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With only hours to go workers put the finishing touches on the final weekend of Mardi Gras.

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Nick Adams

Thousands are expected including Nick Adams.

The 20-year-old is a photography intern for the Galveston County Daily News who is now tangled in his own story.

“I went up to take a photo…. And the first thing he did was to push my camera back into my face and I stepped back,” said Adams.

He was on assignment last Saturday shooting a street performer when, he says, a League City police officer, hired for Mardi Gras, overreacted and prevented him for photographing a routine arrest. “I went to take another photo and he immediately said ‘Boy I told you not to take photos’ and pushed me back again.”

Adams was arrested for interfering with police.

He says the over aggressive officer also cracked the screen on his $4,000 camera and damaged its auto focus.

But there’s more to this story than Adams arrest and his broken camera. The photographer says once he was handcuffed, someone deleted two pictures of the scene from his camera and then took ten others inside the police command tent.

It is alleged frames 11 and 12 are missing from the camera’s hard drive.

He figures police snapped the shaky shots that follow. “I think it was crossing the line when they took a photo in the first place. What if they have your wallet? Do they take out $20 and put in $10.”

The Galveston Daily News bailed out the 20-year-old and hired him prominent civil rights attorney, Anthony Griffin. “It’s censorship at its rawest. There’s no way in the world that that person should have touched the camera. He should have taken the camera, preserved it, put it into evidence and then released it.”

“It may be a difference of perception between the two individuals as to what was going on. The only way to really know is to let this thing run its course through the criminal courts and for us to do an investigation on any conduct Mr. Adams will allege,” said Galveston Police Capt. Phillip Morris.

Adams has to file an official complaint.

But before the police launch an internal investigation he wants the charges dropped and his cameras fixed.