By LUISA YANEZ Sun-Sentinel, Web-posted: 9:23 p.m. June 11, 2000
MIAMI -- The NBC cameraman who disputed last week the official Department of Justice report on the raid to retrieve Elián González has been invited by immigration officials to tell his side of the story.
Veteran cameraman Tony Zumbado, 45, of Miami, who was assigned by the network to camp across the street from the Little Havana home where Elián lived, said he is set to meet with officials at 2 p.m. Tuesday at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Miami.
"I'll tell them whatever they want to know," Zumbado said. "As a witness, I always thought they would talk to me before they issued their report, but they never did."
Zumbado, one of the only people inside the house during the raid who did not have a stake in the outcome of the Elián case, is disputing the agents' accounts of their behavior. He called the government's 51-page report "a whitewash."
Accompanying Zumbado will be attorneys for NBC, which has filed an official grievance with the federal agency over the treatment its crew received during the April 22 pre-dawn raid.
The INS invitation came in the wake of Zumbado's disputing of the agents' claims that they did not manhandle anyone inside the house or use foul language or tear gas. Zumbado said they did all those things.
Zumbado, one of only two journalists to make it inside the house footsteps ahead of the federal agents, said he was struck in the back, thrown on the ground and kept at gunpoint near the front door, which prevented him from videotaping the dramatic events unfolding inside the house.
Meanwhile, agents outside the house struck his sound man on the head, he said.
Only AP photographer Alan Díaz, who rushed to a bedroom where Elián was taken by rescuer Donato Dalrymple, was able to capture a photograph of the boy confronting federal agents who came to take him.
INS officials could not be reached for comment on Sunday to discuss what Zumbado would be questioned about pertaining to the raid, but last week spokeswoman Maria Cardona confirmed NBC had filed an official complaint and the agency was investigating.
Luisa Yanez can be reached at lyanez@sun-sentinel.com or at 954-385-7920.
Copyright 1999, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive, Inc.
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