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{
"title": "Independent journalist pushed, hit with munitions by police while covering Portland protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-journalist-pushed-hit-munitions-police-while-covering-portland-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-12-14T22:04:00.516056Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-03-12T16:51:59.841392Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-03-12T16:51:59.752653Z",
"date": "2020-06-30",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"wxxxs\">Independent journalist Tuck Woodstock said they were pushed several times and hit by crowd-control munitions while covering protests in Portland, Oregon on June 30, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"70de7\">The Portland-based journalist was covering one of the many protests that have broken 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=\"co6ma\">In Portland, nightly protests over Floyd’s death began on May 29, prompting Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare a curfew that lasted three days. Even after the nightly curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. Woodstock is a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/07-17-20_-_second_amended_complaint_0.pdf\">plaintiff</a> in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and 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 city in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.</p><p data-block-key=\"7zvl0\">The June 30 demonstration took place the day before a <a href=\"https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/06/portland-protests-to-continue-for-34th-straight-day-tuesday.html\">planned vote</a> to extend the city’s contract with the police union. Protesters marched over a mile from Peninsula Park to the Portland Police Association headquarters in North Portland.</p><p data-block-key=\"mpjy1\">Soon after protesters arrived at PPA offices around 9 p.m., the police declared an “unlawful assembly” and ordered them to disperse. When Woodstock arrived just after 9:30 p.m., the scene involved police pushing protesters and the press and shooting impact munitions at the crowd, they said.</p><p data-block-key=\"9i661\">“I got to the PPA just in time to watch PPB shoving protesters, NLG, and press while insisting that they walk faster,” Woodstock <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m0FBYyA34bKgeDK0gLhP4YcwF4D5QpDvz-8TcayXP58/edit\">tweeted</a> at 9:26 p.m. In the accompanying video, the camera goes askew as police push people around Woodstock.</p><p data-block-key=\"hlwuw\">About a half hour later, Woodstock was pushed several times when police bull-rushed a crowd of protesters. While trying to film the arrest of some protesters, Woodstock “felt a baton pressed into their back as an officer yelled ‘move, move, move, move,’ directly in their ear,” according to <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/07-17-20_-_second_amended_complaint_0.pdf\">court documents</a> in the ACLU case. Despite informing an officer that they were press, Woodstock was pushed at least four times, the filing said.</p><p data-block-key=\"ffeql\">Then, a little after 10 p.m., Woodstock was hit by shrapnel from a canister police threw that appeared to explode on the curb in front of them. Woodstock <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1278195093871054854\">tweeted</a> a video of the incident, writing, “Yup just got hit in the leg with shrapnel. Seems very superficial.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Yup just got hit in the leg with shrapnel. Seems very superficial. <a href=\"https://t.co/2KqSIgwRDI\">pic.twitter.com/2KqSIgwRDI</a></p>— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1278195093871054854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 1, 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=\"bu5gi\">Woodstock declined to comment further about the incidents.</p><p data-block-key=\"10v6k\">The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/2020-06-14T000000Z_1599667901_RC2.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.jpg",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"rzpo2\">A June 2020 demonstration in Portland, Oregon, after the murder of George Floyd. Journalist Tuck Woodstock was pushed by police and hit with crowd-control munitions while documenting one of the nightly protests that month.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
"arrest_status": null,
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"unnecessary_use_of_force": false,
"case_number": "3:20-cv-01035",
"case_type": "CIVIL",
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"is_search_warrant_obtained": false,
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "unknown",
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [
"(2025-03-05 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists settle with Portland, Oregon, over 2020 protest violations"
],
"case_statuses": [
"settled"
],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Tuck Woodstock (Freelance)"
],
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},
{
"title": "Reporter repeatedly shoved by police officers while covering protests in Portland",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-repeatedly-shoved-by-police-officers-while-covering-protests-in-portland/",
"first_published_at": "2021-12-13T18:32:42.091832Z",
"last_published_at": "2022-09-30T16:53:36.169144Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2022-09-30T16:53:36.092669Z",
"date": "2020-06-30",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"7f97b\">Robert Evans, a journalist and iHeartRadio podcast host, was repeatedly shoved by police officers in Portland, Oregon, while reporting on protests on June 30, 2020, according to a<a href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17350167/evans-v-city-of-portland/\"> lawsuit filed against the city.</a></p><p data-block-key=\"62sd2\">Protests broke out in Portland and across the United States in response to police violence and the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white officer in Minneapolis.</p><p data-block-key=\"s8crs\">On Aug. 27, Evans, with colleague Bea Lake, who was <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-arrested-in-portland-after-asking-a-police-officer-for-his-name/\">arrested while documenting protests on June 7</a>, and another plaintiff filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Portland. The complaint said that on June 30, Evans was covering a group of protesters as they marched to the Portland Police Association building where officers in riot gear were already stationed. About a half hour later, the demonstration was declared an unlawful assembly. Police officers ordered the crowd to disperse and started removing individuals from the street and sidewalk before firing riot control agents.</p><p data-block-key=\"59uzo\">Evans, who did not respond to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s request for comment, was wearing a helmet labeled “PRESS” and press credentials and was repeatedly shoved by police officers as he tried to follow their orders. He stated in the complaint that he was “unable to fully document clashes and police conduct because he was forced off to the side and unable to find a reliably safe place for him to film.”</p><p data-block-key=\"5n3f3\">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=\"uccv5\">The Portland Police Bureau has said it wouldn’t comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protest, citing ongoing litigation.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"case_number": "OJD:20-cv-23349",
"case_type": "CLASS_ACTION",
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"is_search_warrant_obtained": false,
"actor": null,
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"denial_of_entry": false,
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "unknown",
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [
"(2022-05-06 00:00:00+00:00) Reporter reaches settlement agreement with City of Portland"
],
"case_statuses": [
"settled"
],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Robert Evans (Bellingcat & iHeart Radio)"
],
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"type_of_denial": null
},
{
"title": "Video journalist shoved, pepper-sprayed during 2020 Portland protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/video-journalist-shoved-pepper-sprayed-during-2020-portland-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2024-02-26T20:37:53.899847Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-01-31T17:48:53.532245Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-01-31T17:48:53.340359Z",
"date": "2020-06-27",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"rht70\">Independent video journalist Mason Lake is pressing charges after he said he was shoved, then pepper-sprayed, by a Portland, Oregon, police officer on June 27, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"4nomt\">According to <a href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.177047/gov.uscourts.ord.177047.1.1.pdf\">court documents,</a> Lake alleges that while filming a protest, he stopped to help an unnamed individual who had fallen. A police officer directing crowds “physically grabbed and pushed” Lake and pepper-sprayed him in the face, the documents claim.</p><p data-block-key=\"65qlb\">The incident caused “physical injuries including pain, burning sensations, as well as fear and embarrassment,” claimed Lake’s complaint. Lake <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MasonLakePhoto/status/1277384819278659584\">posted video</a> from the protest on social media.</p><p data-block-key=\"e5f7n\">Lake filed a lawsuit in June 2022 against the City of Portland and two police officers, identified as John Doe 1 and 2. In the complaint, Lake alleges that while covering protests in 2020 and 2021, Portland police in seven separate incidents shoved, pepper-sprayed, threatened, pinned, grabbed and punched him, and damaged his equipment.</p><p data-block-key=\"3t7p2\">He is seeking $200,000 in compensatory damages. For jurisdictional reasons, an amended complaint was moved from state to federal court on Dec. 12, 2023. Neither Lake nor his attorney responded to requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"7fk7m\">The alleged assault took place against a backdrop of social justice protests around the country in the summer of 2020 following the police murder of George Floyd that May. In Portland, protests brought <a href=\"https://www.opb.org/article/2023/12/20/new-lawsuit-against-federal-government-over-2020-response-to-portland-protests/\">thousands to the streets continuously</a> throughout that period.</p><p data-block-key=\"ed1pg\">When reached for comment, the Portland Police Bureau said they could not comment on ongoing litigation but referred the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to the city attorney, Robert L. Taylor. Taylor did not respond to an emailed request for comment.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/Screenshot_2024-02-26_at_3.36.48P.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.png",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"yxful\">A portion of the complaint filed by journalist Mason Lake in June 2022 in which he alleges the Portland, Oregon, police infringed on his press freedom rights seven separate times. The case was moved to federal court in December 2023.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "yes",
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"links": [],
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"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [
"(2025-01-29 00:00:00+00:00) Journalist settles suit against Portland, Oregon"
],
"case_statuses": [
"settled"
],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Mason Lake (Independent)"
],
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},
{
"title": "Philadelphia Inquirer reporter arrested during ‘defund the police’ protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/philadelphia-inquirer-reporter-arrested-during-defund-police-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-11-08T18:38:09.132569Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T19:09:48.030900Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T19:09:47.929527Z",
"date": "2020-06-23",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Philadelphia",
"longitude": -75.16362,
"latitude": 39.95238,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"pda3w\">Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Samantha Melamed was briefly detained by police while covering a protest inside the Philadelphia Municipal Services Building on June 23, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"to4f7\">Protesters had gathered inside the building to demand a meeting with Philadelphia’s mayor and managing director to lobby for defunding and demilitarizing the local police department. The protest was part of a national movement against police brutality that began at the end of May following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis.</p><p data-block-key=\"r97s5\">Melamed captured the moments leading up to her detention in a video she later <a href=\"https://twitter.com/samanthamelamed/status/1275524750316535810\">posted to Twitter</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"wpfrb\">In the footage, a group of officers places a demonstrator under arrest while a crowd can be heard chanting “Defund the PPD,” referring to the Philadelphia Police Department. A different officer then approaches Melamed to ask who she is, and Melamed can be heard responding repeatedly that she is a journalist.</p><p data-block-key=\"giiwe\">Seconds later, an officer finishes zip-tying the demonstrator’s hands, turns to Melamed, grabs her notebook out of her hands and appears to pull her arms behind her back while informing her that she is under arrest.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">So I just told a police officer wielding a baton that im a reporter. He told me to “put this on Twitter”. Then he tightly handcuffed me with zip ties and he and another one mocked me while dragging me backward down two flights of stairs along with few dozen others arrested in MSB</p>— Samantha Melamed (@samanthamelamed) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/samanthamelamed/status/1275522909604372481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 23, 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=\"k1fyf\">Max Marin, a reporter for local NPR affiliate WHYY, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/maxmmarin/status/1275518996624834572?lang=en\">tweeted</a> at 4 p.m. that Melamed had just been arrested. He <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MaxMMarin/status/1275520152919040003\">added</a> that he asked PPD Deputy Commissioner Dennis Wilson, who was with police at the protest, why Melamed had been detained. Wilson responded that he didn’t know but that he would “correct that.”</p><p data-block-key=\"vlbbo\">Marin <a href=\"https://billypenn.com/2020/06/23/activists-stage-sit-in-at-municipal-services-building-with-defund-the-police-demands/\">reported</a> that after further questions about Melamed’s arrest, Wilson left to check on her status.</p><p data-block-key=\"yq59m\">Melamed <a href=\"https://twitter.com/samanthamelamed/status/1275523337716973570\">tweeted</a> at 4:15 p.m. that she had been released. She said she believed it was because of Marin’s post. “I can only assume that, because [Marin] tweeted it, a captain came by and said ‘are you Samantha?’ and cut my ties off,” Melamed wrote.</p><p data-block-key=\"d2z35\">Melamed was one of several journalists detained by police during Philadelphia protests in May and June. WHYY reporter Avi Wolfman-Arent was arrested while covering a protest in downtown Philadelphia on May 31. The following day three more journalists were arrested covering other Philadelphia demonstrations: Delaware Online reporters Jeff Neiburg and Jenna Margaretta Miller and Inquirer reporter Kristen Graham. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented those cases <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/?date_lower=2020-05-01&date_upper=2020-06-30&city=Philadelphia&categories=Arrest%2FCriminal+Charge\">here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"kvm5l\">A few hours after Melamed was released, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney tweeted that he was disturbed by the video of Melamed’s arrest and concerned that the police officers’ actions were against the law and police policy.</p><p data-block-key=\"qbuqy\">“It will be fully investigated and addressed,” Kenney added.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am extremely disturbed by the video of a reporter being detained while doing her job and covering one of today’s protests—and also very concerned that it may violate the law and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/PhillyPolice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@PhillyPolice</a> policy. It will be fully investigated and addressed.</p>— Jim #PhillyVotes Kenney (@PhillyMayor) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/PhillyMayor/status/1275556072665812993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 23, 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=\"sa5zq\">The Philadelphia Police Department did not respond to emailed requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"2f0on\">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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"arresting_authority": "Philadelphia Police Department",
