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{
"title": "Colorado Springs news station’s car windshield smashed with skateboard",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/colorado-springs-news-stations-car-windshield-smashed-with-skateboard/",
"first_published_at": "2020-09-30T16:10:58.320391Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:40:41.388762Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:40:41.292451Z",
"date": "2020-06-06",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Colorado Springs",
"longitude": -104.82136,
"latitude": 38.83388,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"22vgd\">A skateboard thrown at a television news station’s car smashed the vehicle’s windshield and broke the driver’s door near protests against police violence in Colorado Springs, Colorado on June 6, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"np6xd\">Reporter Colette Bordelon was driving the marked KOAA News5 car near Colorado Springs’ City Hall to cover the demonstration on June 6. When she made a left turn on a street heading away from City Hall, someone threw a skateboard at the car. Later that night, Bordelon <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColetteBordelon/status/1269397907532283904\">tweeted</a> a video showing damage to the car and said: “I can’t open the driver’s side door as a result. Friendly reminder that your local reporters are here to tell your stories.”</p><p data-block-key=\"x1ugr\">A <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColetteBordelon/status/1269397907532283904\">video clip</a> that accompanies the tweet shows a large smash on the left-hand side of the car’s windscreen.</p><p data-block-key=\"gkvjp\">It isn’t clear whether the vehicle was specifically targeted for belonging to a media outlet. “It was pretty close to the protests, but I have no way of knowing if it was a random person or actually a protester,” Boredelon told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"7l0p5\">“There are too many unanswered questions in my specific incident to go ahead and attribute it to an attack on the press, or as related to the protests,” Bordelon said in an email.</p><p data-block-key=\"kf9u3\">Bordelon <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColetteBordelon/status/1269403436031803393\">tweeted after the incident</a> that she was uninjured, and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KOAA/videos/2616132585301212/\">livestreamed on Facebook Live</a> from the scene of the protest that night.</p><p data-block-key=\"d7ozv\">“So everyone knows - I’m totally okay!” she tweeted. “Also, I realize this is an isolated incident, and it doesn’t represent all of the people I have met at these protests over the past week. The main message of the protests is still the story I will share - systemic racism in America.”</p><p data-block-key=\"vhbxj\">Bordelon filed a police report about the incident.</p><p data-block-key=\"mm35f\">The Colorado Springs demonstration was one of many protests that broke out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement since the end of May. They were sparked by a viral video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"618xj\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"akv5z\">A screenshot from a video taken by journalist Colette Bordelon and posted to Twitter shows damage to her news vehicle.</p>",
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"tags": [
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"categories": [
"Assault",
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{
"title": "Independent journalist struck with truncheon, pepper sprayed amid Portland protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-journalist-struck-with-truncheon-pepper-sprayed-aimd-portland-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-09-23T10:55:21.060850Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-04-03T23:33:47.721033Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-04-03T23:33:47.616061Z",
"date": "2020-06-06",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"eijo4\">Independent journalist Donovan Farley was struck with a wooden truncheon and pepper sprayed while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, during the late hours of June 6, 2020, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed by ACLU of Oregon.</p><p data-block-key=\"0kj9m\">The Portland-based journalist was covering one of the many protests that broke out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents</a> involving journalists covering protests across the country.</p><p data-block-key=\"9pght\">In Portland, nightly protests over the death of Floyd began on May 29, prompting Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare an 8 p.m. curfew that lasted three days. Even after the curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to the ACLU suit. The suit led to an <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/judge-grants-preliminary-injunction-aclu-case-protect-journalists-and-legal-observers\">agreement</a> by the Portland Police Bureau in July not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests. Wheeler later banned the police from using tear gas as a form of crowd control on Sept. 10.</p><p data-block-key=\"srof3\">Just before midnight on June 6, Farley began filming police officers arresting a man in Chapman Square downtown, as one officer put his knee on the man’s neck. Farley “had identified himself as press and was filming several police officers kneeling on a protester’s neck, George Floyd-style,” according to the ACLU <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/woodstock_portland_aclu_or_06282020.pdf\">filing</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"yz8wh\">Then, in an attack that was captured on a KATU newsfeed and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TVAyyyy/status/1269526590456643584\">posted on Twitter</a> by Theo Van Alst, an associate professor at Portland State University, one of the officers pushes Farley back with his hand before hitting him with a truncheon. The officer can then be seen macing Farley as he turns to walk away, then hitting him and macing him again.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">From the <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KATUNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@KATUNews</a> feed about 15 minutes ago. This guy gets maced and beaten for filming at the Justice Center <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/PortlandProtests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PortlandProtests</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/PortlandProtest?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PortlandProtest</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/pdx?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#pdx</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/portland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#portland</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/hGSosEES0m\">pic.twitter.com/hGSosEES0m</a></p>— TVAyyyy, Don’t Go in the Basement 👻 ✶ ✶ ✶ ✶ (@TVAyyyy) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TVAyyyy/status/1269526590456643584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 7, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"di55w\">“I was chased and assaulted because I was a journalist who caught law enforcement behaving in the exact illegal fashion that started this nationwide uproar,” Farley said in a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/DonovanFarley/status/1269701897377603584\">statement posted on Twitter</a>. While acknowledging that he was vocal in telling the officers to remove their knee from the man’s neck, Farley said he was staying out of the way of the arrest.</p><p data-block-key=\"fq6t2\">The first hit with the truncheon injured his lower thigh, Farley said, and the officer also hit him between the shoulders as he was retreating. The shock of that blow is what caused him to turn around, he said, which is when the officer maced him again at close range.</p><p data-block-key=\"zynp5\">“The burst was so intense that for the first second I thought he had taken out the big canister and punched me with it,” said Farley in the statement, adding that he was incapacitated for the remainder of the night.</p><p data-block-key=\"idp7q\">Farley wasn’t available for further comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"iled7\">The ACLU filed the complaint on June 28 on behalf of multiple journalists.</p><p data-block-key=\"am9ne\">The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.</p><p data-block-key=\"af3xs\"><i>Editor's note: This piece has been updated to reflect that Donovan Farley is not among the plaintiffs in the ACLU of Oregon's class-action lawsuit.</i></p></div>",
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [
"(2023-05-17 12:03:00+00:00) City of Portland, Oregon, to pay independent journalist $50,000 to settle lawsuit"
],
"case_statuses": [
"settled"
],
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
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],
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},
{
"title": "Investigative reporter hit by munition while covering Portland protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/investigative-reporter-hit-by-munition-while-covering-portland-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2021-10-19T16:25:01.871719Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-04-03T20:59:25.883034Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-04-03T20:59:25.783008Z",
"date": "2020-06-06",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"6dkvm\">Robert Evans, a reporter for investigative news site Bellingcat and host of a podcast for iHeartMedia, was hit by a crowd-control munition while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, during the early hours of June 6, 2020, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed by ACLU of Oregon.</p><p data-block-key=\"86vxp\">Protests in the city that day were in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.</p><p data-block-key=\"8g0ij\">In Portland, nightly protests over the death of Floyd began on May 29, prompting Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare an 8 p.m. curfew that lasted three days. Even after the curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to the ACLU suit. The suit led to an <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/judge-grants-preliminary-injunction-aclu-case-protect-journalists-and-legal-observers\">agreement</a> by the Portland Police Bureau in July not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests. Wheeler later banned the police from using tear gas as a form of crowd control on Sept. 10.</p><p data-block-key=\"wtlqv\">Evans, who was <a href=\"https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1269506850912780288\">livestreaming</a> the protest, was filming the police clearing Chapman Square when he was hit in the fingers by an impact munition. At about 48 minutes and 40 seconds into the video, Evans can be heard exclaiming after being hit.</p><p data-block-key=\"5rn71\">“They got me real good in the fucking fingers,” Evans can be heard saying, speculating that the munition might be made of glass. “They were shooting at my chest though, because my hand was on my chest.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ae6kf\">“I think maybe even aiming at my press pass, because my hand was right next to it,” he added. The ACLU <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/woodstock_portland_aclu_or_06282020.pdf\">complaint</a> notes that Evans was hit in the hand that was holding his press pass, and that his helmet also said “press.”</p><p data-block-key=\"zcixb\">Evans told the Tracker that his fingers were bruised and hurt for a few days. “That one wasn’t serious,” he says, but it was memorable for how targeted he felt.</p><p data-block-key=\"bkmp5\">The ACLU filed the complaint on June 28 on behalf of multiple journalists. Evans and his colleague Bea Lake filed their own civil lawsuit against the city of Portland on July 14.</p><p data-block-key=\"xz1b0\">The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing the ongoing litigation.</p><p data-block-key=\"5wxpi\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"jy8b4\"><i>Editor's Note: This piece has been updated to reflect that Robert Evans is not a plaintiff in the ACLU of Oregon suit, but has independently sued the city of Portland.</i></p></div>",
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"case_number": "OJD:20-cv-23349",
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
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"(2022-05-06 00:00:00+00:00) Reporter reaches settlement agreement with city of Portland"
],
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"settled"
],
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
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"Robert Evans (Bellingcat & iHeart Radio)"
],
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{
"title": "Journalist hit by crowd-control grenade while covering Seattle protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-hit-by-crowd-control-grenade-while-covering-seattle-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-02-11T19:04:21.713802Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-04-04T17:56:04.041373Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-04-04T17:56:03.935968Z",
"date": "2020-06-06",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Seattle",
"longitude": -122.33207,
