Chicago Reader journalist pushed with police baton amid DNC protests

Shawn Mulcahy, the news editor for the Chicago Reader, was shoved in the stomach with a baton by Chicago police while documenting a protest coinciding with the nearby Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22, 2024.

The Chicago Tribune reported that more than 2,000 people marched to protest U.S. aid to Israel, advancing through Chicago’s West Side and within blocks of the United Center where Vice President Kamala Harris was accepting the Democratic nomination during the final night of the convention.

Mulcahy told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that late in the evening after the march, a small group of 25 to 50 protesters sat in the street to block traffic. He said a large number of press were still around, and that police didn’t seem to know how to handle the journalists.

“There was a rush to arrest someone and they were trying to push people back onto the sidewalk,” Mulcahy said. “I was standing there filming the arrest and they pushed me with a baton into my stomach.” He added that he intends to file a complaint with the city.

That night, officers also threatened to revoke journalists’ press credentials if they refused to comply with the dispersal order. Mulcahy said that the members of the media raised alarm over the order and the department’s chief of patrol and deputy director of news affairs and communications ultimately walked it back.

When reached by email for comment, the Chicago Police Department directed the Tracker to CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling’s news conferences during the DNC, declining to respond to questions about officers’ aggression toward journalists and attempts to revoke press credentials.

During Snelling’s Aug. 21 news conference, he said that the department wants journalists to be able to do their jobs, but highlighted that the press must comply with police orders and step to the side when officers move in to make arrests. “If you don’t do that, it’s obstructing us and it makes it harder for us to take the people into custody that we’re trying to take into custody. And what we don’t want is for you to get caught in the middle of it and injured and hurt,” Snelling said.

At least four journalists were shoved or pulled by officers responding to similar protests on Aug. 20, and at least three were arrested.