"arrest_status": "detained and released without being processed",
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"case_number": null,
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"state": {
"name": "Pennsylvania",
"abbreviation": "PA"
},
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"tags": [
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"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Arrest/Criminal Charge"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Samantha Melamed (The Philadelphia Inquirer)"
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},
{
"title": "Journalist briefly detained while covering DC protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-briefly-detained-while-covering-dc-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-06T14:30:45.602266Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:28.481169Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:28.401524Z",
"date": "2020-06-22",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Washington",
"longitude": -77.03637,
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"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"pj4wd\">Shelby Talcott, a staff reporter for the Daily Caller, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was briefly detained by police while covering protests against police violence in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"8ief5\">Talcott said she had been filming protests in the nation’s capital for much of the evening. At one point, she said, individuals in the crowd accused her of being an undercover cop, shoving her and trying to take her phone, an incident <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-assaulted-while-covering-dc-protests/\">the Tracker has documented here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"2otln\">Talcott said she was eventually shoved into a police line, and officers pulled her through to the other side. Once there, an officer from the Metropolitan Police Department placed her in handcuffs, walked her to an area about two blocks away where there were no protesters, and released her within five minutes, Talcott said.</p><p data-block-key=\"7rwyz\">While reporting on protests in D.C. the next day, Talcott said, she asked an officer to explain why she had been detained. She said the officer, who wasn’t present for the altercation the day before, told her that it was standard practice to handcuff anyone who breaches a police line “because they’re not sure who you are.”</p><p data-block-key=\"193xv\">A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia said in a statement to the Tracker that officers consider “several factors and the information available to determine if an individual should be placed in handcuffs.”</p><p data-block-key=\"e0bsk\">“This applies to any situation involving MPD, including crossing a police line,” the spokesperson said.</p><p data-block-key=\"grda9\">Talcott told the Tracker that she had taken to dressing “low key” while covering protests and without clear identification as a journalist to avoid being targeted by individuals who “don’t want certain things getting out.” She said she told protesters at the scene multiple times that she was a member of the press and she was sure officers heard it.</p><p data-block-key=\"luo0k\">“I’m not sure the officers handled it in the best way, but the protesters didn’t either,” Talcott told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"zsq90\">Protests against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Movement have been held across the country after a viral video 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=\"hs8ud\">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. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"name": "District of Columbia",
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Arrest/Criminal Charge"
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},
{
"title": "Journalist assaulted while covering DC protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-assaulted-while-covering-dc-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-06T14:24:56.941222Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:10.927298Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:10.838529Z",
"date": "2020-06-22",
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"city": "Washington",
"longitude": -77.03637,
"latitude": 38.89511,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"jo9xh\">A reporter for the Daily Caller was attacked by several people who accused her of being an undercover police officer as she covered protests against police violence in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"lubzl\">Shelby Talcott told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she had been using her smartphone to film protests that night. At around midnight, she said, she was standing behind a line of protesters near Lafayette Square who were facing off with a line of police officers holding riot shields. Several individuals taking part in the demonstrations then approached her and accused her of working undercover for the police.</p><p data-block-key=\"ocwhi\">Talcott said that while covering protests she had taken to dressing “low key” and without clear identification as a journalist to avoid being targeted by people who “don’t want certain things getting out.”</p><p data-block-key=\"8ktj3\">Talcott said she showed the individuals her Twitter bio and feed, and displayed a business card, to prove that she was a working member of the press.</p><p data-block-key=\"4x2st\">At that point, she said, one or two of the people appeared convinced that she was telling the truth about being a reporter and told others to back away. Some, though, began to shove her around, she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"zl3zw\">Then, she told the Tracker, a woman unsuccessfully tried to punch her, and a nearby police officer intervened and grabbed the assailant.</p><p data-block-key=\"ius03\">“That’s when they really doubled down and called me a cop,” Talcott said.</p><p data-block-key=\"9gq92\">After the missed punch, Talcott said, a different woman tried to grab her smartphone from her hands. She said a colleague from the Daily Caller who was also at the scene pried the woman’s fingers off Talcott’s phone.</p><p data-block-key=\"w7zug\">Talcott said she was eventually shoved into the police line, and officers pulled her through to the other side. The altercation lasted five or 10 minutes, she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"76qc0\">Once across the police line, an officer placed her in handcuffs, walked her to an area about two blocks away where there were no protesters, and released her within five minutes, Talcott said. <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-briefly-detained-while-covering-dc-protests/\">The Tracker documented the details of that detainment here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"4mp9q\">Talcott said she and her colleagues have covered protests in several U.S. cities. People threatened them while they attempted to cover acts of violence and property damage, and demanded they stop filming.</p><p data-block-key=\"mnzt9\">Talcott also said that individuals have Tweeted warnings to protesters to not speak with her, citing her employer, the Daily Caller, which is a right-leaning outlet co-founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.</p><p data-block-key=\"55nop\">“When they find out where you work is deemed a conservative publication, that amplifies that,” she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"zizai\">Protests against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Movement have been held across the country after a viral video 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=\"ixycd\">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. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"assailant": "private individual",
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},
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"tags": [
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"protest"
],
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"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
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],
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},
{
"title": "VOA journalist shot in hand with pepper ball while filming DC protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/voa-journalist-shot-in-hand-with-pepper-ball-while-filming-dc-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-04-14T16:14:28.930749Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-10T20:23:50.935036Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-10T20:23:50.853237Z",
"date": "2020-06-22",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Washington",
"longitude": -77.03637,
"latitude": 38.89511,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"wzadv\">Voice of America journalist Ayen Bior was shot in the finger with a pepper ball while filming a protest in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"blw1z\">The protest was one of many against racial injustice in the capital and around the country in response to the police killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</p><p data-block-key=\"v3jnz\">At the June 22 demonstration in Lafayette Square, a park adjacent to the White House, a group of protesters attempted to pull down a statue of President Andrew Jackson, prompting the U.S. Park Police to use pepper spray and batons to push protesters back, the<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-police-and-protesters-square-off-near-white-house/2020/06/22/cec8c88c-b4c7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html\"> Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p data-block-key=\"3pj7n\">Bior told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that police were pushing the protesters away from the statue and toward St. John’s Episcopal Church. She said she decided to stand on the base of a lamp post in order to try to film the clash between police and protesters from a heightened angle.</p><p data-block-key=\"12cyn\">“By doing that I obviously made myself a target because I stood out,” Bior said. “But I remember thinking, ‘I think that they will know that I am a member of the press.’”</p><p data-block-key=\"sssst\">Bior said she positioned herself so that most of her body and her face were protected behind the lamp post while she held out her phone to film. The phone was held out in one hand, and her left pinky finger was exposed, when she suddenly felt a burning sensation on that finger, Bior said.</p><p data-block-key=\"tvzwb\">Bior said she had been hit by a pepper ball, a police crowd-control device, and the pain was so intense she fell to the ground and was nearly in tears. Bior said she initially thought her finger was broken because it was difficult to move, but she treated it by wrapping and icing it and eventually concluded it was not broken.</p><p data-block-key=\"lrxdx\">Bior told the Tracker that she did not know whether she was targeted because she was a journalist, but she said she believed she was shot because she was filming. At other protests she has covered, she said, police typically fire pepper balls toward the ground.</p><p data-block-key=\"s57uq\">“I knew that they were sending a message to me to stop recording,” she said. “I knew that that was the intent of shooting me and I felt like they risked my vision and risked me losing my eyesight for them to get that message across.”</p><p data-block-key=\"krw6z\">Bior said she was not sure which law enforcement agency fired the pepper ball that hit her. The Post reported that D.C. Metro Police were at the protest in addition to U.S. Park Police.</p><p data-block-key=\"bprp3\">Bior was wearing a ballistic helmet and a bulletproof vest at the time she was hit, which she thought would make her stand out from protesters. She said she was also displaying an ID card issued by VOA that clearly says “PRESS.”</p><p data-block-key=\"r7bf1\">The U.S. Park Police did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the D.C. Metro Police Department said the department does not use pepper balls.</p><p data-block-key=\"f41md\">The Tracker is <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> documenting arrests, assaults and other obstructions</a> to journalists covering protests across the country.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "unknown",
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
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"state": {
"name": "District of Columbia",
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},
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Ayen Bior (Voice of America)"
],
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},
{
"title": "VOA journalist hit with a baton by unidentified man at DC protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/voa-journalist-hit-with-a-baton-by-unidentified-man-at-dc-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-04-14T13:57:02.718428Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-10T20:23:09.992872Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-10T20:23:09.905986Z",
"date": "2020-06-22",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Washington",
"longitude": -77.03637,
