World Press Photo Winner: Foreclosures in Ohio

This year’s winner of the prestigious World Press Photo Award goes to Anthony Suau for his picture of a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio during a foreclosure eviction.

The World Press Photo of the Year for 2008: Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their home, Cleveland, Ohio, March 26,2008.

The picture was taken during a two-day assignment by Suau.  He rode along with a team of officers as they did a long round of foreclosures evictions.

A couple of years ago, this kind of assignment would have been relatively impossible to imagine: sure, officers had some evictions, mainly for tenants and mainly at the beginning of the month.  Here, its an all-day piece of work that appears to be going on during the 26th day of the month.  So its full-time, all the time, for officers like Kole.

In Detroit, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans announced in early February that his staff would cease to evict homeowners.  In Ohio, Representative Marcy Kaptur has suggested that homeowners should go ahead and stay in their homes, in spite of orders for them to leave. ACORN is attempting to disrupt or halt auction sales at courthouse steps in Baltimore, and protested actions in Raleigh, St. Louis, Oakland, and Cleveland.

Anthony Suau is a decorated war photographer who has published great work on the fall of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.