"latitude": 47.60621,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"kzh2m\">Cole Miller, a journalist for local station KOMO TV, was injured by debris from a crowd-control munition while reporting from a protest on June 6, 2020, in Seattle, Washington.</p><p data-block-key=\"a7jb2\">Protesters were gathered that day in Capitol Hill, a Seattle neighborhood which had already seen several days of protests, and which would later be the site of a weeks-long occupation protest known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.</p><p data-block-key=\"gj3zp\">Miller told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was reporting that evening at the southeast corner of Cal Anderson Park, at 11th and Pine Street, when Seattle police officers began attempting to disperse the crowd. Miller said the police had assembled in front of their precinct office on Pine Street, across from the park, and the police line and protest line had confronted each other, with the police trying to push the protesters out of the area.</p><p data-block-key=\"vw8c4\">A<a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColeMillerTV/status/1269459358288494592\"> video Miller posted to Twitter</a>, shot while he was standing in the midst of a group of protesters, shows there were multiple loud bangs and flashes of light, accompanied by clouds of gas. Multiple <a href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-area-protests-demonstrators-prepare-for-ninth-day-of-action-after-george-floyds-killing/\">news reports</a> <a href=\"https://mynorthwest.com/1925435/seattle-protests-saturday-june-6/?\">from that day</a> confirm that police were using blast balls, a type of crowd-control grenade similar to a flash-bang grenade which sets off noise and bright light, and can disperse rubber shrapnel when detonated.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/SeattlePD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@SeattlePD</a> using flash bangs to disperse crowd, people throwing things at officers. A piece of one of those bangs just hit my leg. This is quickly getting out of hand. Protesters hadn’t thrown or done anything it seems to provoke this <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/KOMONews?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#KOMONews</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/HXCuIAqNyb\">pic.twitter.com/HXCuIAqNyb</a></p>— Cole Miller (@ColeMillerTV) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColeMillerTV/status/1269459358288494592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 7, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"416cf\">Miller said that the situation became “quite chaotic” with protesters running into each other, and “pieces of shrapnel from the blast exploding in all directions.”</p><p data-block-key=\"y0wne\">Miller said that debris from one of the crowd-control munitions hit him in the leg “with quite a bit of force,” which later resulted in a large blister. He also said that <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColeMillerTV/status/1269459852885028865\">he inhaled</a> some of the gas used to break up the protest, which he was not able to identify. Miller told the Tracker that police continued to push the crowd back toward Broadway, using more gas. According to Miller and a news report from the Seattle Times, the protesters eventually pushed back on the line of police and ended up back near 11th and Pine.</p><p data-block-key=\"bwogz\">Later that day, Miller posted photos of <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ColeMillerTV/status/1269482381158739968\">rubber debris</a> from the blast balls, which he found on the scene.</p><p data-block-key=\"tdoo0\">Seattle Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"ql7uw\">One day prior to these incidents, the Seattle Police Department <a href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-area-protests-demonstrators-prepare-for-ninth-day-of-action-after-george-floyds-killing/\">had announced</a> a minimum 30-day ban on the use of tear gas, and said that other policies on measures such as pepper spray would be subject to review.</p><p data-block-key=\"e5v12\">The Seattle protests were in response to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, during a May 25 arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which sparked demonstrations across the country. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"chemical irritant",
"protest"
],
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"Assault"
],
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],
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},
{
"title": "Freelance journalist forced by police from scene of Seattle protest in June",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-journalist-forced-police-scene-seattle-protest-june/",
"first_published_at": "2021-01-04T16:55:44.676215Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:41:36.910309Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:41:36.759204Z",
"date": "2020-06-06",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Seattle",
"longitude": -122.33207,
"latitude": 47.60621,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"2m7xi\">A freelance journalist said a police officer grabbed her, threatened her with arrest and forced her away from the scene of a protest she was covering on June 6, 2020, in Seattle, Washington.</p><p data-block-key=\"412un\">Shauna Sowersby, who was filing for KNKX public radio, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was working out of the offices of a local newspaper, The Stranger, which is located at 11th Avenue and Pine Street in Capitol Hill. The Seattle neighborhood for several days had been the scene of intense protests against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, prompting standoffs between demonstrators and law enforcement.</p><p data-block-key=\"1ecsc\">From the newspaper office, Sowersby said she had a clear view of a protest happening below and rushed down to the street when she saw police attempting to clear the area.</p><p data-block-key=\"wb7vr\">Sowersby said a Seattle police officer approached her as soon as she reached the street, telling her she needed to leave. “I told him I was press and without going any further or without asking me any more questions he just grabbed my arm, and he's like ‘no, you need to leave.’”</p><p data-block-key=\"wbyc1\">In a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Shauna_Sowersby/status/1269463849725390849\">video she posted</a> to Twitter from that evening, Sowersby can be heard repeating “I’m press,” while the officer leads her down the street, which had been cleared of protesters and was guarded by police.</p><p data-block-key=\"qd8kd\">In the background, an unidentified man can be heard calling attention to “an accredited journalist” being harassed by a police officer. Sowersby said the officer was walking behind her and kept trying to put his arms around her, in a way she said felt threatening.</p><p data-block-key=\"rarw5\">In the video, the officer is seen walking close by her as he says: “You can’t be here.” When Sowersby objects, saying she is a member of the press and has a right to be there, he tells her she will be arrested if she doesn’t leave. Sowersby repeatedly asks the officer not to touch her. At one point she asks the officer’s identity, to which the officer says “It’s written right on my chest.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ogtes\">According to Sowersby, when they reached the end of the sectioned-off street she was pushed to an area where a line of officers were standing. She told one of these officers that her workplace was just down the street and she needed to get back to work. Sowersby said this officer told the first officer to let her go.</p><p data-block-key=\"cbwyl\">“And then the police officer who had me, actually grabbed the back of my jacket, and he twisted it really hard, like in the middle of my back, and just shoved me out of the line,” she told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"gvia1\">She said police then kept her out on the street for nearly two hours, unable to get back to her office.</p><p data-block-key=\"po7df\">“I could only call the people that were in the office and there was nothing they could really do at that point,” she said. “So we had to wait until they cleared the area and then I was able to eventually go back into the office.”</p><p data-block-key=\"pph7r\">Sowersby added that no police officer acknowledged that she was a member of the press, despite her shouting it repeatedly.</p><p data-block-key=\"vxcru\">The Seattle Police Department didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"v6z0y\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country that began after the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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{
"title": "Journalist pushed by police while filming arrest in Brooklyn",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-pushed-police-while-filming-arrest-brooklyn/",
"first_published_at": "2020-08-05T18:37:09.997601Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:42:16.924956Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:42:16.837382Z",
"date": "2020-06-05",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"czodn\">An officer with the New York Police Department pushed Gothamist reporter Sydney Pereira as she filmed an arrest during a protest in Brooklyn, New York, on June 5, 2020, according to Pereira and videos of the incident.</p><p data-block-key=\"pt67x\">The protest was held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.</p><p data-block-key=\"ko3rr\">After reporting on a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sydneyp1234/status/1269053987317301254\">protest</a> in Manhattan, Pereira began to follow another <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sydneyp1234/status/1269079913677688832\">demonstration</a> near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn around 9:30 p.m., according to her Twitter feed. Police and protesters negotiated to allow protesters, who were out past an 8 p.m. curfew, to leave Grand Army Plaza peacefully, the Gothamist <a href=\"https://gothamist.com/news/live-protest-updates-june-5-2020\">reported</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"6q1ps\">Pereira began to head home when she encountered a group of protesters being <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sydneyp1234/status/1269094070258937856\">arrested</a> near Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street around 10:30 p.m., she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"2brhn\">As seen in a video filmed by City and State New York reporter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ZachReports/status/1269095713444712450\">Zach Williams</a>, several police officers repeatedly <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ZachReports/status/1269096296247369732\">shoved</a> Michael Carter, who told the Tracker that he heard a commotion from his apartment and went outside to document arrests on his block. Carter said documenting police misconduct was part of his job as communications director for state Senator Julia Salazar.</p><p data-block-key=\"zq07u\">Officers confronted him and ordered him to back up. After he was shoved into the metal security gate of a storefront, he tried to leave the area, he told the Tracker. Carter said he then heard an officer say, “Get him.”</p><p data-block-key=\"tpgt0\">Videos filmed by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sydneyp1234/status/1269096490477158404\">Pereira</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ZachReports/status/1269095713444712450\">Williams</a> show Carter tried to run away as one officer swung his baton at him. Carter crossed the street before several officers in pursuit took him to the ground. As officers attempted to restrain Carter, several others ordered Pereira, who was standing several feet away, to back up.</p><p data-block-key=\"e4apj\">“Press! Press! Press!” Pereira said to the officers as she held up her NYPD-issued press badge.</p><p data-block-key=\"7o2vu\">“I don’t care,” one officer responded as he pushed her back using his baton. He then turned away as two other officers continued to tell Pereira to back up. One officer yelled that she could keep recording if she backed up.</p><p data-block-key=\"k782h\">An officer in a white shirt, signifying a higher rank, intervened and told everyone to relax before walking over to Carter.</p><p data-block-key=\"sgkzf\">Pereira then stepped to the side to keep filming the arrest. A different officer told her, “If you come closer, you’re going to get yourself in trouble. Please stay where you are.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ei1mb\">“I’m press. Come on.” Pereira responded. “I gotta document what you all are doing. That’s my job here.”</p><p data-block-key=\"h0duq\">Pereira told the Tracker she questioned why she was pushed. “I felt like I was allowed to be there to film, and I felt like I wasn’t too close,” Pereira said. “I didn’t have a tape measure, but I didn’t feel like I was obstructing the arrest from happening.”</p><p data-block-key=\"t3vc7\">The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"zm321\">After the confrontation, the police did not hinder Pereira from reporting, she said. Officers escorted Carter to a line of other arrestees awaiting transport. With officers flanking him on all sides, he gave an <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sydneyp1234/status/1269096982628446213\">account</a> of his arrest to Pereira, who was filming. Senator Salazar later <a href=\"https://twitter.com/juliacarmel__/status/1269226779807485952\">intervened</a> to help get Carter released from police custody.</p><p data-block-key=\"usqqw\">Carter, who is no longer with the senator’s office, told the Tracker that the journalists’ video documentation of his arrest had an impact because “people could see that I wasn’t being aggressive in any way or doing anything violent or even I would say illegal.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ioug2\">Pereira noted the role journalists play in holding powerful institutions like the police accountable.</p><p data-block-key=\"4zc5y\">“Someone needs to be able to do that without fear of harassment or threats or physical violence.”</p><p data-block-key=\"1aptx\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"4q4bc\">NYPD officers order Gothamist journalist Sydney Pereira to back up as she films an arrest in Brooklyn on June 5, 2020.</p>",
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"name": "New York",
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{
"title": "Ohio prosecutor subpoenas outlet for reporting materials from protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ohio-prosecutor-subpoenas-outlet-reporting-materials-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-06-20T17:43:35.048750Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-04-16T14:17:30.033385Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-04-16T14:17:29.823590Z",
"date": "2020-06-05",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Cleveland",
"longitude": -81.69541,
"latitude": 41.4995,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"ilobv\">Ohio newspaper The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer and its digital site, cleveland.com, were served a subpoena by the county prosecutor’s office for videos, photos and audio captured by its reporters during recent protests in downtown Cleveland.</p><p data-block-key=\"0sbu1\">Protests have taken place in dozens of cities across the country since late May, sparked by a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"9eqkt\">The subpoena, filed on June 5, 2020 by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley’s office, orders the outlet to turn over all recordings and photographs that depict any “potential criminal activity” during the May 30 riots, cleveland.com <a href=\"https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2020/06/cuyahoga-county-prosecutor-subpoenas-clevelandcom-and-plain-dealer-reporters-photographs-videos-of-downtown-riots-and-interviews-with-witnesses.html\">reported</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"mz30r\">It also seeks copies of any recorded interviews with individuals who may have described illegal activities.</p><p data-block-key=\"7on57\">Editor Chris Quinn told cleveland.com in an emailed statement that the company is compiling responsive documents before speaking with its attorneys about possible options, but that it intends to turn over all materials already published, as the outlet has done previously.</p><p data-block-key=\"s0lty\">“I’m always troubled when prosecutors seek to use the work of journalists as evidence in criminal cases because it sends a terrible message to criminals that journalists should be considered part of the criminal justice process,” Quinn said.</p><p data-block-key=\"8zig4\">“We are not part of the criminal justice process. We are the watchdog of the criminal justice process. I just fear that this kind of thing puts a target on the backs of our reporters, photographers and videographers as they do their jobs.”</p><p data-block-key=\"n2o4o\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented many assaults of journalists amid the ongoing protests related to Black Lives Matter and police brutality, and <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/?assailant=PRIVATE_INDIVIDUAL\">at least a dozen</a> journalists who have been assaulted by private individuals. In many of these instances, journalists reported being harassed for capturing video or photos of demonstrators’ faces.</p><p data-block-key=\"yo2fd\">Cleveland.com reported that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor spokesman Tyler Sinclair declined to comment on the subpoena or whether similar subpoenas have been issued to other news outlets, citing the ongoing investigation. Sinclair did not immediately respond to the Tracker’s request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"88x7i\">Ohio shield law protects journalists from disclosing their confidential sources, but this protection does not extend to journalistic work product gathered in the course of reporting, <a href=\"http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/ohio/ohio-protections-sources-and-source-material\">according to</a> the Digital Media Law project.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"30prb\">A Cleveland, Ohio, police officer blocks a road to the city after a mandatory lockdown on June 1, 2020, after days of protests and riots followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