"latitude": 38.89511,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"ounk0\">Voice of America journalist Jason Patinkin said he was hit with a baton while reporting on a protest in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square on June 22, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"ygkbp\">Patinkin told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker the man who hit him appeared to be working with law enforcement but was not wearing a uniform and would not answer questions about his identity.</p><p data-block-key=\"1erc9\">The protest was one of many against racial injustice in the capital and around the country in response to the police killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</p><p data-block-key=\"6amuw\">At the June 22 demonstration in Lafayette Square, a park adjacent to the White House, a group of protesters attempted to pull down a statue of President Andrew Jackson, prompting the U.S. Park Police to use pepper spray and batons to push them back, the<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-police-and-protesters-square-off-near-white-house/2020/06/22/cec8c88c-b4c7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html\"> Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p data-block-key=\"h3in3\">Late in the afternoon, Patinkin said he was filming a line of police attempting to move protesters when a man used a baton to hit the journalist and a nearby protester. Patinkin said the man was not wearing a uniform but appeared to be working with the police to control the protest.</p><p data-block-key=\"zikkn\">Images in a VOA <a href=\"https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-america/police-halt-attempt-topple-andrew-jackson-statue-near-white-house\">video news story</a> about the protest show a man wearing a dark green shirt, green protective vest and a helmet with a face shield who is holding a baton on both ends in front of his chest. He lunges toward the camera, which shakes, then can be seen lunging toward the right of the screen, apparently hitting a protester.</p><p data-block-key=\"r1lwz\">Patinkin said the man hit him horizontally across the chest.</p><p data-block-key=\"msgqo\">“It's an unmarked guy hitting, hitting a journalist and hitting a protester,” Patinkin said. “If that's not assault, I don't know what is.”</p><p data-block-key=\"gt8ob\">Patinkin said the blow was not enough to knock him over. He told the Tracker that he repeatedly asked the man who he was, and the man backed away from the police line. He did not identify himself or answer questions about his affiliation, Patinkin said.</p><p data-block-key=\"v1fgc\">Patinkin said he asked a uniformed police officer who the unidentified man was, but the officer said he didn’t know.</p><p data-block-key=\"p6gge\">“That means that he was operating in a line of police violently, and they didn't know who he was, and they didn't do anything about it,” Patinkin said.</p><p data-block-key=\"g97ix\">Later in the day, Patinkin filmed the same man working alongside police officers, including helping with an arrest.</p><p data-block-key=\"ua8bk\">Patinkin said he was wearing a press badge issued to him at VOA by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. He said he had repeatedly identified himself as a journalist to other police officers who were in the line at the time he was hit. He also was carrying a camera with a large microphone attached.</p><p data-block-key=\"6vk6z\">“I don't know if I was specifically targeted because I was a journalist, but I was definitely hit despite clearly being a journalist,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"9fz7u\">The U.S. Park Police did not respond to requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"fftxj\">The Tracker is <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> documenting arrests, assaults and other obstructions</a> to journalists covering protests across the country.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"assailant": "unknown",
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},
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"tags": [
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"categories": [
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},
{
"title": "Student journalist pepper-sprayed, thrown to ground by law enforcement in Richmond",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/student-journalist-pepper-sprayed-thrown-ground-law-enforcement-richmond/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-05T20:45:02.205239Z",
"last_published_at": "2022-03-10T21:59:48.910842Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2022-03-10T21:59:48.857748Z",
"date": "2020-06-21",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Richmond",
"longitude": -77.46026,
"latitude": 37.55376,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"kvfuc\">Journalist Andrew Ringle was pepper sprayed by a Richmond, Virginia, police officer and then thrown to the ground by another law enforcement official while he was covering protests on June 21, 2020, in favor of removing Confederate monuments, Ringle told the Committee to Protect Journalists.</p><p data-block-key=\"djn5s\">Ringle serves as the executive editor of the student newspaper, The Commonwealth Times. In a phone interview with CPJ, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, he said that a Richmond police officer sprayed him in the face twice around 9 p.m. As he fumbled around, vision obfuscated from the pepper spray, Ringle bumped into an officer who picked him up and threw him to the ground, the journalist told CPJ. A protester helped Ringle, who left the demonstration and went to his friend’s apartment, he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"vm8co\">Ringle’s left knee and left elbow were bruised during the incident. Ringle posted to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/aeringle/status/1274898298923606017\">his Twitter account</a> pictures of his injuries the evening they occured. Two days later, his hands were still tender from the pepper spray, he told CPJ on June 23.</p><p data-block-key=\"xuqlc\">The journalist told CPJ that he was wearing a state-issued press badge granted as part of a college class when he encountered police.</p><p data-block-key=\"yg3oo\">Richmond Police did not respond to CPJ’s email or voicemail requests for comment. Virginia State Police referred CPJ to its Public Relations Director, Corinne Geller, who did not respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"assailant": "law enforcement",
"was_journalist_targeted": "yes",
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
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"links": [],
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"state": {
"name": "Virginia",
"abbreviation": "VA"
},
"updates": [],
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"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest",
"student journalism"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Andrew Ringle (The Commonwealth Times)"
],
"subpoena_statuses": [],
"type_of_denial": null
},
{
"title": "Journalist struck with pepper balls during Compton protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-struck-pepper-balls-during-compton-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-01-27T19:28:40.463460Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:37:09.524468Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:37:09.437256Z",
"date": "2020-06-21",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Compton",
"longitude": -118.22007,
"latitude": 33.89585,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"htywe\">Kandist Mallett, a freelance journalist and columnist for Teen Vogue, was struck with pepper bullets fired by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies while covering a protest in Compton, California, on June 21, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"mhr4t\">The protest was organized in response to the shooting death of 18-year-old Andrés Guardado by a deputy three days earlier. The Los Angeles Times <a href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-21/protesters-demand-answers-for-why-18-year-old-latino-man-was-shot-by-deputy\">reported</a> that approximately 600 demonstrators marched from nearby Gardena down West Redondo Beach Boulevard, where Guardado was shot, to the Sheriff’s Department’s station in Compton.</p><p data-block-key=\"ipu6l\">Mallett told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that while most of the demonstrators had left by around 6 p.m., a small group faced off against a line of sheriff’s deputies in riot gear. In Mallett’s footage of the scene <a href=\"https://twitter.com/kandistmallett/status/1274871596042182656\">posted to Twitter</a>, at least seven deputies appear to be standing behind metal barricades blocking an alley on the north side of Compton City Hall, across the street from the Sheriff’s Department.</p><p data-block-key=\"o0z0p\">In the video, some of the deputies can be seen pointing their crowd-control weapons at the crowd as protesters shout at them. Mallett wrote that moments after she took the footage, the deputies began to use tear gas and the pepper ball guns on those present, including reporters.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">They just started shooting at us I got hit with something <a href=\"https://t.co/ECvpCDWnEL\">pic.twitter.com/ECvpCDWnEL</a></p>— Kandist (@kandistmallett) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/kandistmallett/status/1274857020751900674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 22, 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=\"br9a8\">“They shot tear gas, pepper bullets, pepper spray and rubber bullets at us,” Mallett said. “I was struck with the pepper bullets on my arm and my leg and caught in the tear gas.”</p><p data-block-key=\"gbrhf\">Mallett said that the deputies did not declare the gathering an unlawful assembly before opening fire on the demonstrators and members of the press.</p><p data-block-key=\"afyjg\">“I showed the line of deputies my press pass just to be like, ‘Don’t shoot me,’” Mallett said. “[The deputies] just started doing everything, and I tried to get out of the way, but because we were in that long hallway, there was no way to escape without being in their aim.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ur6t0\">Mallett said that while she was coughing a lot and her eyes were irritated, she did not seek medical attention at the scene.</p><p data-block-key=\"ayy67\">When asked whether she felt she had been targeted, Mallett said that many of those in the area were clearly identified as members of the press when the deputies opened fire.</p><p data-block-key=\"rufeq\">“I did feel like the deputies just didn’t care that there were members of the press, and that their response was unnecessary and unprovoked,” Mallett said.</p><p data-block-key=\"msyuv\">Freelance photojournalist Ringo Chiu was also struck with crowd-control munitions while covering the protests that day. The Tracker has <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-struck-crowd-control-munitions-during-compton-demonstration/\">documented his case here</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"jevvc\">KTLA <a href=\"https://ktla.com/news/local-news/protesters-demanding-justice-for-andres-guardado-clash-with-deputies-in-compton/\">reported</a> that the Sheriff’s Department confirmed that its deputies had used flash-bang grenades, pepper balls and smoke grenades on demonstrators that day, but did not provide details about what triggered their use.</p><p data-block-key=\"0n9eu\">The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to the Tracker’s requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"xthtp\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented hundreds of 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 in 2020. Find these incidents <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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"Black Lives Matter",
"chemical irritant",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
],
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"categories": [
"Assault"
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{
"title": "Photojournalist struck with crowd-control munitions during Compton demonstration",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-struck-crowd-control-munitions-during-compton-demonstration/",
"first_published_at": "2021-01-26T20:26:44.516671Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:48.655718Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:36:48.568125Z",
"date": "2020-06-21",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Compton",
"longitude": -118.22007,
"latitude": 33.89585,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"0zt4f\">Photojournalist Ringo Chiu, a member of the National Press Photographers Association, said he was struck with multiple crowd control-munitions while covering a protest in Compton, California, on June 21, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"q19rn\">In an account first posted to Facebook and then shared with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Chiu said that he was documenting arrests during a protest in response to the shooting death of 18-year-old Andrés Guardado by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies three days earlier.</p><p data-block-key=\"g2wef\">The Los Angeles Times <a href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-21/protesters-demand-answers-for-why-18-year-old-latino-man-was-shot-by-deputy\">reported</a> that approximately 600 demonstrators had marched that day from nearby Gardena down West Redondo Beach Boulevard, where Guardado was shot, to the Sheriff’s Department’s station in Compton.</p><p data-block-key=\"ijw9j\">After a peaceful protest, Chiu told the Tracker, a small group of demonstrators faced off against a line of sheriff’s deputies in riot gear in an alley on the north side of Compton City Hall.</p><p data-block-key=\"z26rq\">“I was standing on one of the sides alongside other photographers taking photos when the officers began firing rubber bullets and pepper balls at the demonstrators,” Chiu said, adding that as his eyes became irritated by the chemical powder in the pepper balls, he then looked for a way to leave the area.</p><p data-block-key=\"sqcmn\">“In my attempt to leave the scene, I was hit by a rubber bullet near my elbow,” Chiu said.</p><p data-block-key=\"vn9np\">Chiu didn’t leave the protest entirely, and shortly after being struck, he said that he’d tried to get closer to document as deputies arrested demonstrators standing between the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Compton City Hall.</p><p data-block-key=\"jh102\">“An officer used his gun to point at me and told me to leave the area. I raised my media pass and shouted that I was with the media, but they didn’t seem to care and began to fire rubber bullets at me,” Chiu said. “I was shot once again on my right inner thigh, and afterwards I left the scene to file my photos.”</p><p data-block-key=\"vx0u1\">In images <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ringochiu/posts/10159148286054063\">posted to Fackebook</a>, impact wounds can be seen on his right inner thigh and his right elbow. Chiu noted in his post that no protesters were standing near him when the officer opened fire and that he was wearing his press credentials and carrying multiple cameras.</p><p data-block-key=\"mxtvk\">The Tracker has also <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/june-1-while-reporting-protests-across-nation-journalists-tear-gassed-threatened/\">documented</a> the cases of multiple other journalists affected by chemical irritants while covering the protests that day.</p><p data-block-key=\"w6jy1\">KTLA <a href=\"https://ktla.com/news/local-news/protesters-demanding-justice-for-andres-guardado-clash-with-deputies-in-compton/\">reported</a> that the Sheriff’s Department confirmed that its deputies had used flash-bang grenades, pepper balls and smoke grenades on demonstrators that day, but did not provide details about what triggered their use.</p><p data-block-key=\"4awnp\">The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to the Tracker’s requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"jvgyx\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented hundreds of 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 in 2020. Find these incidents <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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{
