first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2020-11-18 12:08:46.408561+00:00,2022-08-04 21:23:24.353753+00:00,"Minneapolis police detain St. Paul Pioneer Press staff photographer, other journalists in ‘kettle’",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minneapolis-police-detain-st-paul-press-staff-photographer-other-journalists-in-kettle/,2022-08-04 21:23:24.282625+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,John Autey (St. Paul Pioneer Press),,2020-11-04,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"
Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including St. Paul Pioneer Press staff photographer John Autey, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Autey told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
Autey said that he was photographing protesters as they marched onto I-94 in Minneapolis and was then trapped with them on the highway as the Minnesota State Patrol and Minneapolis City Police closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called kettling.
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide-range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
While he was trapped on the highway, Autey said that he approached police officers who were blocking the Riverside ramp to I-94, identified himself as a member of the media and asked to be released. Autey said police refused his request. The photojournalist then approached officers on the opposite side of the highway, which was manned by both state troopers and city police, and asked to leave, again stating he was a member of the media. Autey said his second request was also denied.
“The first half-hour [on the highway] was a little tense and it looked like they were going to start using tear gas on us,” said Autey. “That didn’t happen and then [law enforcement] came on the speaker and said everybody there was under arrest and asked us to sit down,” he said.
The photojournalist told CPJ he then sent an email to his on-duty colleagues at the Pioneer Press and said he was about to get arrested. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Around 11:30p.m., law enforcement announced through a loudspeaker that all members of the media who wanted to exit would be allowed, Autey said.
The photojournalist told CPJ that law enforcement glanced at his Pioneer Press badge before allowing him to exit. Autey said that he noticed about a dozen other reporters exiting, including two Minneapolis Star Tribune photojournalists, Leila Navidi and Rich Tsong-Taatarii, who were allowed to leave. The Tracker documented their detainment here.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including Minneapolis Star Tribune photographers Leila Navidi and Rich Tsong-Taatarii, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Navidi told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Navidi said that they were photographing protesters as they marched onto the eastbound side of the Interstate 94 highway from the Cedar Avenue exit when Minneapolis City Police and Minnesota State Patrol closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called “kettling.”
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
Navidi said that around 7:30 p.m. she texted the on-duty Star Tribune photo editor after realizing that she and Tsong-Taatarii were trapped on the highway and might be arrested by law enforcement.
“The beginning of it was kind of nebulous in that [law enforcement] were just saying ‘Everyone who is on this highway is under arrest for public nuisance,’” Navidi told CPJ. “And then they slowly started detaining people, but they did not detain any press or take away any press.”
Navidi said that when she felt she had completed her reporting, “I went and asked one of the state patrol officers if we could leave.” The officer said he would talk to his supervisor, and, according to Navidi, the supervisor then told her that they were going to make a loudspeaker announcement that all press who wanted to leave would be allowed to exit the highway.
At around 11 p.m., after the announcement was made, Navidi said she and her Star Tribune colleague were allowed by law enforcement to exit the highway via the Cedar Avenue exit. The Tracker has documented Tsong-Taatarii’s detainment here.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
On Nov. 4, 2020, police detained protesters and journalists on Minneapolis’ Interstate 94 highway.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, election, Election 2020, kettle, protest",,, 2020-11-19 18:25:09.887862+00:00,2022-08-04 21:23:39.660549+00:00,Minneapolis police ‘kettle’ three photojournalists on highway during protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minneapolis-police-kettle-three-photojournalists-on-highway-during-protest/,2022-08-04 21:23:39.588103+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Richard Tsong-Taatarii (Minneapolis Star Tribune),,2020-11-04,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including Minneapolis Star Tribune photographers Leila Navidi and Richard Tsong-Taatarii, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Tsong-Taatarii told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
Tsong-Taatarii said that he began photographing protesters on the western edge of the University of Minnesota campus and followed as they marched south on Cedar Avenue to the eastbound side of the Interstate 94 highway. Once on the highway, Tsong-Taatarii said that Minneapolis City Police and Minnesota Street Patrol closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called “kettling.”
“We were surrounded and there was no way to exit,” Tsong-Taatarii told CPJ, adding that he was with Navidi on the highway. “There was no warning that they were going to arrest people if they didn’t get off the highway, and there was no option [to exit].” CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
After they were trapped, Tsong-Taatarii said that he and Navidi were in touch with their editors who alerted state officials that journalists were in the crowd of protesters.
“They made sure that, if at all possible, we would not be detained, processed, and then released,” Tsong-Taatarii told CPJ. Tsong-Taatarii said that he and Navidi heard from someone in the kettle that a television crew had been allowed to leave the highway and decided to ask law enforcement if they could exit.
In a separate interview with CPJ, Navidi said she approached a state patrol officer and asked him if they could leave. The officer said he would talk to his supervisor, and, according to Navidi, the supervisor then told her that they were going to make a loudspeaker announcement that all press who wanted to leave would be allowed to exit the highway. The Tracker has documented Navidi’s detainment here.