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"name": "Ohio",
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"(2024-04-11 16:32:00+00:00) Ohio county prosecutor drops pursuit of paper’s unpublished protest coverage"
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],
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"protest"
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},
{
"title": "Podcast host violently grabbed, shoved by police officers while covering Portland protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/podcast-host-violently-grabbed-shoved-by-police-officers-while-covering-portland-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2021-12-13T18:37:11.616962Z",
"last_published_at": "2022-09-09T17:26:23.843863Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2022-09-09T17:26:23.766987Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"2mkfn\">Lesley McLam, host of a KBOO podcast, was violently grabbed and shoved by police while covering demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on June 4, 2020, <a href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6983308-COMPLAINT-07-08-20-FINAL.html\">according to her ongoing lawsuit</a> against the city and Mayor Ted Wheeler, and other law enforcement officers.</p><p data-block-key=\"30eqa\">McLam, who did not respond to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s request for comment, was covering the protests that broke out in Portland and across the country in response to the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.</p><p data-block-key=\"dvol0\">McLam filed a civil lawsuit, <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/editor-radio-host-repeatedly-shoved-while-covering-portland-protests/\">along with her colleague Cory Elia</a>, against the city and multiple law enforcement officers on July 8. The <a href=\"https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/07/two-independent-journalists-file-suit-against-portland-police-county-sheriffs-deputies-and-state-police.html\">lawsuit cites multiple press freedom violations</a> against both journalists.</p><p data-block-key=\"75isl\">According to the complaint, McLam was covering the protesters that had gathered in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center when she saw a group of individuals near a dumpster fire about a half block away. At the time, McLam was wearing a black baseball cap with white lettering that identified her as “PRESS.” Her backpack was also labeled “MEDIA” and she had prominently displayed press credentials.</p><p data-block-key=\"p457q\">McLam started filming the fire with her cellphone and narrating the events when police officers in riot gear arrived and announced the street was closed. According to the complaint, McLam continued filming but moved to the sidewalk, allowing space for people and officers to pass.</p><p data-block-key=\"27kz4\">The complaint said McLam was filming when an officer approached her. She identified herself as a member of the press while displaying her credentials when the officer violently grabbed McLam by the throat. She was then shoved backward by that officer and two others.</p><p data-block-key=\"fk04e\">On June 28, the Americans Civil Liberties Union of Oregon filed a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> against the city of Portland and its law enforcement. The city later agreed to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2020-07-16_preliminary_injunction.pdf\">preliminary injunction</a> to not arrest, harm, or impede working journalists or legal observers at protests.</p><p data-block-key=\"7c84y\">The Portland Police Bureau has said it wouldn’t comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protest, citing ongoing litigation.</p></div>",
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [
"(2022-07-29 13:26:00+00:00) Independent journalist receives $40,000 to settle lawsuit stemming from arrest, assaults at protests in 2020",
"(2022-04-28 00:00:00+00:00) City of Portland pays two journalists $55,000 to settle lawsuit stemming from arrests, assaults at protests in 2020"
],
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"protest"
],
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},
{
"title": "Independent journalist pushed, hit by NYPD while covering protest in Bronx",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-journalist-pushed-hit-nypd-while-covering-protest-bronx/",
"first_published_at": "2020-11-04T14:36:10.527748Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-04-04T17:55:27.861135Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-04-04T17:55:27.726419Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"p85mx\">Independent journalist Ashoka Jegroo was pushed and hit with a baton by a police officer while covering a racial justice protest in the Bronx borough of New York on June 4, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"hsro3\">The protest, in the Mott Haven neighborhood in the Bronx, was one of many demonstrations organized across the city in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in 2020. Jegroo regularly reports and films video footage of protests, which he sells to media outlets.</p><p data-block-key=\"atxi8\">In a phone interview, Jegroo told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was at the front of the demonstration, near some of the organizers, as they began marching through the neighborhood on the evening of June 4. A few minutes before a citywide 8 p.m. curfew went into effect, said Jegroo, city police officers moved to break up the protest using a crowd-control tactic called kettling, in which police block demonstrators from leaving. As police advanced on the crowd, Jegroo and organizers at the front of the march were separated from the “kettle” and pushed across the street by police, the journalist said.</p><p data-block-key=\"9f3n9\">Jegroo said that police appeared to target an organizer near him who was using a megaphone to communicate to the larger group.</p><p data-block-key=\"o0ywg\">In a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AshAgony/status/1268696316294635520?s=20\">video Jegroo posted on Twitter</a>, a line of NYPD officers is seen standing on the street. An NYPD officer in a yellow helmet approaches another officer and points into the crowd. “You want her locked up?” the second officer asks. “OK.”</p><p data-block-key=\"oeja2\">The second officer then moves swiftly, striking at protesters and swiping toward Jegroo. “Get the fuck back, I’m not fucking with you, get the fuck back,” the officer says.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NYPD cops are making violent arrests & beating people with batons at the <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/FTP4?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#FTP4</a> march in the Bronx. I just got hit with a baton & pusher by cops. <a href=\"https://t.co/w6YOxXssvj\">pic.twitter.com/w6YOxXssvj</a></p>— Ash J (@AshAgony) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AshAgony/status/1268696316294635520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"p2gth\">Jegroo said that the police officer struck him with a baton on his abdomen between his belly button and his groin. Jegroo said he then ran away from the line of police, following two protest organizers as they sought to see what was happening to the larger group of demonstrators cordoned off by police. When they encountered more police, officers grabbed the organizers, Jegroo said, then threw him against a fence, where he slid down to the ground.</p><p data-block-key=\"lb98g\">Jegroo said that as he attempted to get up, a police officer pulled him up, turned him around and pinned him against a gate, holding one of the journalist’s arms behind his back. A second officer questioned Jegroo, asking why he was there and where he lived, while another officer rifled through his backpack, Jegroo said. After searching through his bag, the police freed Jegroo. He said he collected his belongings, which the police had dropped on the ground. He reported that none of his reporting equipment was damaged.</p><p data-block-key=\"wpafq\">Jegroo said he did not identify himself to police as a journalist at any point during the protest. He said that in past encounters with police, he had found that identifying himself as a reporter did not help. “I've tried to do that before, but … they don't give a damn,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"3qzea\">NYPD did not respond to a request for comment about Jegroo’s experience.</p><p data-block-key=\"t5u8i\">The march was the fourth organized by a coalition of grassroots groups under the name FTP4, initials that various group members say can stand for “For the People,” “Feed the People,” or “Fuck the Police.” Police tactics during the Mott Haven march came under criticism in a <a href=\"https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/30/kettling-protesters-bronx/systemic-police-brutality-and-its-costs-united-states#\">report</a> released in September by Human Rights Watch. The group said that police conduct during the FTP4 march was “intentional, planned, and unjustified,” and that NYPD’s response violated international human rights law.</p><p data-block-key=\"g8xkt\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
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"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"i6sdt\">Journalist Ashoka Jegroo was documenting a protest in the New York borough of the Bronx when he was shoved and hit with an NYPD officer's baton.</p>",
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{
"title": "Journalist arrested following Birmingham protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-arrested-following-birmingham-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-08-31T11:49:05.313644Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:45:34.339150Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:45:34.232133Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
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"city": "Birmingham",
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"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"cp2yh\">Michael Harriot, a senior writer for the Root, was arrested while covering protests in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 4, 2020, according to published reports of the event.</p><p data-block-key=\"mikvj\">The protests were held in response to a video showing a Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for more than eight minutes during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The incident sparked anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country.</p><p data-block-key=\"12uu2\">According to <a href=\"https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/06/journalist-michael-harriot-arrested-after-birmingham-protest.html\">AL.com</a>, approximately 100 people had assembled in Linn Park on the afternoon of June 4. At around 7 p.m., curfew in Birmingham at the time, police reportedly directed the crowd to disperse and told members of the media to have their press credentials clearly displayed. Many protesters had left the park by that point, according to AL.com, but the few who were willing to get arrested stayed, and they were.</p><p data-block-key=\"s1lso\">According to the news site, officers then made their way to an area where members of the media had gathered, including Harriot, who was filming with his cellphone. Harriot did not respond to emailed requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"vxqhe\">In a video shot by AL.com of Harriot's arrest, reporter Carol Robinson can be heard narrating the scene, saying, “They’re asking if he’s media. He says he is. But he says he does not have a credential.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ki6ji\">In an <a href=\"https://www.theroot.com/a-letter-not-from-a-birmingham-jail-1843926346\">article</a> for the Root, Harriot noted that multiple journalists had not been wearing credentials, citing a <a href=\"https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/23-guidelines-for-journalists-to-safely-cover-protests-this-weekend/\">security advisory</a> that warned that press badges had made some journalists targets.</p><p data-block-key=\"ww0oh\">“The cops asked if there was anyone they could call to verify that I was press,” Harriot wrote. “I pointed to the police officers and called them by their names but my arresting officers did not bother to verify the information.”</p><p data-block-key=\"l5dks\">Harriot also said that he advised the officers to call the mayor’s office, as he had conducted an interview with Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin less than 24 hours earlier. The officers also would not allow Harriot access to his phone so he could show them his digital credential.</p><p data-block-key=\"mzvhq\">According to AL.com, the officers then zip-tied his hands and directed him into a police van.</p><p data-block-key=\"8lwjm\">Later that day, Harriot <a href=\"https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1268742006907580416\">tweeted</a> succinctly about his arrest and that he was still being held in the Birmingham City Jail. In a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1268761389264506880\">tweet</a> posted a little over an hour later, he said that he had been released.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Arrested. Was covering protests. Still in Birmingham City Jail.<a href=\"https://twitter.com/TheRoot?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TheRoot</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@JoyAnnReid</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/rolandsmartin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@rolandsmartin</a></p>— michaelharriot (@michaelharriot) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1268742006907580416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"lpaey\">In his account of the arrest and his time in custody, Harriot wrote that in the three years he has covered protests, activism and police brutality in Birmingham — in addition to other Black Lives Matters protests across the country — he had never before been arrested.</p><p data-block-key=\"5tnod\">“Even after local reporters were attacked while covering the recent protests, I was not worried,” he wrote. He also noted that by the time he was arrested, the protest had entirely dispersed.</p><p data-block-key=\"ormzk\">But despite standing entirely apart from the park and surrounded by other members of the press, Harriot was arrested.</p><p data-block-key=\"ei6ku\">“I informed them that I was with the media and I knew they were about to be in some deep shit when they rounded up those of us who didn’t have visible credentials,” he wrote. “Locking me up was one thing, but arresting journalists for doing their job was another thing.”</p><p data-block-key=\"op4tt\">“They did not arrest ‘journalists.’ They arrested the only black journalist.”</p><p data-block-key=\"bfx95\">While at a staging area a few blocks away, Harriot said, an officer leveraged his knee against Harriot’s thigh in order to secure the zip cuffs as tight as possible. Harriot wrote that despite his efforts to keep blood flowing, he eventually lost all feeling in his hands.</p><p data-block-key=\"wkgz5\">After arriving at the city jail, Harriot said, multiple officers attempted and failed to remove the cuffs, as his hands had swollen. Ultimately, he recounted, officers had to dig into Harriot’s skin in order to cut the zip ties.</p><p data-block-key=\"dmwwt\">Harriot said officers then directed him to put on a jail uniform, took his mug shot and fingerprinted him. He said he was then informed that someone was waiting to speak with him.</p><p data-block-key=\"r410t\">“‘Finally,’ I thought. ‘It’s probably the mayor or one of his highest level administration officials who is here to make sure I’m ok,’” Harriot wrote. “Nah. It was the FBI.”</p><p data-block-key=\"0440o\">The agents, Harriot said, read him his Miranda rights and said they “just wanted to talk.” Harriot says he declined.</p><p data-block-key=\"n4zql\">Shortly thereafter, he was able to retrieve his cellphone and was released to a lobby where activists waited to bail out and welcome those who had been arrested.</p><p data-block-key=\"knhpa\">On June 5, Mayor Woodfin commented on the Birmingham Police Department’s treatment of journalists. Two other reporters — <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/alcom-journalist-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/\">Howard Koplowitz</a> and <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-alcom-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/\">Jonece Starr Dunigan</a> — had been detained on June 3.</p><p data-block-key=\"j6ne2\">“Our curfew was not intended to stifle the voices of our people or our press,” Woodfin <a href=\"https://twitter.com/randallwoodfin/status/1268912549933780995\">wrote on Twitter</a>. “We need them more now than ever.”</p><p data-block-key=\"nuub0\">BPD Public Information Officer Sergeant Rod Mauldin advised the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to direct all questions about Harriot’s arrest to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to emails requesting comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"1yyp5\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"state": {