"title": "Atlanta journalist threatened with pistol, beaten during Rayshard Brooks protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/atlanta-journalist-threatened-pistol-beaten-during-rayshard-brooks-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2020-11-04T19:45:48.776373Z",
"last_published_at": "2023-07-17T16:56:50.378871Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2023-07-17T16:56:50.271989Z",
"date": "2020-06-20",
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"city": "Atlanta",
"longitude": -84.38798,
"latitude": 33.749,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"851ot\">Freelance writer George Chidi was beaten by several unknown assailants and threatened by an armed man while covering protests that erupted in Atlanta’s Peoplestown neighborhood over the fatal June 12 police shooting of Rayshard Brooks.</p><p data-block-key=\"nr3cy\">Chidi is a former reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution whose work has appeared more recently in The Intercept and the Atlanta hyperlocal news site Decaturish. While reporting at the scene of a June 20, 2020 protest at the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot dead, Chidi said he was confronted by an armed man who threatened to shoot him after Chidi refused to turn over his phone. When Chidi tried to walk away from the man, he said, he was surrounded by other assailants who punched him repeatedly on his face and head.</p><p data-block-key=\"81xp4\">Brooks was killed three weeks after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody had touched off unrest in cities across the United States. The day after his death, protesters gathered at the Wendy’s restaurant, which was closed. <a href=\"https://www.ajc.com/news/local/protestors-light-wendy-fire-enter-interstate-after-atlanta-death/oaZtPSD0yipmtBdbSLsp3K/\">The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported</a> that the restaurant caught fire when protesters broke windows and threw fireworks into the building. Over the next week, protesters, <a href=\"https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-news/police-child-shot-killed-atlanta/gePIuT0NSJFUITL5Q3eiKK/\">some of them armed,</a> continued to gather in the Wendy’s parking lot and on nearby University Avenue.</p><p data-block-key=\"alziq\">Chidi was reporting at the protest site on the night of June 20 when he heard multiple gunshots off in the distance at about 10 p.m, he said. Chidi told the Tracker he could not see the source of the initial shots, but he saw armed individuals in the parking lot assuming defensive firing positions. He said he heard someone else in the parking lot closer to him fire additional shots. At that point, the crowd of about 500 began to clear out, he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"t76pf\">The crowd dwindled to about 50, Chidi said, and most of those who remained were carrying firearms -- including AR-15 semiautomatic rifles.</p><p data-block-key=\"rn6bv\">Chidi stayed at the scene and approached a group of armed men near the Wendy’s who were “gingerly disarming someone they didn’t know.” What had begun a week earlier, as a vigil for 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, “had transformed into something more militant,” he wrote in <a href=\"https://theintercept.com/2020/06/24/rayshard-brooks-armed-atlanta-protesters/\">an article for The Intercept.</a></p><p data-block-key=\"8seq9\">As he came close to them, a woman with the group accused Chidi of working with the unknown shooter who had fired into the protesters, according to Chidi. Chidi said he had spoken with the woman earlier in the evening and identified himself as a journalist. When she later confronted him, he said, she and others in the group accused him of using his smartphone to take pictures of them.</p><p data-block-key=\"19xd2\">“I hadn’t captured their images and I wasn’t going to hand over my cellphone,” Chidi told the Tracker. “[Even] if they were the cops I would have said no.”</p><p data-block-key=\"zadpm\">Chidi said that after he refused to hand over his phone, one of the men in the group put his hand on a shoulder holster holding a pistol. The armed man said he would kill Chidi and began counting down from 10, according to the journalist. When the countdown reached five, Chidi started to walk away, telling the group, “I’m out, good luck, guys,” the journalist told the Tracker. Before he could get away, he said, some of the men formed a semi-circle around him and began punching him in the head. Eventually, Chidi said, he was able to escape, and he later sought medical attention for lacerations and bruising on his face. A cut above his right eye was deep enough that it needed to be glued shut, Chidi said.</p><p data-block-key=\"bxodd\">Chidi told the Tracker that he has continued covering protests in Atlanta since the June 20 attack, but that he was considering seeking mental health treatment. “I’m a fairly cool guy under duress,” he said. “But I’ve had trouble sleeping.”</p><p data-block-key=\"kxg9s\">Chidi said he did not report the attack to the Atlanta Police Department, out of concern that it might compromise relationships with his reporting sources. “It conveys the appearance that I am working with police against street protesters,” he said. He did, however, send his Intercept article to the police department public relations staff “to make sure they would see the story.”</p><p data-block-key=\"f7on0\">The Atlanta Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on Chidi’s report.</p><p data-block-key=\"pgz5q\">Chidi said he felt that the assailants targeted him because he is a journalist. He identified himself as an opinion writer who has regularly spoken out on criminal justice issues and other civic affairs <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=248995612942019\">in on-air segments</a> for Fox 5 Atlanta and in his <a href=\"https://decaturish.com/author/georgechidi/\">George on Georgia column</a> for Decaturish. Although he writes opinion pieces, Chidi said he has worked to keep his objective, and he has not joined in with protesters at demonstrations.</p><p data-block-key=\"bk57u\">“I was not a direct participant, at least not in anything I was writing about,” Chidi said. “But I make no secret about my biases.”</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"e0ago\">Journalist George Chidi was threatened by an armed man and beaten by individuals in Atlanta on June 20, 2020.</p>",
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{
"title": "Photojournalist arrested, equipment seized outside Trump’s Tulsa rally",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-arrested-equipment-seized-outside-trumps-tulsa-rally/",
"first_published_at": "2020-07-01T15:18:21.179965Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-11-25T18:42:21.307351Z",
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"city": "Tulsa",
"longitude": -95.99277,
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"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"tmtbc\">Texas photojournalist Alan Pogue was arrested while documenting police arresting others outside of President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"dw2g2\">The Texas Observer confirmed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Pogue was covering the rally for the outlet. Pogue is also the owner of the Texas Center for Documentary Photography and was a combat medic in the Vietnam War.</p><p data-block-key=\"u9kn6\">Pogue told the Tracker that had already passed through security into the BOK Center when he heard somebody yell that something was happening with the police outside.</p><p data-block-key=\"cdy4u\">“So I grabbed my camera bag and ran out front, but by the time I got there the three people had already been arrested and were being led across some grass to a police van,” Pogue said. “I followed the police and the three people and took some photographs.”</p><p data-block-key=\"v2e2k\">After the individuals were in the van, however, Pogue said the officers from the Tulsa Police turned to him “almost in unison” and asked who he was.</p><p data-block-key=\"t5q2d\">Pogue’s arrest report, which was released to the Tracker, states that Pogue followed police into a restricted area of the Trump rally and refused to leave, stating that he was media. The report also states that Pogue was allegedly “unable to provide proof of being with the media.”</p><p data-block-key=\"oscqs\">Pogue told the Tracker that the police narrative is completely inaccurate.</p><p data-block-key=\"dxljc\">“One police officer told me to stand back just a little bit more,” Pogue said. “So, I took a couple of giant steps backward and he was satisfied, so I just kept taking pictures. No one else said anything to me. There was nothing to indicate that I shouldn’t be there and nobody told me I couldn’t be.”</p><p data-block-key=\"la94f\">Pogue said that when the officers turned to him and asked who he was, he identified himself as a photojournalist, showed them the wristband he received after passing through the rally’s security screening and handed them his business card.</p><p data-block-key=\"e7v67\">“It was really generational: One of the younger police officers said, ‘Well, you’ve got your wristband, you’re obviously a photojournalist. I guess you can go now,’” Pogue said. “Then an older officer said, ‘No, no, no, you can’t go now.’”</p><p data-block-key=\"w8rgw\">Officers searched through his camera bag, which contained not only his equipment but a medical kit and a bulletproof vest that he had worn through security. Pogue told the Tracker that, during the search, one of the officers said, “It looks like he’s some kind of social justice advocate.”</p><p data-block-key=\"9j895\">When Pogue located his digital copy of a letter from the Observer verifying that he was on assignment for the news organization, he showed it to the older officer.</p><p data-block-key=\"8ob47\">“[The officer] then grabs my iPhone and is flipping through my emails, and I said, ‘Officer, you do not have my permission to look through my iPhone,” Pogue said. “But, he saw that I’m also a member of the Veterans for Peace, and that pretty much nailed me.”</p><p data-block-key=\"yctqm\">Pogue said that he was placed under arrest, but that the officers were not rough with him and didn’t zip-tie his hands too tightly.</p><p data-block-key=\"jmudo\">A spokesperson from the Tulsa County jail told the Tracker that Pogue was arrested at approximately 5:40 p.m., and booked in the jail at 7:17 p.m. He was released on a $500 bond paid by the Tulsa Bail Project at around 11:20 p.m.</p><p data-block-key=\"wb8uz\">The Tulsa Police Department, the arresting agency, did not respond to requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"2cr7r\">Pogue was charged with obstructing or interfering with an officer, the spokesperson said, which is a misdemeanor <a href=\"https://law.justia.com/codes/oklahoma/2006/os21.html\">punishable</a> by up to one year in jail, a $500 fine or both.</p><p data-block-key=\"36rld\">Pogue’s belongings — including his wallet, ID, phone and equipment — were not returned to him upon his release. He was told he would have to come back to the county jail at 8 a.m. on June 22; when he arrived that Monday officers informed him that his two cameras, three lenses, cellphone, memory cards, camera bag and bulletproof vest were all being held as evidence.</p><p data-block-key=\"yh13w\">“Obviously all they would really need is my compact flash card, nothing else really matters,” Pogue said. “It’s just harassment. There’s no intel to be gathered from my lenses.”</p><p data-block-key=\"wvd57\">“I am deprived of the tools of my trade for no good reason,” he added.</p><p data-block-key=\"woc5q\">Tristan Ahtone, editor-in-chief for the Observer, told the Tracker, “We condemn the arrest of reporters by security forces and demand that Tulsa police release [Pogue’s] equipment immediately.”</p><p data-block-key=\"91joa\">Pogue said that his arraignment is set for July 10, but that he is hopeful the charges will be dismissed and his equipment returned before that date.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"psnqx\">The exterior of Tulsa’s BOK Center, where President Donald Trump held his first re-election campaign rally in many months on June 20, 2020.</p>",
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},
{
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{
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{
"quantity": 1,
"equipment": "protective equipment"
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"name": "Oklahoma",
"abbreviation": "OK"
},
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"(2020-08-07 14:59:00+00:00) Charges dropped against photojournalist arrested outside Trump’s Tulsa rally",
"(2021-01-08 08:56:00+00:00) Cellphone returned six months later to photojournalist arrested outside Trump’s Tulsa rally"
],
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"tags": [
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"political rally"
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"categories": [
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"Alan Pogue (Freelance)"
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{
"title": "Portland photojournalist struck with pepper balls while covering Portland protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/portland-photojournalist-struck-pepper-balls-while-covering-portland-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2021-01-22T19:47:05.110245Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-03-12T17:07:40.034140Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-03-12T17:07:39.895076Z",
"date": "2020-06-19",
