to block access to the news media or the public.

“That’s not true,” he said. “Some companies and potentially law-enforcement people make some decisions based on their own judgment and sometimes attribute them to BP.”