"name": "Alabama",
"abbreviation": "AL"
},
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"(2023-07-27 11:02:00+00:00) Charges dropped against journalist arrested in Birmingham"
],
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{
"title": "BuzzFeed News reporter says was grabbed, shoved by law enforcement while covering protests in NYC",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/buzzfeed-news-reporter-says-was-grabbed-shoved-law-enforcement-while-covering-protests-nyc/",
"first_published_at": "2020-07-30T15:51:44.659698Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:45:14.168379Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:45:14.069064Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"v7ere\">Rosalind Adams, an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News, said she was grabbed and shoved by law enforcement officers while covering protests in Manhattan on June 4, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"ap1iz\">Protests in New York and across the United States were in response to police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following a viral video that showed a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"lugrq\">Adams had spent much of the afternoon of June 4 posting on her Twitter feed as she covered a memorial for Floyd in Cadman Plaza in the Brooklyn borough of the city. She followed attendees as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into the Manhattan borough of the city. Later that evening, about half an hour before the city’s 8 p.m. curfew, according to her feed, she’d joined up with a group of protesters walking west on 48th Street.</p><p data-block-key=\"gpxu0\">About an hour past curfew, Adams reported, the group was a couple hundred strong and had been very peaceful for much of the evening.</p><p data-block-key=\"9mbpb\">But at about 10:15 p.m., as the group reached the intersection of 5th Avenue and East 59th Street, Adams told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview that she saw police moving in from the east and west, kettling the crowd. Kettling is a <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/journalists-covering-protests-us-risk-getting-caught-police-kettling-tactic/\">tactical maneuver</a> used by law enforcement to hem in protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"1fn6j\">“It happened so quickly, I didn’t even see where the cops came from,” she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"4lvxh\">Adams tweeted that officers “rushed the intersection” and began to make arrests.</p><p data-block-key=\"0lcsu\">Adams said she took out her phone to film an arrest, telling the Tracker that that’s when an officer grabbed her arm, shoving her back. “I’m press, I’m press!” Adams said she yelled as she continued to film.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I was filming this arrest w my phone and cops grabbed me on my arm and pushed me back w batons. You can see officer’s baton in the video coming at me over and over again “you don’t need to push me I’m press” I’m yelling <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/nycprotest?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#nycprotest</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/2jZscvnqPt\">pic.twitter.com/2jZscvnqPt</a></p>— Rosalind Adams (@RosalindZAdams) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/RosalindZAdams/status/1268729386213298180?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"nuhtj\">Adams said officers kept pushing her. One used his baton to block her arm and pushed her chest, she said. “He must have hit my arms, and pushed me around the shoulders,” she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"6jfkx\">She walked backward, keeping an eye out. She said that’s when another officer grabbed her phone and pushed her. Then, several more police grabbed her.</p><p data-block-key=\"a39x0\">Adams said the police tried to push all the journalists to the sidewalk, with one telling her, “You’re in the arrest area!”</p><p data-block-key=\"r61ba\">She said another officer yelled, “If you don’t have a press card, we will collar you!” Adams had her BuzzFeed ID, but no New York Police Department-issued credentials.</p><p data-block-key=\"qeb58\">According to <a href=\"https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/06/04/protests-curfew-new-york-city-thursday\">NY1</a>, more than 200 people across the city were taken into custody that evening.</p><p data-block-key=\"repjx\">The New York Police Department did not return phone or email requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"erhru\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"ombzg\">Demonstrators march in the Manhattan borough of New York City on June 4, 2020.</p>",
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"name": "New York",
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{
"title": "Freelance journalist pushed to ground by NYC officers during protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-photojournalist-pushed-ground-nyc-officers-during-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-06-28T22:56:56.594400Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:42:45.367456Z",
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"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"zd5qe\">Freelance journalist Nick Pinto was pushed to the ground by New York City police officers while covering protests in New York on the night of June 4, 2020, despite having visible NYPD-issued press credentials.</p><p data-block-key=\"bwea9\">The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.</p><p data-block-key=\"x1a53\">Pinto told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and other journalists were following a few hundred people as they marched through the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn late in the evening. Dozens of police officers trailing the group informed the protesters that they were violating the city’s 8 p.m. curfew. As protesters reached the corner of Washington Avenue and Fulton Street, Pinto said, “the police made a move to clear the intersection. It was sudden and forceful, a lot of laying on batons, a lot of people knocked to the ground.” The scene was captured on video by journalist Noah Hurowitz:</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why’re clearing the street <a href=\"https://t.co/DgGwF9mk8C\">https://t.co/DgGwF9mk8C</a></p>— Noah Hurowitz (@NoahHurowitz) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/NoahHurowitz/status/1268726877679738886?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"2c47c\">This maneuver trapped protesters between two lines of police officers. In the commotion, an officer pushed Pinto, who fell into a pile of garbage bags. Pinto said he was helped to his feet by an officer, but then pushed from behind by another. The altercation was captured on video by journalist John Knefel, who can be heard repeatedly telling officers that Pinto is a journalist:</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tonight the NYPD hit a protester walking his bike and journalist <a href=\"https://twitter.com/macfathom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@macfathom</a> (also with a bike) with batons, knocking him over twice, completely unprovoked. The hoarse voice screaming “he’s press” is me <a href=\"https://t.co/TVAjawRIO3\">pic.twitter.com/TVAjawRIO3</a></p>— johnknefel (@johnknefel) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/johnknefel/status/1268736946031001607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"5jwi6\">The group of protesters and press were contained by police until Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and City Council Member Brad Lander, who were in the crowd, negotiated with officers to allow people to leave the area 20 at a time.</p><p data-block-key=\"vsixl\">Though Pinto’s credentials were visible, he didn’t feel as though he was singled out because he was a member of the media. “In this particular instance, I think it was just generalized violence,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"gxbia\">NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"igrlp\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/RTS3AU42.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.jpg",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"x7udw\">Protesters march through the New York borough of Brooklyn on June 4, 2020.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
"arrest_status": null,
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "no",
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"state": {
"name": "New York",
"abbreviation": "NY"
},
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Nick Pinto (Freelance)"
],
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},
{
"title": "AP photojournalist assaulted by bystander during event in Philadelphia",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ap-photojournalist-assaulted-bystander-during-event-philadelphia/",
"first_published_at": "2020-06-24T19:20:49.589346Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-03-22T15:52:14.730037Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-03-22T15:52:14.493720Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Philadelphia",
"longitude": -75.16362,
"latitude": 39.95238,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"sc5u1\">Associated Press photojournalist Matt Rourke was assaulted while covering an event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 4, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"7nqrb\">Rourke was part of a news crew photographing and interviewing Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Mayor Jim Kenney in North Philadelphia as the two toured the area following days of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</p><p data-block-key=\"q8i8s\">The AP <a href=\"https://apnews.com/50db97d34240813054ef3c398500af4e\">reported</a> that as Outlaw and Kenney crossed the street, a bystander approached Rourke and punched him in the face, causing him to lose consciousness and fall to the ground. The outlet wrote that it is unclear what prompted the attack.</p><p data-block-key=\"mnb69\">Officers tackled the man — later identified as Derrick King — and took him into custody. King has been charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering another person and resisting arrest, the Tribune reported.</p><p data-block-key=\"7jng9\">The Philadelphia Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"40s0w\">Rourke, who could not be reached for comment, was treated at a hospital for significant facial injuries and has since been released.</p><p data-block-key=\"xq39p\">King is facing charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering another person and resisting arrest, the AP reported.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/RTS3A1QP.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.jpg",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"dj3ie\">National Guard and Police maintain barricades near City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 1, following days of protests. Three days later, a bystander attacked an AP photojournalist as the mayor and police commissioner toured the area.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
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"denial_of_entry": false,
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"assailant": "private individual",
"was_journalist_targeted": "yes",
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
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"mistakenly_released_materials": false,
"links": [],
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"state": {
"name": "Pennsylvania",
"abbreviation": "PA"
},
"updates": [
"(2024-03-21 11:49:00+00:00) Man who punched AP photographer sentenced to prison"
],
"case_statuses": [],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
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"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Matt Rourke (The Associated Press)"
],
"subpoena_statuses": [],
"type_of_denial": []
},
{
"title": "Russian freelance journalist arrested while covering protests in Brooklyn",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/russian-freelance-journalist-arrested-while-covering-protests-brooklyn/",
"first_published_at": "2020-12-02T18:21:00.501744Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:46:42.727222Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:46:42.626436Z",
