Incident Details
- Date of Incident
- May 1, 2024
- Location
- Hanover, New Hampshire
- Arrest Status
- Arrested and released
- Arresting Authority
- Lebanon Police Department
- Charges
-
-
Trespassing: criminal trespass
- May 1, 2024: Charges pending
- May 7, 2024: Charges dropped
-
Trespassing: criminal trespass
- Unnecessary use of force?
- No
Arrest/Criminal Charge
Pro-Palestinian protesters stand off against law enforcement at Dartmouth College on May 1, 2024. Student journalist Charlotte Hampton was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing that night while reporting on the student encampment.
Trespassing charge dropped against Dartmouth student journalist
New Hampshire prosecutors dropped the trespassing charge against student journalist Charlotte Hampton on May 7, 2024, and lifted the bail conditions forbidding her from entering certain areas of the Dartmouth College campus, the school’s student newspaper reported.
Hampton, a managing editor and reporter for The Dartmouth, and Alesandra Gonzales, a reporter and photographer at the paper, were arrested while reporting on a pro-Palestinian encampment at the college on May 1.
Both were wearing press credentials issued by the newspaper, and Hampton had her reporter’s notebook while Gonzales was holding her professional camera. Both were charged with criminal trespassing and released hours later on bail conditions barring them from multiple locations on campus.
Fifteen journalists’ rights organizations, including Freedom of the Press Foundation, which runs the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, sent a letter May 7 to Dartmouth president Sian Leah Beilock and a local prosecutor urging them to dismiss the charges against Hampton and Gonzales.
Later that day, The Dartmouth published an open letter from Beilock in which she wrote that the two journalists “should not have been arrested for doing their jobs.”
“We are working with local authorities to ensure this error is corrected,” she wrote.
The Dartmouth then reported that the state had dropped the charges that day, stating in court documents that it “does not believe it can prove the charges against [Hampton and Gonzalez] beyond a reasonable doubt” and requesting that the journalists’ bail conditions be lifted.
“I’m glad to be able to get back to being the press and not having to worry about not being able to go on certain areas of campus,” Gonzales told The Dartmouth.
“What happened last week was really a clear threat to the free press,” Hampton told the paper. “I’m more fired up than ever about being a journalist.”
Student journalist Charlotte Hampton and a colleague at their college newspaper were arrested while reporting on a pro-Palestinian encampment at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, on May 1, 2024.
The student newspaper, The Dartmouth, reported that a group of students planned to erect an encampment at 6:30 p.m. that day in solidarity with protests at universities across the country calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war.
Hampton, a managing editor and reporter for The Dartmouth, and reporter and photographer Alesandra Gonzales were among the student and professional journalists covering the demonstration.
The Dartmouth reported that officers with multiple departments, including the New Hampshire State Police and Hanover Police Department, arrived on campus shortly after 8 p.m. They gave protesters a final warning to leave the area under threat of arrest, noting that physical force may be used, then began making arrests approximately 30 minutes later.
Both Hampton and Gonzales were wearing credentials issued by the newspaper and standing alongside other press and a representative from the college’s communications department, Gonzales told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Gonzales said she had just finished filming the aggressive arrest of a history professor when two officers grabbed her.
Hampton was standing next to her, Gonzales said, and tried to intervene. “From what I understand,” Gonzales said, “she was arrested while telling them not to arrest me because I was press.”
According to The Dartmouth, they were detained at around 9:45 p.m. and transported to the Lebanon Police Department seven miles away, Gonzales said, where they were booked on charges of criminal trespassing. The journalists were released on bail at 11:30 p.m., The Dartmouth reported.
Gonzales told the Tracker that in addition to their $40 bonds, both student journalists are barred from multiple locations on campus as a condition of their bail, including the green where the protest took place, the administrative building and the hall where the president’s office is located.
Both student journalists have initial appearance hearings scheduled for Aug. 5.
In an editorial published by The Dartmouth the following day, the newspaper condemned the arrests and said the college should be embarrassed.
“We are glad Hampton and Gonzales are back in the newsroom safely, but having to retrieve them from the station at all was a slap in the face,” the editorial board wrote. “If Dartmouth has any commitment to the freedom of the press, it must do everything in its power to get the relevant authorities to drop the charges against our reporters.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
