Student Photojournalist Joel Angel Juarez on the Frisco Five, Capturing 'Truth Without Bias'

KQED ARTS (SAN FRANCISCO) -- Surrounded by disembodied hands, a snarling, uniformed white man slams a black man’s face into a metal door frame. A hand emerges from the crowd, grasping the officer’s arm to stop him. Another holds a paper sign. My eyes dropped instinctively to the photo credit: Joel Angel Juárez. I immediately wished this photographer had been standing on the front steps of City Hall when the hunger strikers were making their way through the plaza. Then I realized how close Juárez had been to the dangerous chaos he’d photographed. The photo, picked up by the Associated Press, also appeared in the OC Register, the San Diego Union Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, Fox News and more. Joel Angel Juárez is 20 years old, tall and quick to smile. He’s a third-year Journalism major at San Francisco State University, with a photojournalism emphasis and an International Relations minor. “Our role is sort of as watchdog,” Juárez says. “You’ve got to hold people accountable.”