"date": "2020-06-04",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"js4l1\">Russian freelance journalist Yana Mulder was reporting on protests in the New York borough of Brooklyn on June 4, 2020, when she was arrested while trying to intervene in the violent arrest of her husband. Mulder said she told police that she was press and that her husband was assisting the TV production crew.</p><p data-block-key=\"j1m1w\">The protest came one day after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed an 8 p.m. curfew aimed at controlling escalating unrest in the city. Essential workers — who, in New York, <a href=\"https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/EO202.6.pdf\">include</a> members of the media — were <a href=\"https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/executive-orders/2020/eeo-119.pdf\">exempt</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"8jrpm\">In a phone interview with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Mulder said that she was reporting that night on a post-curfew protest in Brooklyn for the Russian television channel REN.TV. She said she followed the protest through the streets of Brooklyn until it abruptly stopped at the intersection of Wythe Avenue and Penn Street.</p><p data-block-key=\"rd0wx\">Mulder said the protesters halted when they were just 10 or 15 steps away from a line of New York Police Department officers. She said she, along with her cameraman, her photographer, and her husband, stood off to the right side of the protest with another group of journalists. Mulder said her husband was helping the broadcast crew by holding up a light for the camera.</p><p data-block-key=\"a10mw\">According to Mulder, police officers took out packs of zip-ties, which she reported on camera, noting that they were going to start arresting people. At this point, some at the rear of the group began to disperse, leaving about three layers of protesters facing the police, Mulder told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"u42y0\">Daniel Verde, a journalist who was also at the intersection when the police charged forward to arrest protesters, posted a video on Twitter at 9:21 p.m. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/verde_nyc/status/1268714500049551366\">showing</a> police pursuing and grabbing protesters as they tried to flee.</p><p data-block-key=\"v45uk\">In a video taken of the advance on her phone, Mulder can be heard warning her camera operator to be careful while moving toward an armored police car.</p><p data-block-key=\"kmdtp\">One policeman shouts, “Let’s go!” and Mulder directs her crew to capture the officers charging the protesters. As Mulder spins to look around her, she sees her husband, Nick Mulder, on the ground being hit with a baton by an officer while in the process of being arrested. Mulder can be heard yelling to the officer, “Please, please don’t!” The officer responds, “Stay out of here, go back!” At this point, Mulder turns her phone camera off.</p><p data-block-key=\"psfn6\">According to Mulder, her husband had come to pick her up from the protest and was helping the production crew by holding a light for the broadcast.</p><p data-block-key=\"333dt\">“I tried to explain to the police that I’m a reporter; I told him that my husband was part of the group,” she said. Despite identifying herself as press, “four other cops grabbed me, put handcuffs on me as well, and we were both escorted to the [bus].”</p><p data-block-key=\"10cwm\">Mulder’s phone video showed that, as she asked police to stop, the crowd surrounding the journalist and her husband yelled repeatedly that they were press. One person tweeted about the arrests:</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I was arrested here — along with a young female journalist. She was speaking on camera when they grabbed her. They knocked down, beat, and arrested her husband, who was part of the production crew, holding a light. Their sound and camera guys got away.</p>— Sarah Rose Kearns (@Persuasion_JA) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Persuasion_JA/status/1268800412502691842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"opnm7\">Mulder said that police zip-tied her husband’s hands and hers, and they were brought to the 90th precinct in a bus full of protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"f7vzj\">At the station, Mulder said, she offered to show her press pass from the IWW Freelance Journalists Union, as well as an email from her employer about her assignment. “They didn’t look at anything,” she told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"w31oo\">In an <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CBI2vBdB4aJ/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\">Instagram post</a> Mulder wrote that her bag was taken and the police officer in charge of searching bags asked her “Do you have anything in your bag that can hurt me?” When she replied in the negative, the officer returned her bag without searching it, she said. After five hours, the couple was released with a summons for a court date a month later, according to Mulder.</p><p data-block-key=\"l2fef\">According to the summons slip, which the Tracker reviewed, Mulder was charged with “violation of Mayor’s emergency order,” a <a href=\"https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/executive-orders/2020/eeo-118.pdf\">Class B misdemeanor</a> that carries a fine of up to $500 and a maximum of three months in prison in the New York Penal Code. Neither Mulder nor her husband appeared in court on the day listed on her summons, since the Kings & New York Criminal Court had been closed indefinitely <a href=\"https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-new-york-courts-criminal-trials-suspended-20200313-4axguufmhrgvlbljhlq4nbofsm-story.html\">since March</a>. Mulder told the Tracker that no one from NYPD followed up on the summonses issued to her and her husband, perhaps because their last name was spelled incorrectly as M-O-U-L-D-E-R.</p><p data-block-key=\"svw49\">Mulder said that the American Civil Liberties Union contacted her husband Nick shortly after the incident. According to the journalist, the ACLU is working with her husband to file a civil suit against the NYPD.</p><p data-block-key=\"8rdt1\">The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"erdj8\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find these incidents <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"zudo6\"><i>Editor's Note:</i> <i>This article was updated to reflect the correct spelling of Nick Mulder’s name.</i></p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": null,
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "",
"arresting_authority": "New York City Police Department",
"arrest_status": "arrested and released",
"release_date": "2020-06-05",
"detention_date": null,
"unnecessary_use_of_force": false,
"case_number": null,
"case_type": null,
"status_of_seized_equipment": null,
"is_search_warrant_obtained": false,
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"mistakenly_released_materials": false,
"links": [],
"equipment_seized": [],
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"state": {
"name": "New York",
"abbreviation": "NY"
},
"updates": [
"(2020-12-08 14:31:00+00:00) Charges against Russian freelance journalist filed under incorrect name"
],
"case_statuses": [],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Arrest/Criminal Charge"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Yana Mulder (REN.TV)"
],
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},
{
"title": "NYPD officer hits, knocks down Reuters photographer covering Brooklyn protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nypd-officer-hits-knocks-down-reuters-photographer-covering-brooklyn-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-11-03T17:06:19.901538Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:48:32.695570Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:48:32.607146Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"21zm2\">Reuters photojournalist Brendan McDermid was struck and shoved to the ground by a New York City police officer while he was covering protests against police violence in the borough of Brooklyn on June 3, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"k2bob\">The protest was one of many held this year across the U.S. following the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.</p><p data-block-key=\"in34d\">McDermid was photographing the demonstration in downtown Brooklyn, where police had mustered near Cadman Plaza Park to try to block demonstrators from advancing. According to a letter Reuters General Counsel Gail Gove wrote to the New York City Police Department, provided to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, an officer first noticed McDermid around that time. Protesters and police clashed, and police began arresting demonstrators, sometimes using physical force, as the protest moved toward Borough Hall.</p><p data-block-key=\"ol888\">The officer who had observed McDermid continued to watch him, Gove wrote. After moving about four blocks, the officer approached McDermid, got very close to his face, and shouted at him to “get out of here!”</p><p data-block-key=\"xhmw5\">McDermid was clearly marked as a journalist, displaying his press pass and wearing a flak jacket with the word “PRESS” clearly visible, Gove wrote. An account of the encounter in a <a href=\"https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/6-6-20-New-York-Press-Letter.pdf\">June 6 letter</a> by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that McDermid complied with police orders as he was covering the protest.</p><p data-block-key=\"baxp9\">McDermid continued to photograph the scene after the officer left. A short time later, according to Gove, McDermid turned and saw the officer charging at him from about 10 feet away. The officer struck the photographer with his baton in his chest, and knocked him to the ground. While McDermid was on the ground, the officer hit him in the leg and on his helmet and laughed, Gove wrote.</p><p data-block-key=\"btpaq\">McDermid consulted with a doctor after the assault, according to Gove. He wasn’t injured, which Gove said was because of the protective gear he was wearing.</p><p data-block-key=\"zz96r\">The NYPD didn’t respond to requests for comment about the incident.</p><p data-block-key=\"nrz6n\">“Journalists must be allowed to cover the news in the public interest without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are,” a spokesperson for Reuters said in an email to the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"1wm20\">RCFP referenced the assault on McDermid and several other incidents targeting journalists in its<a href=\"https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/6-6-20-New-York-Press-Letter.pdf\"> June 6 letter</a> to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea urging the city to discipline officers who arrested or assaulted journalists, along with taking other steps to protect journalists covering protests.</p><p data-block-key=\"4s5ne\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/RTS3AJXD.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.jpg",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"rvmi5\">Reuters said photographer Brendan McDermid was knocked down and hit with a baton by a New York Police Department officer while he was on assignment capturing this image and others during a protest in Brooklyn on June 3, 2020.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
"arrest_status": null,
"release_date": null,
"detention_date": null,
"unnecessary_use_of_force": false,
"case_number": null,
"case_type": null,
"status_of_seized_equipment": null,
"is_search_warrant_obtained": false,
"actor": null,
"border_point": null,
"target_us_citizenship_status": null,
"denial_of_entry": false,
"stopped_previously": false,
"did_authorities_ask_for_device_access": null,
"did_authorities_ask_about_work": null,
"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "yes",
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
"subpoena_type": null,
"name_of_business": null,
"third_party_business": null,
"legal_order_venue": null,
"status_of_prior_restraint": null,
"mistakenly_released_materials": false,
"links": [],
"equipment_seized": [],
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"state": {
"name": "New York",
"abbreviation": "NY"
},
"updates": [],
"case_statuses": [],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Brendan McDermid (Reuters)"
],
"subpoena_statuses": [],
"type_of_denial": []
},
{
"title": "Tampa Bay Times journalist knocked to the ground, detained while covering Florida protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/tampa-bay-times-journalist-knocked-ground-detained-while-covering-florida-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-22T15:46:49.439206Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:48:07.524527Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:48:07.428540Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Tampa",
"longitude": -82.45843,
"latitude": 27.94752,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"8te3m\">Tampa Bay Times reporter Divya Kumar was detained in the early hours of June 3, 2020, while covering a protest in Tampa, Florida.</p><p data-block-key=\"w9nh7\">Protesters had gathered in Tampa and in cities across the U.S. to denounce police brutality following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.</p><p data-block-key=\"e4f7g\">The Times <a href=\"https://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa/2020/06/03/two-reporters-for-times-placed-in-zip-ties-while-covering-protests/\">reported</a> that Kumar was arrested downtown when Tampa Bay Police Department officers declared an unlawful assembly near Joe Chillura Courthouse Square.</p><p data-block-key=\"axicf\">The outlet reported that Kumar held up her media credentials to identify herself as a member of the press as a line of bicycle officers advanced. However, one of the bicycle officers knocked Kumar to the ground, handcuffed her and then placed her in plastic zip ties for 10 to 15 minutes.</p><p data-block-key=\"9h3as\">Luis Santana, a Times photojournalist, posted photos of her detention <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TBTphotog/status/1268052049964523531\">on Twitter</a>.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/TB_Times?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TB_Times</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/divyadivyadivya?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@divyadivyadivya</a> places in cuffs and detained by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TampaPD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TampaPD</a> while covering the protests in downtown Tampa even after identifying herself as a Times reporter. She was eventually released. <a href=\"https://t.co/4E9095kmcM\">pic.twitter.com/4E9095kmcM</a></p>— Luis Santana (@TBTphotog) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TBTphotog/status/1268052049964523531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 3, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"rj8xy\">“I don’t know what I could have done differently,” Kumar told the Times. “I identified myself as a journalist and tried to get out of there safely.”</p><p data-block-key=\"nrutl\">In a <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WFLANewsChannel8/videos/1099038763812889\">news conference</a> held later that day, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan defended the officers’ actions and emphasized that Kumar had been detained, not arrested.</p><p data-block-key=\"zifd0\">“I think what happened was in their effort to cover the actions they ended up too close to it and ended up getting detained,” Dugan said, adding that Kumar was released after she was identified as a member of the media.</p><p data-block-key=\"lbacr\">At the same press conference, Mayor Jane Castor suggested that many people attended the protest with fake media credentials, and declined to apologize for Kumar’s detention.</p><p data-block-key=\"p8ik5\">“We got bigger things out there than apologizing to a reporter that gets detained that didn’t leave when they were asked to leave three times,” Castor said.</p><p data-block-key=\"i4cm5\">The Times reported that later that day, Castor did call Kumar to apologize, as did Chief Assistant City Attorney Kirby Rainsberger.</p><p data-block-key=\"2jbt5\">Rainsberger said officers’ treatment of Kumar was “an overreaction,” and the city was reiterating the right of the press to the department during officer roll calls and via email.</p><p data-block-key=\"x7t4c\">In a statement published that day, Times Executive Editor Mark Katches objected to the detentions of Kumar and a second Times journalist, Jay Cridlin, in St. Petersburg the night before. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/tampa-bay-times-reporter-detained-during-st-petersburg-protests/\">documented Cridlin’s arrest here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"p379f\">“Journalists need to be able to do our jobs and report the news without being harassed, detained, intimidated or harmed by law enforcement,” Katches said.</p><p data-block-key=\"h1pdt\">The Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
