Washington Post journalist subpoenaed for documents from college reporting

April 22, 2021
Journalist Fenit Nirappil was subpoenaed on April 22, 2021, in a lawsuit involving former Chicago police officers for documents related to his work on two stories for the Medill Innocence Project nearly a decade earlier, according to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.Nirappil, now a journalist for The Washington Post, was a part of a team of Northwestern University students who investigated the conviction of former police officer Ariel Gomez during the 2011-2012 academic year, according to …

Block Club Chicago journalist assaulted, his camera damaged at protest

April 16, 2021
Block Club Chicago reporter and photojournalist Colin Boyle was assaulted by a Chicago police officer while he was covering a demonstration in northwest Chicago, Illinois, on April 16, 2021. According to its website, Block Club is a local, reader-supported nonprofit newsroom “dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.”According to the Chicago Sun Times, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of the city’s Logan Square Monument the evening of April 16 to demand justice for 13-year-old …

Photographer says was assaulted twice by Chicago police during protest

August 15, 2020
Freelance photographer Dominic Gwinn said he was physically assaulted by two police officers in separate incidents while covering a protest against police violence in Chicago on Aug. 15, 2020.A stringer for Zuma Press, Gwinn had been following protesters as they marched down Michigan Avenue. He said he stood atop the median in the center of the street taking pictures around 6 p.m. when a police officer shoved him off the median. In a picture Gwinn tweeted, the police officer can …

Independent journalist’s equipment searched while reporting on Chicago protest

August 15, 2020
Independent journalist Raven Geary said her bag was searched by police without her consent while she reported on a protest in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 15, 2020.Geary, a freelancer who later wrote about the demonstration for the Chicago Reader, was covering a protest against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests against racial injustice had been held across the United States since George Floyd was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. The …

Washington Post journalist chased by looters in Chicago

August 10, 2020
A journalist was chased by unknown individuals while covering unrest in Chicago on Aug. 10, 2020.Protests against police brutality 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, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital.Mark Guarino, the Chicago correspondent for The Washington Post, went downtown in the …

Chicago CBS affiliate ordered to turn over unedited interview footage

August 3, 2020
A federal judge ruled that a Chicago-based CBS affiliate must comply with a subpoena for unedited audio and video recordings of its interviews with a woman who is suing a group of police officers who she says illegally raided her home.U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert of the Northern District of Illinois on Aug. 3, 2020, denied TV station CBS2 Chicago’s bid to block the officers’ request for unedited audio and video footage from an interview with the woman and her …

CBS Chicago reporter assaulted by individual while filming Columbus statue protest

July 17, 2020
CBS Chicago reporter Marissa Parra was assaulted by an individual while covering demonstrations in Grant Park on July 17, 2020.Parra was documenting the scene surrounding the park’s Christopher Columbus statue, where reports estimated that at least 1,000 people had gathered following a rally for Black and Indigenous people, eventually attempting to topple the monument to the 15th-century explorer.Removal of Columbus monuments around the country has been a focal point for many nationwide groups given the explorer’s history of colonization and …
More Incidents