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"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"2nts0\">Independent photojournalist John Rudoff said he was hit with pepper balls by police on June 19, 2020, while documenting a protest in downtown Portland, Oregon.</p><p data-block-key=\"f80xi\">Portland-based Rudoff, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, CBS and ABC, was covering one of the many protests that have broken 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=\"a1cph\">In Portland, nightly protests over Floyd’s death began on May 29, prompting Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare a curfew that lasted three days. Even after the nightly curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by the Portland Police Bureau, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon in June. Rudoff is a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2020-06-30_-_rudoff_decl.pdf\">plaintiff</a> in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and 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 city of Portland in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.</p><p data-block-key=\"mg0lz\">On the night of June 19, as Rudoff was documenting a protest near the Multnomah County Justice Center, police began to disperse protesters and press from the area. When Rudoff showed the police his press identification and camera equipment, and one officer responded, “Move, move, move, we don’t care if you’re media,” Rudoff wrote in his <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2020-06-30_-_rudoff_decl.pdf\">declaration</a> for the ACLU suit.</p><p data-block-key=\"il6ui\">Later that night, Rudoff was taking photographs at the Justice Center when someone from the crowd of protesters went onto the steps of the building. “Shortly afterward, the police stormed out and began firing without warning, and I was hit” by pepper balls, he said in the filing.</p><p data-block-key=\"1as73\">Rudoff, who was wearing a helmet marked “press” when he got hit, told the Tracker he believed he was targeted by PPB because he was clearly marked as press and wasn’t near the protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"tg34f\">“I intentionally stand away from crowds as best I can, and intentionally I’m dressed in light colored clothing as much as possible,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"b3fb6\">PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing the continuing ACLU litigation.</p></div>",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"xj0ab\">Police advance on demonstrators during a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Oregon in June 2020. Journalist John Rudoff was documenting one of the nightly protests later that month when he was hit with pepper balls shot by Portland police.</p>",
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"name": "Oregon",
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"(2025-03-05 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists settle with Portland, Oregon, over 2020 protest violations"
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"settled"
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"chemical irritant",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
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"authors": [],
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"Assault"
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{
"title": "Law enforcement officer shoves, threatens local reporter with arrest during Charlotte protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/law-enforcement-officer-shoves-threatens-local-reporter-arrest-during-charlotte-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-11-18T15:02:20.135018Z",
"last_published_at": "2023-07-17T20:12:24.270330Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2023-07-17T20:12:24.148929Z",
"date": "2020-06-18",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Charlotte",
"longitude": -80.84313,
"latitude": 35.22709,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"jqk5e\">On June 18, 2020, journalist Justin LaFrancois was shoved and threatened by a Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s officer as he livestreamed the arrests of activists in front of the Mecklenburg County Detention Center in Charlotte, NC.</p><p data-block-key=\"b5hxi\">LaFrancois, who is a co-founder and reporter at alternative newspaper Queen City Nerve, has covered the protests and demonstrations in Charlotte against police brutality since they started in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in Minneapolis by a white police officer.</p><p data-block-key=\"5eoct\">LaFrancois told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he went to the detention center on June 18 after hearing that the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office had asked activists to abandon a jail support station set up outside the detention center. The station had been active since last May, when organizers from the local group Charlotte Uprising set up several canopy tents, from which they provided food, water and other supplies to people as they were released from the jail.</p><p data-block-key=\"3cil2\">In LaFrancois’ video, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/queencitynerve/videos/302573580898919\">which is still available on Facebook</a>, he says that authorities had asked the activists to leave, but they vowed to resist, via a sit-in protest. The video shows dozens of deputies arriving on the site, first forming a line opposite the demonstrators and then surrounding them from the side and the back, while protesters can be heard chanting and shouting their refusal to leave the area.</p><p data-block-key=\"txrml\">About half an hour into LaFrancois’ livestream, officers move in to start arresting the protesters. Some are pushed to the ground, others are dragged away, and the officers keep LaFrancois and other journalists across the street from the arrest scene.</p><p data-block-key=\"gb6lw\">LaFrancois and others recording the action with cameras stood in the middle of the street when a sheriff’s officer approached LaFrancois and asked him to back up. “I’m the media, I got this,” LaFrancois can be heard saying in the video as he backed up slightly. “I’m just trying to document what’s happening, please don’t touch me,” said LaFrancois. Although it is not clearly visible in the video, according to LaFrancois the officer pushed him back slightly and then echoed the reporter’s words: “don’t touch me.” In the video LaFrancois can be heard saying that he did not touch the officer. He states that he is a journalist and says “Don’t infringe on my First Amendment right.”</p><p data-block-key=\"q26x3\">“I wasn’t anywhere near obstructing anybody’s investigation, or coming anywhere near somebody arresting somebody,” LaFrancois told the Tracker. “I had my press credentials on.”</p><p data-block-key=\"7hhnm\">After the officer is seen in the video walking away, LaFrancois continues livestreaming the activists’ arrests with his phone. A few minutes later the same officer approaches him again. “I’m gonna ask you, step back again,” the officer says, and as LaFrancois again asserts that he is a journalist, the officer yells “Move, move!” Officer and journalist talk over each other, until LaFrancois’ phone drops. According to the journalist, the officer smacked his phone out of his hand. The officer takes a few steps away, then turns and says to LaFrancois: “Assault me again and see what happens.” LaFrancois denies ever assaulting the officer.</p><p data-block-key=\"peuk1\">LaFrancois told the Tracker that he did not file a complaint. The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to request for comment.</p></div>",
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"name": "North Carolina",
"abbreviation": "NC"
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Justin LaFrancois (Queen City Nerve)"
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{
"title": "Seattle Police Department subpoenas five news outlets for protest photos, videos",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/seattle-police-department-subpoenas-five-news-outlets-protest-photos-videos/",
"first_published_at": "2020-07-13T17:43:12.347982Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-03-10T23:08:58.271910Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-03-10T23:08:58.163309Z",
"date": "2020-06-18",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Seattle",
"longitude": -122.33207,
"latitude": 47.60621,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"xb2iq\">The Seattle Police Department issued a subpoena to the five largest media organizations in the metro area on June 18, 2020, requesting that each outlet turn over raw photos and video captured during one day of demonstrations.</p><p data-block-key=\"fowse\">Protests against police violence have taken place in more than 70 cities across the country, sparked by a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.</p><p data-block-key=\"oq9xt\">In the days following Floyd’s death, Seattle saw both peaceful and violent protests, with Saturday, May 30, being especially turbulent: The Seattle Times <a href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-times-other-media-fight-seattle-police-department-subpoena-for-raw-footage-photos-of-protest/\">reported</a> that 27 people were arrested that day, multiple police vehicles were damaged and burned, stores were looted and police deployed tear gas and other projectiles on protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"r8mye\">The legal filing ordered the five outlets — KIRO 7 News, KING 5 News, KOMO 4 News, KCPQ News and the Times — to appear for a hearing on June 29 with all video footage and photographs taken on May 30 from 3:30-5 p.m. within a four block radius.</p><p data-block-key=\"6ohxw\">Representatives from the outlets did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"rfdj5\">According to the subpoena, the police are seeking the images to aid in an ongoing investigation to identify multiple individuals who allegedly stole firearms from police vehicles and one who allegedly committed multiple arsons within that area.</p><p data-block-key=\"wad3y\">In an affidavit filed with the subpoena, Detective Michael Magan said that four rifles and a semi-automatic pistol were stolen from unmarked vehicles on 6th Avenue, and that six SPD vehicles were “heavily damaged by vandals” and set on fire.</p><p data-block-key=\"jcik1\">Three of the rifles were recovered that day, two of them with the help of an armed security guard for Fox affiliate KCPQ, Magan said in the affidavit. He added that the other two weapons remained unaccounted for.</p><p data-block-key=\"2cur4\">On June 29, the outlets <a href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6979686-Objections-to-Subpoena-for-Protected.html\">filed a joint brief</a> objecting to the subpoena and requesting that it be quashed. In the brief, they argue that the subpoena not only violates the First Amendment and the Washington state shield law, but is also overly broad and places an undue burden on the outlets.</p><p data-block-key=\"yrj6p\">“SPD, acting through outside counsel, has targeted Seattle’s five largest news outlets with an expansive demand for vast amounts of unaired news footage and unpublished news photographs,” Eric Stahl, lawyer for the outlets, wrote in the brief. “The Subpoena is a procedurally irregular, overbroad and impermissible assault on the independence of the press.”</p><p data-block-key=\"1q76q\">In an <a href=\"https://www.rcfp.org/briefs-comments/seattle-police-subpoena-amicus/\">amicus brief</a> filed the same day, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press highlighted the dangers of degrading the public’s perception of the media as independent from the government, especially law enforcement.</p><p data-block-key=\"w5vle\">“Enforcement of the Subpoena could mislead the public into perceiving reporters at protests as a mere arm of law enforcement,” RCFP’s brief states, “thus eroding public trust in the news media and increasing the already-significant risk of physical harm that journalists face when covering protests.”</p><p data-block-key=\"7myqo\">RCFP, a partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, highlighted the recent case of Arizona journalist Eric Rosenwald, who was <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/individuals-protest-tucson-target-journalist-repeated-physical-attacks/\">repeatedly pushed, punched and kicked</a> by individuals at a demonstration in Tucson who accused him of being “with the police.”</p><p data-block-key=\"p4iw4\">Similarly, the Times <a href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-times-other-media-fight-seattle-police-department-subpoena-for-raw-footage-photos-of-protest/\">reported</a> that one of the outlet’s photographers was punched in the face by an individual at a recent protest, and that newspaper staff members have had to repeatedly explain that they are independent.</p><p data-block-key=\"qju83\">As of press time, the judge had not responded to the outlets’ request to quash the subpoena.</p><p data-block-key=\"zqj3i\">Brain Esler, an outside attorney representing the police department, told the Times that no actions will be taken to enforce the subpoena until a July 16 Superior Court hearing and subsequent ruling. Esler did not respond to the Tracker’s emailed request for comment.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/Seattle_Subpoena.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.png",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"omyuy\">A portion of the subpoena demanding raw photos and videos captured by five Seattle-area media outlets during a protest on May 30, 2020.</p>",
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"border_point": null,
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"stopped_previously": false,
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"assailant": null,
"was_journalist_targeted": null,
"charged_under_espionage_act": false,
"subpoena_type": "journalist communications or work product",
"name_of_business": null,
"third_party_business": null,
"legal_order_venue": "State",
"status_of_prior_restraint": null,
"mistakenly_released_materials": false,
"links": [],
"equipment_seized": [],
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"state": {
"name": "Washington",
"abbreviation": "WA"
},
"updates": [
"(2020-07-23 10:11:00+00:00) Judge upholds subpoena of five Seattle media organizations",
"(2020-09-21 16:06:00+00:00) Seattle Police Department drops subpoena of five news outlets for protest photos, videos"
],
"case_statuses": [],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [
"KCPQ",
"KING-TV",
"KIRO-TV",
"KOMO-TV",
"The Seattle Times"
],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Subpoena/Legal Order"
],
"targeted_journalists": [],
"subpoena_statuses": [
"dropped"
],
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},
{
"title": "Reporter struck with police pepper ball during Louisville protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-struck-police-pepper-ball-during-louisville-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-12-24T21:07:35.712267Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-10T20:24:17.306929Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-10T20:24:17.204451Z",
"date": "2020-06-17",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Louisville",
"longitude": -85.75941,