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"name": "Florida",
"abbreviation": "FL"
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{
"title": "New Orleans photographer bruised, thrown to ground by police while covering protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/new-orleans-photographer-bruised-thrown-ground-police-while-covering-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-09-16T20:29:39.235949Z",
"last_published_at": "2022-03-10T22:00:59.810609Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2022-03-10T22:00:59.747797Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "New Orleans",
"longitude": -90.07507,
"latitude": 29.95465,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"1kfgj\">Hope Byrd, a New Orleans photographer, says she was assaulted by a police officer who threw her to the ground and into a barricade while she was covering a protest in the city on June 3, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"rqwkt\">Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 spread across the country, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"c3t35\">Byrd, who was on assignment for <a href=\"http://antigravitymagazine.com/\">Antigravity Magazine</a>, was left with bruises and cuts. She temporarily lost some of the use of her left arm after she was physically assaulted by a New Orleans Police Department officer, she told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.</p><p data-block-key=\"anirm\">The New Orleans protest began in Duncan Plaza, a small park in the city center, on the night of June 3. At 7 p.m., between 1,000 and 2,000 protesters began marching east to Crescent City Connection, a bridge that spans the Mississippi River. At that point, it was <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CBAowJrFN1P/\">peaceful</a>, Byrd told CPJ. The police were anticipating the group, and had followed the marchers from the plaza to the on-ramp to the bridge, Byrd said.</p><p data-block-key=\"uq8so\">But at around 9:30 p.m. protesters were underneath the bridge and getting restless. A police barricade prevented them from crossing the bridge. The protest organizers selected two or three people to try and cross the police line and begin negotiations with police, Byrd said.</p><p data-block-key=\"eb966\">“They wanted to be escorted past the bridge, to the other side,” Byrd said. “It seems like a simple gesture, but the SWAT team was not having it.”</p><p data-block-key=\"b86wt\">Shortly before 10 p.m., the confrontation began. Byrd said the police line was breached, and the police started pushing into the crowd. She doesn’t know how or why the line was breached, but protesters were able to get on the other side of the police line. In response, police started firing tear gas.</p><p data-block-key=\"uf8g5\">“I was pushed through [the line]; I don’t know and don’t really remember how I got through,” Byrd said. “I was quickly grabbed and thrown on the ground, which is when I produced my media pass and made it very clear that I was media to an officer. That didn’t seem to help.”</p><p data-block-key=\"pzbm2\">“Between the first and second grab of the officer I produced my already visible media badge. I held it in my hand and put it toward his face, but it didn’t matter,” Byrd said. “I didn’t expect it to, but I felt the need to produce that. That’s when he threw me on the ground, back into the barricade, and into the crowd and into the tear gas.”</p><p data-block-key=\"fwnw2\">Byrd says her press credentials were visible around her neck the whole time. She was also wearing a hat with the word “Antigravity” on it, the name of the magazine she was shooting for.</p><p data-block-key=\"yt3o6\">After examining photos and videos from the altercation, Byrd believes the police officer who assaulted her was the captain of a New Orleans Police Department squad. Byrd said she also witnessed the same officer put a male protester in a chokehold. She did not see the names or badge numbers of any police officers, including the one who assaulted her, she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"v4gev\">“The police at the line, some were talking, some weren’t,” Byrd said. “The officers I addressed, I asked them where their body cam was. I asked them to produce their name and their badge number. To my knowledge and in the photos I have, there’s no identifying anything.”</p><p data-block-key=\"t0egd\">After she ended up on the other side of the police line and back with the protesters, Byrd put her goggles on as her visibility was affected by tear gas. Other photographers were wearing gas masks, but Byrd did not have one. As she was shooting, she heard rubber balls being shot by police. Although they initially denied it, the New Orleans Police Department <a href=\"https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_c73d0244-a9dd-11ea-b790-bf6d706f9ed4.html\">confirmed</a> that they used rubber balls against protesters during the city’s protests.</p><p data-block-key=\"gbjf2\">At around 10:40 p.m., the protest organizers began their retreat and Byrd left the scene.</p><p data-block-key=\"kzeuv\">When asked if she thought she was targeted for being a member of the media, Byrd said both yes and no.</p><p data-block-key=\"0thp7\">“The fact that [the police officer] responded with more violence after I said I was media, by making it clear I was media, by showing the credentials [suggests yes],” she said. “Most of the damage was from the second and third throw. At the same time, we see that he’s choke holding other protesters.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ohiti\">Gary S. Scheets, a senior public information officer for the New Orleans Police Department, told CPJ it could not comment on Byrd’s allegations without a police report. Byrd did not file a police report, but she did contact the New Orleans Independent Police Monitor. Byrd said she tried to use the complaint form online, but the link to upload evidence is broken.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/Screen_Shot_2020-09-16_at_4.26.06.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.png",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"z3mye\">Photographer Hope Byrd supplied this image of injuries sustained while covering a protest against police violence in New Orleans on June 3, 2020.</p>",
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "unknown",
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
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"state": {
"name": "Louisiana",
"abbreviation": "LA"
},
"updates": [],
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"target_nationality": [],
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Hope Byrd (Antigravity Magazine)"
],
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{
"title": "Reporter for AL.com arrested while covering Birmingham protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-alcom-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-08-18T14:56:47.095532Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:47:44.088125Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:47:44.002881Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Birmingham",
"longitude": -86.80249,
"latitude": 33.52066,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"dc7rq\">Jonece Starr Dunigan, a journalist with AL.com, was arrested while filming officers outside Birmingham City Hall, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 3, 2020. After being taken to the city jail for processing, Dunigan was released without charges.</p><p data-block-key=\"s7nbv\">Dunigan was reporting that day with colleague Howard Koplowitz, who was also arrested. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/alcom-journalist-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/\">his case here</a>. Both journalists declined to comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"rlqj0\">The protest was held in response to a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for more than eight minutes during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The incident sparked anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country.</p><p data-block-key=\"jyo2a\">Koplowitz <a href=\"https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/06/two-reporters-taken-into-custody-after-covering-birmingham-protest.html\">told AL.com</a> that he was recording video of Birmingham Police Department officers walking out of City Hall at around 7:30 p.m., half an hour after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew, when two officers approached him. An officer told Koplowitz he was under arrest, ignoring Koplowitz’s press pass and his verbal protestations that he was a journalist. The officers then arrested Dunigan, who was standing near Koplowitz.</p><p data-block-key=\"9h9da\">AL.com reported that Koplowitz was also carrying letters showing proof of employment for both himself and Dunigan, as required by the city in order for journalists to be exempt from the curfew order. However, the BPD officers who arrested him didn’t allow him to show them the letters.</p><p data-block-key=\"dhpyz\">Koplowitz told AL.com that he and Dunigan were zip-tied and put into a van, which transported them to the city jail. At the jail, he said they were chained to a bench for 10 minutes before BPD public information officer Sergeant Rod Mauldin intervened and had them released. Neither Koplowitz nor Dunigan are facing criminal charges.</p><p data-block-key=\"91qzq\">Mauldin advised the Tracker to direct all questions to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to emails requesting comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"oqbea\">“I never want to call my mom ever again to tell her I was arrested,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/StarrDunigan/status/1268655133568774152\">Dunigan tweeted</a> after she was released. “It was a hard conversation to have. I’m still processing it all.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I never want to call my mom ever again to tell her I was arrested. It was a hard conversation to have. I'm still processing it all. <br><br>I appreciate all the kind texts and messages. I appreciate the protesters who were nothing but kind to me.<a href=\"https://t.co/3RCUUpZppr\">https://t.co/3RCUUpZppr</a></p>— Jonece Starr Dunigan (@StarrDunigan) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/StarrDunigan/status/1268655133568774152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"v8uiv\">AL.com editors condemned the journalists’ arrests.</p><p data-block-key=\"vuynp\">“Unacceptable,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KellyAnnScott/status/1268415677129527302\">tweeted Kelly Ann Scott</a>, AL.com editor and vice president of content. “I’m so sorry that @HowardKoplowitz and @StarrDunigan had to endure this while just doing their jobs as journalists.”</p><p data-block-key=\"2et3q\">“Watching video of a zip-tied reporter cry for someone to call me was agonizing,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/jgray78/status/1268423504384401409\">tweeted Jeremy Gray</a>, AL.com managing producer of breaking news. “I hired @StarrDunigan and have worked with @HowardKoplowitz ever since he joined our team. They were standing on a sidewalk when they were loaded into a van.”</p><p data-block-key=\"esuy9\">On June 5, after another reporter was arrested by BPD officers, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin apologized for the BPD’s treatment of journalists.</p><p data-block-key=\"o2ofh\">“Our curfew was not intended to stifle the voices of our people or our press,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/randallwoodfin/status/1268912549933780995\">he wrote on Twitter</a>. “We need them more now than ever.”</p><p data-block-key=\"x935g\">On June 6, Alabama Media Group, the publisher of AL.com and the Birmingham News, asked for an apology and investigation into the arrests, AL.com <a href=\"https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/alabama-media-group-asks-for-investigation-into-birmingham-police-treatment-of-two-reporters.html?outputType=amp\">reported</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"g4bjh\">“Clearly, the police overstepped their legal authority in arresting, assaulting and otherwise mistreating members of the press with no inclination to use any but the most extreme measures,” said James Pewitt, attorney for Alabama Media Group, in a letter sent to Woodfin and others. Pewitt added that the explanations provided by the police “are, in our view, wholly inadequate, plainly false and pretextual.”</p><p data-block-key=\"8vlps\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"arresting_authority": "Birmingham Police Department",
"arrest_status": "detained and released without being processed",
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"detention_date": null,
"unnecessary_use_of_force": false,
"case_number": null,
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"state": {
"name": "Alabama",
"abbreviation": "AL"
},
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Arrest/Criminal Charge"
],
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],
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},
{
"title": "AL.com journalist arrested while covering Birmingham protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/alcom-journalist-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-08-18T14:52:43.365770Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:47:22.716329Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:47:22.634693Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Birmingham",
"longitude": -86.80249,