"latitude": 38.25424,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"j9qap\">Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Billy Kobin was struck with a pepper ball fired by police while covering a protest on the morning of June 17, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"qxgp0\">Demonstrators had been marching daily since late May in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot dead by police on March 13. The May 28 release of the 911 call Taylor’s boyfriend made after the shooting, as well as the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis that sparked nationwide anger, stoked protests in Louisville, Kentucky.</p><p data-block-key=\"i9d4i\">The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> documenting arrests, assaults and other obstructions to journalists</a> covering these protests across the country against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.</p><p data-block-key=\"k1cjb\">On that Wednesday, June 17, protesters had started blocking downtown Louisville roads at about 7 a.m.<a href=\"https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2020/06/17/louisville-protests-wednesday-arrests-driver-hits-protester/3206076001/\"> according to the Courier-Journal</a>, prompting police intervention.</p><p data-block-key=\"gojw0\">Kobin told the Tracker that the situation was “more tense than normal,” as a small group of protesters repeatedly got into confrontations with police, who occasionally<a href=\"https://twitter.com/Billy_Kobin/status/1273238383985385472\"> fired pepper balls</a> at the ground in an attempt to disperse the crowd.</p><p data-block-key=\"u5y18\">Kobin said he was watching a confrontation between protesters and police on Liberty Street between Sixth and Seventh Streets when police began firing pepper balls. He turned to head back to Jefferson Square Park, the main protest square around the corner. As he tried to leave the area, he said he was struck in the rear with a pepper ball.</p><p data-block-key=\"tj4uh\">“More pepper bullets came out. One hit me in the butt. #ouch,”<a href=\"https://twitter.com/Billy_Kobin/status/1273245956683767809\"> he wrote 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\">This is on Liberty Street now between 6th and 7th. One woman was arrested and police started firing more pepper bullets. <br><br>Looks like another person was arrested right after this video. More pepper bullets came out. One hit me in the butt. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/ouch?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ouch</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/YK2EIixbc1\">pic.twitter.com/YK2EIixbc1</a></p>— Not Ben Tobin (@Billy_Kobin) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Billy_Kobin/status/1273245956683767809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 17, 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=\"52231\">Kobin said he was wearing a high-visibility vest with “PRESS” markings on it and also had his press credentials displayed. However, he said he didn’t believe he was targeted.</p><p data-block-key=\"bh2ol\">“I think it was just sort of a stray pepper bullet,” he said, adding the pepper ball stung when it hit him but didn’t leave an injury.</p><p data-block-key=\"8klpq\">Louisville Metro Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.</p></div>",
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"state": {
"name": "Kentucky",
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},
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"chemical irritant",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
],
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},
{
"title": "CNN news crew harassed, camera damaged while covering site of Rayshard Brooks death in Atlanta",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/cnn-news-crew-harassed-camera-damaged-while-covering-site-rayshard-brooks-death-atlanta/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-21T15:00:45.896157Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:37:50.112198Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:37:50.016100Z",
"date": "2020-06-16",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Atlanta",
"longitude": -84.38798,
"latitude": 33.749,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"hdg5b\">A CNN news crew was harassed and its camera damaged while filming unrest in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 13, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"4816m\">Correspondent Natasha Chen and her crew were filming that evening outside a Wendy’s in South Atlanta, the site where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks had been fatally shot by Atlanta police the night before and the impetus for reignited protests in the city against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.</p><p data-block-key=\"9ffwu\">When Chen, a producer, two photojournalists and a security guard arrived at the Wendy’s, she <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/06/14/atlanta-wendys-shooting-rayshard-brooks-protest-cnn-crew-chen-sot-vpx.cnn\">told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer</a> in an on-air segment later that night, several people were throwing objects at the restaurant’s windows, while another attempted to set fire to an umbrella on the restaurant’s patio area. With the windows smashed, Chen reported, some people were also entering the restaurant.</p><p data-block-key=\"9sueh\">“We were trying to get video of what was happening and there were protesters very angry that we were recording this and tried to block our cameras,” she told Blitzer.</p><p data-block-key=\"rys4x\">When contacted for comment, CNN referred the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to Chen’s on-air statements made in the incident’s aftermath.</p><p data-block-key=\"u2sr0\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/natashachencnn/status/1272023131520000001\">In a video Chen posted on Twitter</a> of the scene, people can be heard shouting, “Block the camera,” while one waves their hand in front of the lens to try to obstruct filming. In her tweet, Chen wrote that the people trying to block the photojournalists ended up “taking a skateboard to that camera.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">More from the moments right after that, when people had broken in. <a href=\"https://t.co/H3N5yLz5MT\">pic.twitter.com/H3N5yLz5MT</a></p>— Natasha Chen (@NatashaChenCNN) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/NatashaChenCNN/status/1272023131520000001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 14, 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=\"4m6jb\">Speaking to Blitzer, Chen described the camera as “broken” following the assault. Footage broadcast by CNN during Chen’s call with Blitzer showed hands holding a skateboard trying to block a camera before the camera began to shake wildly.</p><p data-block-key=\"plo30\">“I was trying to record cellphone video while the photojournalist was recording video on his camera. The next thing I know, I’m turning around, I see these two protesters really going after the camera and that’s when I was told that we should get out of there,” she said.</p><p data-block-key=\"3c5ao\">Following the incident, Chen and her crew left the Wendy’s. That night, the restaurant was set on fire. In July, it was torn down.</p><p data-block-key=\"05ixe\">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. <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"> Find these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
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"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"xc3b5\">A Wendy’s fast food restaurant burns in Atlanta on June 13, 2020, following a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks.</p>",
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{
"title": "Journalist shot with flash-bang grenade by Portland, Oregon, police",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-shot-with-flash-bang-grenade-by-portland-oregon-police/",
"first_published_at": "2025-03-12T14:35:14.725114Z",
"last_published_at": "2025-03-12T14:35:14.725114Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2025-03-12T14:35:14.621192Z",
"date": "2020-06-15",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"rbseb\">Independent journalist Brian Conley was hit by a flash-bang grenade fired by law enforcement in Portland, Oregon, on June 15, 2020, according to a lawsuit filed by a group of journalists who covered protests in Portland that year. The suit, accusing city and federal law enforcement of multiple constitutional violations, was settled in March 2025 for nearly $1 million.</p><p data-block-key=\"dqmko\">Nightly protests over the death of George Floyd began in Portland on May 29, 2020, part of a wave of demonstrations across the U.S. in response to police violence.</p><p data-block-key=\"8jft1\">The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, representing a group of journalists and legal observers, <a href=\"https://www.aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/woodstock_portland_aclu_or_06282020.pdf\">filed a federal suit</a> on June 28, alleging that law enforcement was assaulting journalists and seizing their equipment at the protests to intimidate them and suppress their reporting.</p><p data-block-key=\"6cjq1\">Conley, who was <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/?targeted_journalists=Brian+Conley\">assaulted multiple times</a> while covering the 2020 protests, joined the suit on July 10. The <a href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.153126/gov.uscourts.ord.153126.40.0.pdf\">amended complaint</a> details his experience the night of June 15–16, when, the filing says, he was wearing a “photographer’s vest” and carrying two cameras and a flash.</p><p data-block-key=\"96ej6\">“He was unmistakably present in a journalistic capacity,” the filing argues, and standing 10 feet away from the protesters outside the Multnomah County Justice Center when he activated the light on his camera. Police then shot him with “one or more flash-bang grenades.”</p><p data-block-key=\"3n9fb\">Later that night, the filing says, police ordered him to disperse, “telling him that it did not matter if he was media,” and charged at him, provoking him to run from them.</p><p data-block-key=\"9cse2\">After the July filing, the court <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/judge-grants-preliminary-injunction-aclu-case-protect-journalists-and-legal-observers\">granted</a> the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction barring the Portland Police Bureau from arresting journalists or seizing their equipment without probable cause, and exempting journalists from dispersal orders.</p><p data-block-key=\"f8ski\">A similar injunction was later entered against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service personnel. That order was dissolved in March 2022, when the court ruled that fewer, smaller protests in Portland had reduced the need for it.</p><p data-block-key=\"1egp9\">The injunction targeting Portland police was also dissolved in May 2023 after the court dismissed some of the plaintiffs’ claims against the city, pointing to changes in state law governing police crowd-control techniques, including limiting the use of tear gas.</p><p data-block-key=\"eghu3\">The Portland Police Bureau had also updated its directive on responding to lawful demonstrations to include protections similar to those established by the injunction, according to the ACLU.</p><p data-block-key=\"c0gig\">The <a href=\"https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/pay-settlement-woodstock-et-al-civil-rights-and-personal-injury-lawsuit\">settlement</a> reinforces protections through 2028 for journalists who document protests in Portland, <a href=\"https://www.aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/journalists-covering-police-brutality-protests-settle-lawsuit-city-portland?ref=thedissenter.org\">the ACLU said</a>. The Portland City Council <a href=\"https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/pay-settlement-woodstock-et-al-civil-rights-and-personal-injury-lawsuit\">approved</a> a $938,000 settlement payment to the plaintiffs on March 5, 2025.</p><p data-block-key=\"9gpr5\">Attorney Matthew Borden, whose firm BraunHagey & Borden also represented the journalists, celebrated the protections established by the agreement.</p><p data-block-key=\"3brjs\">“Freedom of the press is a constitutional check against abuse of government power—one that has become all the more critical in light of the current federal regime,” he said. “Nobody should have to face the nightly storm of violence that our clients braved to capture what actually happened at the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Portland.”</p></div>",
"introduction": "",
"teaser": "",
"teaser_image": "https://media.pressfreedomtracker.us/media/images/2020-06-14T000000Z_481614063_RC2X.2e16d0ba.fill-1330x880.jpg",
"primary_video": null,
"image_caption": "<p data-block-key=\"qg8sj\">A police line at a June 2020 rally in Portland, Oregon, following the murder of George Floyd. Journalist Brian Conley was documenting a similar protest that month when a police officer launched a flash-bang grenade at him.</p>",
"arresting_authority": null,
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"name": "Oregon",
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"shot / shot at"
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{
"title": "New York Times reporter taunted, threatened during Albuquerque protest",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/new-york-times-reporter-taunted-threatened-during-albuquerque-protest/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-22T20:32:27.419328Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T19:12:23.471726Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T19:12:23.374235Z",
"date": "2020-06-15",
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"city": "Albuquerque",
"longitude": -106.65114,