"latitude": 33.52066,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"61mni\">Howard Koplowitz, a journalist with AL.com, was arrested while filming protests in front of Birmingham City Hall, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 3, 2020. After being taken to the city jail for processing, Koplowitz was released without charges.</p><p data-block-key=\"kurop\">Koplowitz was reporting that day with colleague Jonece Starr Dunigan, who was also arrested. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-alcom-arrested-while-covering-birmingham-protests/\">her arrest here</a>. Both journalists declined to comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"xlvte\">The protest was held in response to a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for more than eight minutes during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The incident sparked anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country.</p><p data-block-key=\"f90jp\">Koplowitz had been <a href=\"https://twitter.com/HowardKoplowitz/status/1268336138953068550\">tweeting</a> during the evening, including just after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew. He <a href=\"https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/06/two-reporters-taken-into-custody-after-covering-birmingham-protest.html\">told AL.com</a> that he was recording video of Birmingham Police Department officers walking out of City Hall at around 7:30 p.m., when two officers approached him. An officer told Koplowitz he was under arrest, ignoring Koplowitz’s press pass and his verbal protestations that he was a journalist.</p><p data-block-key=\"x4bs4\">AL.com reported that Koplowitz was also carrying letters showing proof of employment for both himself and Dunigan, as required by the city in order for journalists to be exempt from the curfew order. However, the BPD officers who arrested him didn’t allow him to show them the letters.</p><p data-block-key=\"j7nqe\">Within seconds of approaching Koplowitz, officers also arrested Dunigan, who also was wearing media credentials and standing nearby.</p><p data-block-key=\"ml7ff\">Koplowitz told AL.com that he and Dunigan were zip-tied and put into a van, which transported them to the city jail. At the jail, he said they were photographed and chained to a bench for 10 minutes before BPD Public Information Officer Sergeant Rod Mauldin intervened and had them released. Neither Koplowitz nor Dunigan are facing criminal charges.</p><p data-block-key=\"vkurq\">Koplowitz said he was later told by officers that they had been detained for their safety.</p><p data-block-key=\"nasbd\">Mauldin advised the Tracker to direct all questions to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to emails requesting comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"x6fex\">AL.com editors condemned the journalists’ arrests.</p><p data-block-key=\"cjlwy\">“Unacceptable,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KellyAnnScott/status/1268415677129527302\">tweeted Kelly Ann Scott</a>, AL.com editor and vice president of content. “I’m so sorry that @HowardKoplowitz and @StarrDunigan had to endure this while just doing their jobs as journalists.”</p><p data-block-key=\"hcr4k\">“Watching video of a zip-tied reporter cry for someone to call me was agonizing,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/jgray78/status/1268423504384401409\">tweeted Jeremy Gray</a>, AL.com managing producer of breaking news. “I hired @StarrDunigan and have worked with @HowardKoplowitz ever since he joined our team. They were standing on a sidewalk when they were loaded into a van.”</p><p data-block-key=\"uunj1\">On June 5, after another reporter was arrested by BPD officers, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin apologized for the BPD’s treatment of journalists.</p><p data-block-key=\"av5mz\">“Our curfew was not intended to stifle the voices of our people or our press,” <a href=\"https://twitter.com/randallwoodfin/status/1268912549933780995\">he wrote on Twitter</a>. “We need them more now than ever.”</p><p data-block-key=\"wjufx\">On June 6, Alabama Media Group, the publisher of AL.com and the Birmingham News, asked for an apology and investigation into the arrests, AL.com <a href=\"https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/alabama-media-group-asks-for-investigation-into-birmingham-police-treatment-of-two-reporters.html?outputType=amp\">reported</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"5y43p\">“Clearly, the police overstepped their legal authority in arresting, assaulting and otherwise mistreating members of the press with no inclination to use any but the most extreme measures,” said James Pewitt, attorney for Alabama Media Group, in a letter sent to Woodfin and others. Pewitt added that the explanations provided by the police “are, in our view, wholly inadequate, plainly false and pretextual.”</p><p data-block-key=\"rqw29\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"name": "Alabama",
"abbreviation": "AL"
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
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{
"title": "Mission Local journalist detained with protesters while covering Bay Area demonstration",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/mission-local-journalist-detained-protesters-while-covering-bay-area-demonstration/",
"first_published_at": "2020-07-05T21:42:17.399587Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-10T20:26:37.266458Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-10T20:26:37.191054Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "San Francisco",
"longitude": -122.41942,
"latitude": 37.77493,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"fdoqp\">Mission Local reporter Julian Mark was briefly detained by San Francisco police while covering a Bay Area protest on June 3, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"xqgtm\">The protest was part of a wave of Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality demonstrations across the country. The demonstrations were sparked by the release of a video showing a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"w1wm9\">Mark told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he had been covering the San Francisco protests all day as about 10,000 people marched through the city. He had returned to Mission Local’s office at 2489 Mission St. to file his story when he saw dozens of officers outside the office window. The officers were moving down Mission Street and closing in on dozens of protesters, including <a href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2020/06/sfpd-chief-defends-arrest-of-23-protesters-on-mission-street/\">23 who were later arrested</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"vhfx0\">Mark said he went back outside wearing his press badge, issued by the San Francisco Police Department, around his neck. When he began filming police, he said he held his press badge up so officers could see it. While recording, Mark got in front of the officers as they closed in on some of the protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"9pflb\">“I was putting myself in the middle of the circle and as I was doing this I was making it known that I was press and I was also filming,” Mark told the Tracker. One of the officers told Mark to move back. “I tried to get out of the circle and I tried to get onto the sidewalk,” Mark said, but other officers – at odds with the original instruction – kept him in the circle of protesters on Mission Street.</p><p data-block-key=\"9t9no\">“I was definitely forcibly moved into the circle of protesters and told to lay on my stomach even though I had clearly displayed my press badge,” Mark said.</p><p data-block-key=\"ozs64\">At 10:53 p.m. Mark <a href=\"https://twitter.com/badjujusf/status/1268420712986902529\">tweeted</a>, “Lying on the ground here with a dozen protesters. Completely surrounded on mission st.” In the video accompanying the tweet, dozens of officers are visible. Capt. Gaetano Caltagirone of SFPD can be heard saying, “This is Capt. Gaetano from the San Francisco Police Department. You are all under arrest for unlawful assembly.”</p><p data-block-key=\"qjnoj\">Mark continued to tweet updates from the ground. “Show them my press pass and they just pushed me into the circle and made [me] lie down on my stomach,” he tweeted five minutes later. The last tweet in Mark’s thread was sent at 11:47 p.m. “I was detained and then released. I’m okay. Thanks, all, for following. There are around 20 seemingly peaceful protesters on their way to the police station, including a 14-year-old [boy].”</p><p data-block-key=\"i9zfp\">The certificate of release provided by the San Francisco Police Department lists Mark’s time in custody from 11 p.m. to 11:41 p.m. The next day Mark <a href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2020/06/sfpd-chief-defends-arrest-of-23-protesters-on-mission-street/\">reported</a> on his detainment, writing that he was released after an editor at Mission Local reached out to Capt. Caltagirone.</p><p data-block-key=\"bjquh\">On June 4, Mark also received an invitation from San Francisco Police Chief William “Bill” Scott to come to his office and review the body camera footage from the incident.</p><p data-block-key=\"yujgl\">“He explicitly said that he was sorry that it had happened,” Mark told the Tracker. “He asked for feedback from me about how the police department would improve its processes with how they deal with journalists in situations where officers feel they are under pressure to enforce the law. I really think that the effort was genuine on his part.”</p><p data-block-key=\"d24j2\">SFPD spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak gave the following statement to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: “The Department is aware of these incidents and we have either met with or spoken to the journalists involved in order to gain a better picture of what transpired and how we can work to prevent similar events from happening in the future.”</p><p data-block-key=\"bdszq\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find all of these cases <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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"state": {
"name": "California",
"abbreviation": "CA"
},
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"kettle",
"protest"
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{
"title": "NYPD hits journalist with batons, confiscates his bike",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nypd-hits-journalist-batons-confiscates-his-bike/",
"first_published_at": "2020-06-22T16:59:42.048749Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-04-04T18:06:34.190610Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-04-04T18:06:34.072714Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
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"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"4yn72\">Tablet Magazine senior reporter Armin Rosen was beaten by police, who then confiscated his bicycle, while he was covering protests in New York, New York, on June 3, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"kkkeu\">Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 spread across the country, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"dyybf\">Rosen told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was covering a protest march in downtown Brooklyn shortly after 9 p.m. New York Police Department officers had been gradually pushing the crowd toward Borough Hall but quickened their advance when a sudden downpour began.</p><p data-block-key=\"ff5m0\">Rosen — who had with him a reporting notebook, backpack, bicycle and helmet wrapped in white duct tape with “PRESS” emblazoned across it — walked his bike over to a nearby structure to take cover from the rain and put his notebook away so it wouldn’t be damaged.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Still got my helmet though! (Tape etc applied by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/BenFeibleman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@BenFeibleman</a> last night) <a href=\"https://t.co/M5zw2Bie26\">pic.twitter.com/M5zw2Bie26</a></p>— Armin Rosen (@ArminRosen) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ArminRosen/status/1268360074168336384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"wnfr4\">“Facing the structure, and thus with my back to the crowd, I felt a blunt object strike my right shoulder and very quickly realized I was on the grass and surrounded by police,” Rosen said.</p><p data-block-key=\"nt4lx\">He added that he is unsure how many times officers struck him with their batons in total.</p><p data-block-key=\"4o8o7\">Three officers held him down while another demanded, “What the fuck is in your bag?” The officer then quickly searched the backpack as Rosen explained that he was a journalist and had been concerned about his notebook getting wet. Rosen said the officers did not ask him to produce any identification.</p><p data-block-key=\"fblgf\">Rosen said another officer said, “Take your shit and get the fuck out of here,” and threw the still-open bag toward him.</p><p data-block-key=\"fru2g\">“Once back on my feet, I was aggressively pushed forwards by a nearby cop and nearly fell to the ground again,” Rosen said.</p><p data-block-key=\"xdesb\">That’s when Rosen said he realized that his bike was gone. When Rosen asked if the officers could return his bike, an officer responded, “It’s not your bike anymore.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cops clubbed me and took my bike what the he’ll do I do</p>— Armin Rosen (@ArminRosen) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ArminRosen/status/1268350880115458051?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"zb54z\">Rosen told the Tracker that he asked if there was a number he could call in order to recover the bike, but both the officers who had surrounded him and a man who appeared to be a commanding officer dismissed or ignored his requests.</p><p data-block-key=\"j97ct\">“I currently have a large welt on my right shoulder from the initial blow, along with a second area of pain in my left buttock,” Rosen said.</p><p data-block-key=\"8rlms\">Rosen told the Tracker that a fellow journalist found his bike more or less abandoned near Borough Hall along with multiple others a few hours after it was taken, and was able to return it to Rosen.</p><p data-block-key=\"z2wb6\">When asked for comment, an NYPD spokesperson directed the Tracker to the “30-minute mark” of <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6eUFc_kltc\">a press briefing</a> held by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on June 3.</p><p data-block-key=\"eqyen\">Around that point in the recording, Shea says: “Wherever appropriate, we issue summonses in lieu of arrests. We’ve obviously done a lot of both summonses and arrests. The only thing that I might add on the point of the press: We’re doing the best we can, the difficult situation. We 100 percent respect the rights of the press. Unfortunately, we’ve had some people purporting to be press that are actually lying, if you can believe that. So sometimes these things take a second—maybe too long—to sort out.”</p><p data-block-key=\"8nyx5\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred total incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"e042v\">A man scuffles with law enforcement officers during a protest in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on June 3, 2020.</p>",
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"state": {
"name": "New York",
"abbreviation": "NY"
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{
"title": "National Guard uses pepper spray against CNN journalist covering DC protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/national-guard-uses-pepper-spray-against-cnn-journalist-covering-dc-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2021-10-19T16:17:42.591760Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T15:43:59.291820Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T15:43:59.203926Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
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"city": "Washington",
"longitude": -77.03637,
"latitude": 38.89511,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"fwrui\">CNN journalists Josh Replogle and Alexander Marquardt were pepper sprayed by National Guard troops on June 3, 2020, while covering early-morning protests in Washington, D.C. near Lafayette Square.</p><p data-block-key=\"t91m2\">Replogle and Marquardt were covering one of the many protests that erupted in Washington and other U.S cities following the May 25 death of George Floyd while he was in custody of Minneapolis police.</p><p data-block-key=\"eregl\">Marquardt, senior national security correspondent for CNN, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268135590685552641?s=20\">tweeted on June 3</a> that a group of individuals attempted just after 12:30 a.m. to push down a fence erected around Lafayette Square. National Guard troops at the scene “responded with pepper spray and rounds,” Marquardt tweeted, without explaining what types of rounds the troops used.</p><p data-block-key=\"7bo5k\">Replogle was operating a camera for CNN’s reporting from the scene. Marquardt said in a tweet thread that troops fired pepper spray at his team despite the fact that the journalists <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268294692741025800?s=20\">weren’t standing near protesters</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"06lbv\">He also said that because he was holding a microphone, and Replogle was holding a large camera, it should have been clear that they were press, covering the protest.</p><p data-block-key=\"uz9i6\">Mark Irons, a correspondent for the Catholic-themed Eternal Word Television Network, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarkIronsMedia/status/1268044092480671744?s=20\">tweeted that National Guard troops</a> fired rubber bullets at the crowd gathered at Lafayette Square around the time that Marquardt and Replogle were hit with pepper spray.</p><p data-block-key=\"iqqgw\">Irons also posted a video depicting troops firing pepper spray at protesters who lowered themselves to their knees and raised their hands.</p><p data-block-key=\"1aky7\">Replogle and Marquardt didn’t respond to requests by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker for comment and CNN didn’t comment on the incident further. The District of Columbia National Guard also didn’t respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"bq9a5\">Two days earlier, on June 1, President Trump had used St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square as the backdrop for a controversial photo op. National Guard troops used tear gas and pepper balls to clear protesters from the area before Trump posed for cameras while holding up a Bible. Tall fences were erected in the park after protesters were expelled, but the protesters later returned to the park area.</p><p data-block-key=\"xj279\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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{
"title": "National Guard uses pepper spray against CNN reporter covering DC protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/national-guard-uses-pepper-spray-against-cnn-reporter-covering-dc-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-12-22T19:13:18.776513Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T15:43:33.284557Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T15:43:33.196902Z",
"date": "2020-06-03",
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"longitude": -77.03637,
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"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"gpn6m\">CNN journalists Alexander Marquardt and Josh Replogle were pepper sprayed by National Guard troops on June 3, 2020, while covering early-morning protests in Washington, D.C., near Lafayette Square.</p><p data-block-key=\"547ey\">Marquardt and Replogle were covering one of the many protests that erupted in Washington and other U.S cities following the May 25 death of George Floyd while he was in custody of Minneapolis police.</p><p data-block-key=\"tj1pi\">Marquardt, senior national security correspondent for CNN, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268135590685552641?s=20\">tweeted on June 3</a> that a group of individuals attempted just after 12:30 a.m. to push down a fence erected around Lafayette Square. National Guard troops at the scene “responded with pepper spray and rounds,” Marquardt tweeted, without explaining what types of rounds the troops used.</p><p data-block-key=\"r6eb3\">“An otherwise peaceful day that ends with unrest,” Marquardt tweeted. “I really don’t know how that helped anything.”</p><p data-block-key=\"bptph\">Replogle was operating a camera for CNN’s reporting from the scene. Marquardt said in a tweet thread that troops fired pepper spray at his team despite the fact that the journalists <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268294692741025800?s=20\">weren’t standing near protesters</a>.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Another angle that shows how separated from agitators we were and how obvious it was we were press. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Joshrepp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Joshrepp</a> and I were with <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JayMcMichaelCNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@JayMcMichaelCNN</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/cnnjamie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@cnnjamie</a>. <a href=\"https://t.co/IhU2x5K2x7\">https://t.co/IhU2x5K2x7</a></p>— Alexander Marquardt (@MarquardtA) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268294692741025800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 3, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"1tcym\">He also said that because he was holding a microphone, and Replogle was holding a large camera, it should have been clear that they were press, covering the protest.</p><p data-block-key=\"ckoac\">“3 hours later my arm was still burning,” Marquardt tweeted. “Others got it far worse.”</p><p data-block-key=\"7xc5z\">Mark Irons, a correspondent for the Catholic-themed Eternal Word Television Network, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MarkIronsMedia/status/1268044092480671744?s=20\">tweeted that National Guard troops</a> fired rubber bullets at the crowd gathered at Lafayette Square around the time that Marquardt and Replogle were hit with pepper spray.</p><p data-block-key=\"fmhxj\">Irons also posted a video depicting troops firing pepper spray at protesters who lowered themselves to their knees and raised their hands.</p><p data-block-key=\"u5wn7\">Marquardt and Replogle didn’t respond to requests by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker for comment and CNN didn’t comment on the incident further. The District of Columbia National Guard also didn’t respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"j3cdd\">Two days earlier, on June 1, President Trump had used St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square as the backdrop for a controversial photo op. National Guard troops used tear gas and pepper balls to clear protesters from the area before Trump posed for cameras while holding up a Bible. Tall fences were erected in the park after protesters were expelled, but the protesters later returned to the park area.</p><p data-block-key=\"wu8k9\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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{
"title": "AP video journalist shoved by NYPD, prevented from covering protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ap-video-journalist-shoved-by-nypd-prevented-from-covering-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2021-10-19T15:54:19.822735Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T15:49:56.887806Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T15:49:56.804914Z",
"date": "2020-06-02",
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"city": "New York",
"longitude": -74.00597,
"latitude": 40.71427,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"d3lx7\">Two journalists for The Associated Press were assaulted by law enforcement officers and ordered to leave the scene of protests in New York, New York, on June 2, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"w71hm\">Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 have spread across the country, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"f89u1\">The AP <a href=\"https://apnews.com/1d2d9e4afdd822b27bfcce570e0cbdb5\">reported</a> that video journalist Robert Bumsted and photojournalist Maye-E Wong were documenting protests in lower Manhattan shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew took effect. Members of the media were <a href=\"https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/executive-orders/2020/eeo-118.pdf\">exempted</a> from the order as “essential workers.”</p><p data-block-key=\"627vl\">In a <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1foAAYPb7kk&feature=youtu.be\">video</a> captured by Bumsted, more than half a dozen officers can be seen confronting the journalists and ordering them to clear the street along with all the demonstrators in the area.</p><p data-block-key=\"z8c18\">“Thank you. Have a good day. Go the fuck home,” one officer can be heard saying.</p><p data-block-key=\"6ec74\">Bumsted, who declined to comment, can be heard responding that they are essential workers and are therefore exempt from the curfew. The AP reported that both were wearing press credentials and repeatedly identified themselves as media.</p><p data-block-key=\"3xsxy\">An officer responds, “I don’t give a shit.” Another can be heard repeatedly shouting, “Who are you essential to?”</p><p data-block-key=\"67248\">The AP reported that officers repeatedly shoved both journalists toward Bumsted’s nearby car, separating them from each other. At one point, officers pinned Bumsted against his car.</p><p data-block-key=\"ay4i8\">In the video, an officer can be heard telling Bumsted, “You need to get in your car and get out of here.”</p><p data-block-key=\"9qvbc\">Bumsted responds that he needs the keys, which Wong was carrying, so the officers allow her to approach the vehicle.</p><p data-block-key=\"v5o9s\">As Bumsted appears to get into his car, he can be heard saying, “Don’t be like that. Respect the press.”</p><p data-block-key=\"3sjbk\">The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"ygg38\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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"name": "New York",
"abbreviation": "NY"
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"tags": [
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{
"title": "Spectrum News reporter hit by police projectile amid San Antonio protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/spectrum-news-reporter-hit-by-police-projectile-amid-san-antonio-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-10-19T16:08:24.074357Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T15:50:17.113368Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T15:50:17.032415Z",
"date": "2020-06-02",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "San Antonio",
"longitude": -98.49363,
"latitude": 29.42412,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"omltm\">Spectrum News reporter Lena Blietz was hit by crowd-control munitions fired by law enforcement officers who were attempting to disperse protesters in downtown San Antonio, Texas, on the evening of June 2, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"qz26l\">Protesters had gathered in San Antonio and in cities across the U.S. to denounce the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died while being arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25.</p><p data-block-key=\"si9c9\">In San Antonio, demonstrators were marching towards the Alamo, a symbolic site where in 1836 a vastly outnumbered group of Texan settlers were besieged in the mission by 1,500 Mexican troops.</p><p data-block-key=\"xslth\">Blietz was on the scene as protesters gathered by a line of police officers wearing riot gear in front of Alamo Plaza, a commercial center next to the historic mission.</p><p data-block-key=\"dtftg\">Blietz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the protest was “super peaceful.” As some protesters took a knee and one addressed the crowd near the police line, Blietz said she thought she was about to witness officers and protesters embracing — something that had happened in Fort Worth, Texas, the previous night.</p><p data-block-key=\"xs7u2\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/LenaBlietz/status/1268034667770511362\">A video captured by Blietz</a> showed a man standing in front of riot police telling protesters, “put your hands up — let everybody know we’re not here for violence!”</p><p data-block-key=\"m6hky\">As he said that, there is a commotion alongside several bangs and the sound of crowd-control munitions being fired as people scramble to flee.</p><p data-block-key=\"unmny\">“Eventually they brought out the tear gas and the rubber bullets or pepper bullets, whatever they’re using,”<a href=\"https://twitter.com/lenablietz/status/1268028045425852416\"> said Blietz in a video recorded after the incident</a>. “I was shot in the leg but I’m fine,” she wrote on Twitter.</p><p data-block-key=\"nxtk6\">Blietz’s polo shirt and hat were emblazoned with the Spectrum News logo and she wore press credentials around her neck. She said she had been standing between protesters and police before law enforcement tried to disperse the crowd, and that she was clearly identifiable as media.</p><p data-block-key=\"ien0z\">In a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/LenaBlietz/status/1268309812426784772\">photo of a welt</a> on the back of her thigh the next day, she wrote: “It looks like I was standing in a batting cage.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thank you to everyone who’s reached out and I’ll get back to all of you soon.<br><br>Here’s an update on my thigh from the non-lethal bullet shot by SAPD SWAT last night.<br><br>It looks like I was standing in a batting cage.<a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BlackLivesMatter</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanAntonioProtest?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SanAntonioProtest</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/rubberbullets?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#rubberbullets</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/protests2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#protests2020</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/DsEpcKtYBb\">pic.twitter.com/DsEpcKtYBb</a></p>— Lena Blietz (@LenaBlietz) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/LenaBlietz/status/1268309812426784772?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 3, 2020</a></blockquote>\n<script async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\n</div>\n\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"c1a0d\">“The next day I basically couldn’t walk it hurt so much,” she told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"cuorh\">San Antonio Express-News reporter Mark Dunphy, who was standing near Blietz when police moved to disperse protesters, also was hit. The Tracker has documented that case <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/san-antonio-express-news-reporter-hit-by-projectiles-while-covering-protests/\">here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"23b2y\">In another tweet, he wrote that he saw a plastic bottle thrown at police shortly before officers began firing wooden rounds and using tear gas. In a video shared by Dunphy that night, dots from laser pointers aimed at police officers can be seen. Blietz can be seen standing directly in front of police, filming a protester’s address to the crowd.</p><p data-block-key=\"e2su9\">“It is my understanding that two local journalists were hit during the crowd dispersal,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said <a href=\"https://www.sanantonio.gov/SAPD/Press-Releases/ArtMID/7184/ArticleID/19022/Statement-from-San-Antonio-Police-Chief\">in a June 3 statement</a>. “Although this was unfortunate, this was certainly not the police department’s intent. During crowd control dispersal action officers cannot readily distinguish between peaceful protesters, media and agitators once the situation has reached a boiling point.”</p><p data-block-key=\"u9edf\">McManus added that the police department was and would continue offering journalists the opportunity to cover protests from a “safe zone” behind the line of officers. The police chief advised journalists who cover protests from within crowds to leave if the situation becomes volatile.</p><p data-block-key=\"5com6\">A public information officer for the San Antonio Police Department said they had no additional statement.</p><p data-block-key=\"vz3jd\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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