"latitude": 35.08449,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"sv3ch\">New York Times reporter Simon Romero was taunted and threatened by a man armed with a military-style rifle while covering protests in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"ow7iv\">The protest was organized to demand the removal of a statue of Juan de Oñate, a 16th- and 17th-century conquistador and colonial governor in New Mexico at the <a href=\"https://www.taosnews.com/tempo/juan-de-o-ate-and-a-400-year-legacy-of-conflict/article_32a70355-5612-55c2-8ba8-ed8b5812945d.html\">center of long-standing tension</a> between Pueblo Native Americans and Hispanic people in the state. It was one in a surge of demonstrations across the country this summer calling for a reckoning with the country’s history of racial injustice, sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.</p><p data-block-key=\"ogr4o\">Romero told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that no Albuquerque Police Department officers were present when he arrived at the Albuquerque Museum in Old Town at around 5 p.m.</p><p data-block-key=\"s6ofe\">Armed members of a right-wing group called the New Mexico Civil Guard had stationed themselves around the statue. When he approached them the men told him explicitly that they were there to protect the statue and to keep it from coming down.</p><p data-block-key=\"0usbz\">“The guys who were managing the protest were the militia,” Romero said.</p><p data-block-key=\"q1kyj\">Romero said he attempted to interview some of the men, and spoke briefly with one who gave Romero his name.</p><p data-block-key=\"kijoc\">By around 6 p.m., about 300 people had gathered at Tiguex Park across the street for a prayer and speeches from indigenous activists and small-business owners, the Albuquerque Journal <a href=\"https://www.abqjournal.com/1466626/one-man-shot-during-protest-in-old-town-albuquerque.html\">reported</a>. They then crossed the street to the statue being guarded by the militia members.</p><p data-block-key=\"3jzd5\">Tensions escalated when some demonstrators climbed onto the statue, covered Oñate’s head with a cloth and someone brought out a pickaxe to aid in bringing the statue down.</p><p data-block-key=\"7i8qg\">“I was in the thick of the protest as it turned to mayhem and started to get very violent, and there were still no police while this was happening,” Romero said.</p><p data-block-key=\"m8qzx\">Romero told the Tracker that a militia member carrying a military-style rifle approached him and began taunting him.</p><p data-block-key=\"0dw9g\">“He said, ‘So you work for the Times, huh? Do you guys print anything that’s not lies?’ He started on this whole ‘fake news’ thing,” Romero said. “That in itself, facing that type of taunting from an armed, extremist, right-wing militia figure at a protest without any police presence is in my view extremely threatening.”</p><p data-block-key=\"yicku\">When the man let up, Romero said he approached the militia member who had spoken with him before and told him, “Listen, you better take care of your boy because this is unacceptable.” Romero said the man only responded with a smirk.</p><p data-block-key=\"e3fk4\">Shortly after, a member of the militia group got into a fight with the people attempting to pull down the statue. The group pushed the militia member into the street and followed after, the Journal reported. The man then pepper sprayed the group, pulled out a gun and fired around five shots, wounding one person.</p><p data-block-key=\"7r6id\">The police arrived at the scene a few minutes after, using tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the protesters and detain individuals involved in the shooting. The man who had taunted Romero was among those militia members detained that night, Romero said.</p><p data-block-key=\"ij0le\">Romero told the Tracker that the scene was too chaotic that night, so he didn’t give a statement to the police. The Albuquerque Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"6brew\">The Journal reported that the crowd dispersed at around 9:30 p.m.</p><p data-block-key=\"2egsb\">Romero said that despite years of covering paramilitary groups, ideological militias and violent street protests across Latin America, he had never felt more threatened than he did in Albuquerque that day.</p><p data-block-key=\"o1vy3\">“I’ve never seen anything like this in more than two decades of journalism up and down the Americas,” Romero said. “I take something like this extremely seriously and I think every journalist should, especially now that they’re being attacked and singled out at protests around the country.”</p><p data-block-key=\"bados\"><i>To read similar incidents from other days of national protests in this category,</i> <i>go </i><a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/?tags=protest%2CBlack+Lives+Matter&categories=Other+Incident&endpage=2\"><i>here</i></a><i>. A full accounting of incidents in which members of the press were assaulted, arrested or had their equipment damaged while covering these protests can be found</i> <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\"><i>here</i></a><i>. To learn more about how the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents and categorizes violations of press freedom, visit</i> <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/frequently-asked-questions/\"><i>pressfreedomtracker.us</i></a><i>.</i></p></div>",
"introduction": "",
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"state": {
"name": "New Mexico",
"abbreviation": "NM"
},
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"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"militia",
"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Other Incident"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Simon Romero (The New York Times)"
],
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},
{
"title": "Youth smashes windshield of TV news crew’s car in Louisville",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/youth-smashes-windshield-of-tv-news-crews-car-in-louisville/",
"first_published_at": "2020-08-21T15:08:05.554842Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:38:09.616937Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:38:09.523416Z",
"date": "2020-06-15",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Louisville",
"longitude": -85.75941,
"latitude": 38.25424,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"gu54i\">A young, unidentified male hurled a concrete block into the windshield of a television news crew’s car after a June 15, 2020, protest in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, video of the incident shows.</p><p data-block-key=\"ga0bn\">The protest was held in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot dead by police on March 13, as well as the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis. Protests against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since late May.</p><p data-block-key=\"ahult\">Shaquille Lord, a reporter for CBS affiliate WLKY, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ShaqWLKY/status/1272653039468531712\">posted a video to his Twitter page</a> showing a group of people heckling the crew as they walk to their car. A young male holding a large concrete block walks into the street and yells, “You better hop in that car before I break the shit.” The video shows him throwing the block into the vehicle’s windshield and the news crew fleeing the scene.</p><p data-block-key=\"oxp7o\">“Our crew just got attacked as we were trying to leave,” Lord said on Twitter. “We’re okay and I recorded the entire thing. I can tell you things are definitely not peaceful in the downtown area today.”</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Our crew just got attacked as we were trying to leave. We’re okay and I recorded the entire thing. I can tell you things are definitely not peaceful in the downtown area today <a href=\"https://twitter.com/WLKY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WLKY</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/Louisvilleprotests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Louisvilleprotests</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/DavidMcAtee?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#DavidMcAtee</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/BreonnaTaylor?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BreonnaTaylor</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/nnlv0lX34k\">pic.twitter.com/nnlv0lX34k</a></p>— Shaquille Lord (@ShaqWLKY) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ShaqWLKY/status/1272653039468531712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 15, 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=\"6q89n\">Neither Lord nor WLKY News Director Andrea Stahlman responded to requests for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. <a href=\"https://www.newsweek.com/louisville-protesters-throw-brick-car-windshield-local-camera-crew-1511207\">Newsweek also reported on the incident.</a> It isn’t clear whether the crew was targeted for being members of the media. WLKY’s vehicles are clearly marked with the station’s logo.</p><p data-block-key=\"joby5\">A teenager was later arrested in Louisville and was charged with wanton endangerment, burglary, and criminal mischief in relation to the incident, police spokesman Sgt. Lamont Washington said.</p><p data-block-key=\"d0gme\">Because he is a minor, the youth isn’t being identified and the Tracker was only able to obtain a redacted copy of the police report. Washington said he couldn’t provide any further information about the case.</p><p data-block-key=\"6n4at\">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. Find <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">these incidents here</a>.</p></div>",
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"assailant": "private individual",
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{
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"equipment": "vehicle"
}
],
"state": {
"name": "Kentucky",
"abbreviation": "KY"
},
"updates": [],
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"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest"
],
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"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault",
"Equipment Damage"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Shaquille Lord (WLKY)"
],
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},
{
"title": "7 former eBay employees charged in harassment campaign against journalists",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/six-former-ebay-employees-arrested-alleged-harassment-campaign-against-journalists/",
"first_published_at": "2020-07-10T18:15:24.475623Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-10-01T12:55:59.236229Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-10-01T12:55:59.095329Z",
"date": "2020-06-15",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Natick",
"longitude": -71.3495,
"latitude": 42.28343,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"9pvxh\">The FBI announced charges against six former eBay employees on June 15, 2020, for their alleged participation in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the editor and publisher of an online e-commerce news site.</p><p data-block-key=\"c7xdo\">David and Ina Steiner, who are married, have run the blog and newsletter EcommerceBytes for more than two decades out of their home in Natick, Massachusetts, the Wall Street Journal <a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/ebay-harassment-campaign-pig-cockroach-blog-11593009038\">reported</a>, focusing their coverage on online retailers, including Amazon, Craigslist and eBay.</p><p data-block-key=\"67m3h\">The Steiners did not respond to emailed requests for comment.</p><p data-block-key=\"pa547\">According to a Department of Justice <a href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/six-former-ebay-employees-charged-aggressive-cyberstalking-campaign-targeting-natick\">press release</a>, an August 2019 article in the newsletter about litigation involving eBay allegedly spurred a conversation between two company executives “suggesting that it was time to ‘take down’ the newsletter’s editor.”</p><p data-block-key=\"ollgt\">The FBI alleges that one of those executives and five other eBay employees then executed a harassment campaign against the Steiners.</p><p data-block-key=\"332lh\">“Among other things, several of the defendants ordered anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography — the last of these addressed to the newsletter’s publisher but sent to his neighbors’ homes,” the press release stated.</p><p data-block-key=\"3kmgx\">The employees also allegedly sent the pair threatening public and private messages on Twitter, stalked the victims and attempted to install a GPS tracking device on their car. The plan was then for the eBay security team to reach out to the couple about the harassment and offer support in what an FBI <a href=\"https://www.scribd.com/document/465728291/FBI-Affidavit-against-eBay-employees-for-harassment#from_embed?campaign=SkimbitLtd&ad_group=66960X1514734X3d3d31626d80058337651031ed306d82&keyword=660149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate\">affidavit</a> referred to as a “White Knight Strategy.”</p><p data-block-key=\"c8ytt\">Joseph Bonavolonta, the FBI special agent in charge of the case, <a href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/former-ebay-employees-threatened-couple-who-wrote-critical-newsletter-articles-n1231075\">told</a> NBC News, "All the while, they were hiding behind the internet, using burner phones and laptops, overseas email accounts, and prepaid debit cards purchased with cash, to try and cover up their alleged crimes and evade and obstruct the Natick Police Department.”</p><p data-block-key=\"pd43f\">The six employees are each charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses:</p><ul><li data-block-key=\"7umg5\">James Baugh, 45, former senior director of safety and security;</li><li data-block-key=\"ktdga\">Brian Gilbert, 51, former senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security Team;</li><li data-block-key=\"kutu0\">David Harville, 48, former director of global resiliency;</li><li data-block-key=\"72qgy\">Stephanie Popp, 32, former senior manager of global intelligence;</li><li data-block-key=\"e4bnl\">Stephanie Stockwell, 26, former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center; and</li><li data-block-key=\"ajk5a\">Veronica Zea, 26, former intelligence analyst contractor in the GIC.</li></ul><p data-block-key=\"m1bne\">U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling <a href=\"https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/06/15/ebay-employees-arrested-u-s-attorney-andrew-lelling-cyberstalking/\">told</a> CBS Boston, “It was a determined, systematic effort of senior employees of a major company to destroy the lives of a couple in Natick, all because they published content company executives didn’t like.”</p><p data-block-key=\"782n5\">In a <a href=\"https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-regarding-indictments-of-previously-terminated-employees/\">press release</a>, eBay Inc. said that the company was unaware of the harassment campaign until notified by law enforcement in August 2019, and immediately launched an internal investigation. As a result of that investigation, it said, all involved employees were fired that September.</p><p data-block-key=\"c7fzf\">The statement said the company’s board formed an independent special committee to oversee the investigation. A statement from that committee said the company does not tolerate that type of behavior: “eBay apologizes to the affected individuals and is sorry that they were subjected to this.”</p><p data-block-key=\"kz2gd\">The Journal reported that the U.S. attorney’s office is still investigating whether the company targeted any other critics with similar harassment campaigns.</p></div>",
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"name": "Massachusetts",
"abbreviation": "MA"
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"updates": [
"(2021-07-27 08:04:00+00:00) EBay manager imprisoned for role in harassment campaign against journalists",
"(2024-07-18 00:00:00+00:00) Seventh eBay defendant sentenced for harassment of journalists",
"(2022-11-03 00:00:00+00:00) Six eBay employees sentenced for their roles in harassment campaign against journalists",
"(2022-05-12 13:40:00+00:00) EBay executive pleads guilty for role in harassment campaign against journalists",
"(2024-01-11 00:00:00+00:00) eBay fined $3 million for employees’ stalking of journalists"
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"David Steiner (EcommerceBytes)"
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{
"title": "Independent journalist says they were shoved by police while covering protests in Portland",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-journalist-says-they-were-shoved-police-while-covering-protests-portland/",
"first_published_at": "2020-12-06T15:36:47.612551Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-13T17:38:26.079009Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-13T17:38:25.982432Z",
"date": "2020-06-15",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"lm4i6\">Independent journalist Tuck Woodstock said police shoved them while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on June 15, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"72uby\">Woodstock was covering one of the many protests that have broken 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=\"amca9\">In Portland, nightly protests over Floyd’s death began on May 29, prompting Mayor Ted Wheeler to declare a curfew that lasted three days. Even after the nightly curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon in June. Woodstock is a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2020-06-30_-_woodstock_decl.pdf\">plaintiff</a> in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and 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 city of Portland in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.</p><p data-block-key=\"0zc3f\">Around 8:30 p.m. on June 15, Woodstock started covering a rally, organized by Rose City Justice, demanding funding cuts for the Portland Police Bureau ahead of an upcoming Portland City Council budget vote, according to <a href=\"https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/06/portland-protests-continue-monday-after-police-take-down-some-fencing-at-epicenter-of-demonstrations.html\">The Oregonian newspaper</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"wx14p\">The protesters marched from southeast Portland to Pioneer Courthouse Square downtown. After the rally concluded, Woodstock followed protesters to the Multnomah County Justice Center, a regular meeting point for protesters.</p><p data-block-key=\"3u74u\">Just after 11 p.m., police declared <a href=\"https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=250884&ec=1&ch=twitter\">a civil disturbance</a> and warned the crowd to leave the area or be subjected to force or arrest. Around the same time, Woodstock <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1272771843800231938\">tweeted</a> that shots rang out as police used <a href=\"https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=250884&ec=1&ch=twitter\">crowd-control munitions</a> to disperse the protesters. About 20 minutes later, Woodstock <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1272776683674689536\">tweeted</a> that a protester had been shot in the head by some type of munitions in an area outside the dispersal zone.</p><p data-block-key=\"t7ri8\">Soon after, Woodstock <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1272775757341659136\">tweeted</a> about getting shoved. A <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1272788511117021184\">video</a> Woodstock posted later on Twitter appears to show the incident. “Police were aiming guns at a protester next to me, and I got caught in the protester’s umbrella and then slammed into by police and then dropped my phone and then picked it up to see the protester get jumped on by many police,” Woodstock says in the tweet.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">And this, my friends, is when police were aiming guns at a protester next to me, and I got caught in the protester’s umbrella and then slammed into by police and then dropped my phone and then picked it up to see the protester get jumped on by many police. So. Content warning. <a href=\"https://t.co/Phx5UnqXGg\">pic.twitter.com/Phx5UnqXGg</a></p>— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1272788511117021184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 16, 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=\"nlpu7\">Woodstock declined to comment further about the incident. Derek Carmon, a spokesman for the PPB, said he was unable to comment on this incident due to the ongoing ACLU litigation.</p></div>",
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{
"title": "Unicorn Riot reporter assaulted by crowd defending Columbus statue in Philadelphia",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/unicorn-riot-reporter-assaulted-crowd-defending-columbus-statue-philadelphia/",
"first_published_at": "2020-10-26T19:20:39.432898Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-10T20:25:22.556315Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-10T20:25:22.449813Z",
"date": "2020-06-14",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Philadelphia",
"longitude": -75.16362,
"latitude": 39.95238,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"dhk42\">A reporter for nonprofit media outlet Unicorn Riot was hit repeatedly while he filmed protesters who said they were defending a statue of Christopher Columbus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 14, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"gzewc\">The night before, on June 13, a group of vigilantes had gathered at South Philadelphia’s Marconi Plaza to defend its Columbus statue. Monuments of the Italian explorer and other figures across the country had been toppled or vandalized during continuing protests sparked by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That evening, Schiano had filmed a group of men carrying bats and guns at the statue before he was <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/unicorn-riot-reporter-assaulted-his-bike-damaged-philadelphia/\">assaulted and had his bike tires slashed</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"960zk\">On June 14, a much larger crowd of demonstrators claiming to defend the statue converged on Marconi Plaza, drawing counterprotesters. Schiano said when he arrived in the late afternoon, police were trying to separate the two sides but failed to keep them apart, resulting in several heated confrontations.</p><p data-block-key=\"zolrx\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1272371618778689536\">In one video Unicorn Riot shared on Twitter</a> that night, Schiano asks a man if he can tell him what was going on.</p><p data-block-key=\"7ow9i\">“How about I beat you the fuck up? Get the fuck out of here,” says the man before walking away.</p><p data-block-key=\"loopo\">Another man sitting next to Schiano then says: “Listen, you’re not supposed to be here, like, videoing everyone, you know what I’m saying?”</p><p data-block-key=\"uxrty\">It then appears Schiano is repeatedly hit by different members of the group surrounding him over the course of 30 seconds. Schiano said his camcorder was <a href=\"https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1272385088978911232\">smashed into a tree</a> by one of the people in the group, damaging the equipment.</p><p data-block-key=\"k0s7p\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/GeorgeSolis/status/1272332958385475585\">Footage from a 6abc Action News reporter</a> captured part of the incident, showing a crowd converging on Schiano and attacking him as he filmed. “Kill him!” a voice can be heard shouting. “That’s the one from yesterday!” another voice yells as Schiano is punched and shoved.</p><p data-block-key=\"ej705\"><a href=\"https://vimeo.com/429527076#t=23m40s\">In video footage</a> from the aftermath of the incident, members of the crowd can be heard taunting Schiano and threatening bodily harm as police officers intervene to keep them away from the reporter.</p><p data-block-key=\"ntk8t\">Like the previous evening, the assaults on Schiano appeared to come from members of the group that said they were there to protect the Columbus statue.</p><p data-block-key=\"uj49v\">Schiano told the Tracker that at another point, he was standing near a police officer when a man came and tackled him to the ground. He added that at several points, people in the crowd tried to take his phone from him.</p><p data-block-key=\"xbf9g\">“I was standing within inches of a cop when this happened, too, who didn’t do anything,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"ipacz\">He added that he also saw assaults on counterprotesters by members of the group purporting to defend the statue that didn’t attract police intervention.</p><p data-block-key=\"8g3nd\">The Philadelphia Police Department declined to comment on the incident.</p><p data-block-key=\"bueiv\">Schiano said he tried to leave the plaza several times that evening, only to realize he was being followed, at which point he decided to stay, he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"g5ze3\">Schiano said he has covered dangerous and traumatic events previously, like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017, <a href=\"https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/unicorn-riot-journalist-attacked-while-reporting-charlottesville/\">where he was also attacked</a>.</p><p data-block-key=\"n2bxi\">“This felt like that,” he said. “It was like the stress and adrenaline of things I’ve experienced before, but dialed up to 1,000.”</p><p data-block-key=\"33x8c\">He told the Tracker that he had slight swelling on his lip where he got punched and “serious bruising” under his right arm from the blows he received.</p><p data-block-key=\"n1693\">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. Find these incidents <a href=\"/blog/blm-and-unprecedented-aggressions-against-media/\">here</a>.</p></div>",
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{
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"name": "Pennsylvania",
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"tags": [
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"protest"
],
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"categories": [
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"Equipment Damage"
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{
"title": "Portland Tribune reporter struck with munition, pushed by police amid protests",
"url": "https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/portland-tribune-reporter-struck-with-munition-pushed-by-police-amid-protests/",
"first_published_at": "2021-10-19T16:29:44.171889Z",
"last_published_at": "2024-06-17T15:41:32.609941Z",
"latest_revision_created_at": "2024-06-17T15:41:32.517654Z",
"date": "2020-06-13",
"exact_date_unknown": false,
"city": "Portland",
"longitude": -122.67621,
"latitude": 45.52345,
"body": "<div class=\"block-rich_text\"><p data-block-key=\"uznvq\">Zane Sparling, a journalist for the Portland Tribune, said he was shoved by an officer and then hit in the foot with a crowd-control munition while covering demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on June 13, 2020.</p><p data-block-key=\"zilrm\">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=\"qf4zx\">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. But even after the curfew was lifted, Portland law enforcement continued to target journalists, according to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/index-newspapers-llc-v-city-portland\">class-action lawsuit</a> filed on June 28 by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU lawsuit resulted in a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/judge-grants-temporary-restraining-order-protect-journalists-and-legal-observers\">temporary restraining order</a> against the Portland Police Bureau, and eventually led to a <a href=\"https://aclu-or.org/en/press-releases/judge-grants-preliminary-injunction-aclu-case-protect-journalists-and-legal-observers\">preliminary injunction</a> in July barring the police from harming or impeding journalists and legal observers.</p><p data-block-key=\"wsc7d\">On the evening of June 13, Sparling told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was covering demonstrators who were yet again gathering in Chapman Square downtown. A little after 10:30 p.m., the Portland police declared the protest an “unlawful assembly” and began to fire crowd-control munitions and tear gas to clear the square. Sparling followed a group of about 50 protesters who fled the area and then formed a line on Southwest Main Street, next to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.</p><p data-block-key=\"wlfwr\">As the police were warning protesters that the downtown area was closed and they needed to leave, Sparling — who was filming the scene with his cellphone and had a camera strapped around his neck — moved to the sidewalk so he could document the scene away from the crowd.</p><p data-block-key=\"gujpk\">“As a journalist, I was staying out because that’s when people want observers on the ground: when munitions are going and orders are being enforced with force,” he told the Tracker.</p><p data-block-key=\"mhgwt\">When the police started to charge toward the demonstrators, Sparling turned the corner onto Southwest Park Avenue. “But the officer appeared around the corner as well,” he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"7covb\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/PDXzane/status/1272058454799028226\">Footage</a> that Starling posted on Twitter at around 11:50 p.m. shows an officer running around the corner and — right after Sparling calls out that he was “media” — shoving him into a wall. The officer could be heard saying, “I don’t give a shit.” and ordering him to leave the area.</p></div>\n<div class=\"block-tweet\"><div class=\"tweet-embed\">\n <div>\n <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Portland Police charge protesters tonight. <br><br>Officer: Move! <br><br>Me: MEDIA! <br><br>Officer: I don’t give a shit! Go! <br><br>I was shoved into the wall, then hit in the heel by some sort of crowd control munition. I’m fine <a href=\"https://t.co/daPElkEb6J\">pic.twitter.com/daPElkEb6J</a></p>— Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/PDXzane/status/1272058454799028226?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 14, 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=\"cxeuc\">“I didn’t break any bones. But it was a scary moment,” Sparling told the Tracker. “I was on the sidewalk not doing anything other than my job, other than being there and trying to observe.”</p><p data-block-key=\"h3iyj\">Sparling wasn’t unsure if the police targeted him because he was a journalist, noting that although his camera was hanging from around his neck, his press badge may have been hard to see.</p><p data-block-key=\"s9ztl\">After getting shoved, Sparling walked down the rest of the block to leave the area. As he was walking away, a crowd-control munition hit his foot, leaving a red welt, he said.</p><p data-block-key=\"aypzz\">The Portland Tribune, Sparling’s employer, and The Oregonian, Nakamura’s employer, have both filed complaints about the incidents with the Portland Independent Police Review, an independent agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct.</p><p data-block-key=\"c27or\">“Both of those investigations are underway,” Ross Caldwell, the director of the Independent Police Review, told the Tracker. “We have a huge volume of cases, as you can imagine, so everything is taking longer than it normally does.”</p><p data-block-key=\"4e5gy\">In response to questions about the incidents involving Nakamura and Sparling, marched Carmon, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau, told the Tracker, “We will not be commenting in regard to these two incidents at this time” because “there is a TRO in place and because the preliminary injunction is still an open litigation case.”</p><p data-block-key=\"d3diq\">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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"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": "unknown",
"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": [],
"equipment_broken": [],
"state": {
"name": "Oregon",
"abbreviation": "OR"
},
"updates": [],
"case_statuses": [],
"workers_whose_communications_were_obtained": [],
"target_nationality": [],
"targeted_institutions": [],
"tags": [
"Black Lives Matter",
"protest",
"shot / shot at"
],
"politicians_or_public_figures_involved": [],
"authors": [],
"categories": [
"Assault"
],
"targeted_journalists": [
"Zane Sparling (Portland Tribune)"
],
"subpoena_statuses": [],
"type_of_denial": []
}
]