Tsong-Taatarii said that, after the announcement, he and Navidi were allowed by law enforcement to exit the highway via the Cedar Avenue exit at approximately 11:30 p.m.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
On Nov. 4, 2020, journalists and protesters were cordoned off and detained by police on Minneapolis’ Interstate 94 highway.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, election, Election 2020, kettle, protest",,, 2020-06-22 03:37:54.196463+00:00,2022-03-10 22:04:07.206515+00:00,"NBC journalist pepper-sprayed, detained at Minneapolis protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nbc-journalist-pepper-sprayed-detained-minneapolis-protest/,2022-03-10 22:04:07.132733+00:00,,,,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,Simon Moya-Smith (NBC News),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"NBC News journalist Simon Moya-Smith was pepper-sprayed and detained while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early hours of May 31, 2020.
Multiple days of protests in Minneapolis and across the nation were sparked by a video showing a 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. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
Moya-Smith told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was following along with a group of about a dozen Native American and black protesters as they walked through the south side of Minneapolis shortly after 1 a.m. An 8 p.m. curfew order was in place that night, though members of the media were explicitly exempt.
Four or five Minneapolis police cruisers suddenly came upon the group and encircled them, Moya-Smith said. An officer in one of the vehicles shouted, “Go home! Go home!” to which one of the protesters responded, “We are! We are going home!”
An officer then jumped out of one of the cruisers and began pepper-spraying the protesters indiscriminately and ordering them to get on the ground.
“As we’re all lying down, she comes around and just begins to spray as if she were in her backyard garden — individually, as if she were just spraying her plants,” Moya-Smith said.
He added that he, too, was sprayed while facedown, much of it hitting his back.
“It was a completely unnecessary use of force on the group. Everyone was complying,” Moya-Smith said.
Officers then came around to each of the protesters and asked for their IDs. When they came around to Moya-Smith, he told them that he had an ID in his wallet and that he was a reporter with NBC News. When they told him to wait as he was, Moya-Smith said he thought, “OK, so this is how this is going to go.”
“I’m sure one, two or maybe all of them knew that if they allowed me to exercise my First Amendment right as a reporter that I would immediately begin documenting the situation, and I think that is what they were trying to prevent,” Moya-Smith said.
Moya-Smith told the Tracker that multiple officers checked his press badge: One referred to him as “Mr. Journalist” when ordering him to roll over; another simply shrugged.
I was pepper-sprayed then arrested last night by Minneapolis PD even after identifying myself as a reporter MULTIPLE times:
— Simon Moya-Smith (@SimonMoyaSmith) May 31, 2020
Cop 1: *checks press badge as I’m on the ground*
Cop 2: “Roll on your side, Mr. journalist.”
Cop 3: *loads me in the car, sees my press badge and shrugs*
Moya-Smith was loaded into one of the cruisers and transported to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct along with the demonstrators. When they arrived at the station, he said, it was chaotic and overwhelmed by the number of arrests that night.
While their arresting officer had decided to issue them citations outside the station and release them, another officer convinced him that there was still space to book them in the jail, Moya-Smith said.
When the officer came around to him to ask for his ID again, Moya-Smith said, “Yupp, and here’s my press badge.”
Moya-Smith said the officer seemed surprised and called over a commanding officer, who immediately said that he needed to be released. Officers dropped him off about half a block from where the National Guard was operating.
“And as they were letting me go [the officer] said, ‘You’re going to tell everybody that we treated you nicely, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’” Moya-Smith told the Tracker.
Moya-Smith said that he was in police custody for a little over an hour and that he suffered no serious effects from the pepper spray other than a few coughing attacks.
He noted that while covering the protests in Minneapolis he found that being a member of the press did not protect him from police tactics.
“They still come directly toward you. They still charge you. It’s not a situation where you can even be a fly on the wall and cover it,” Moya-Smith said. “It feels like more of a target than a badge.”
When asked for comment, a representative from the Minneapolis Police Department’s Records Information Unit told the Tracker that the MPD was not the arresting authority for Moya-Smith. The Minneapolis State Patrol did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred total incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
State patrol officers stand guard in Minneapolis on May 31, 2020.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,True,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,no,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest",,, 2020-08-21 14:07:42.292929+00:00,2021-11-19 16:08:49.547167+00:00,Australian correspondent detained while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/australian-correspondent-detained-while-covering-minneapolis-protests/,2021-11-19 16:08:49.492536+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Tim Arvier (Nine News Australia),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Minneapolis Police briefly detained a Nine News Australia news crew and security guard in the early hours of May 31, 2020, the outlet reported. U.S. Correspondent Tim Arvier and cameraman Adam Bovino were covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
Arvier reported that police and the Minnesota National Guard deployed throughout Minneapolis on the night of May 30 in an attempt to assert control. The Nine News crew documented protesters marching in defiance of an 8 p.m. curfew as the police pushed back with less-lethal projectiles and tear gas.
The crew was driving to find a backdrop for a live interview when they heard gunfire and encountered a police roadblock, Arvier told the Tracker.
“We didn’t want to approach the roadblock, or drive up to it because obviously we’d seen numerous examples in the past 48 hours of how jumpy the police were,” Arvier said.
So Bovino stopped the car short of the roadblock and waited for the police to notice them, Arvier told the Tracker. As the police officers approached, the crew held their hands out the windows and shouted that they were press.
Two officers seemed calm, Arvier said, but a third yelled at them to get out of the car and drew his firearm.
“That’s when I hit record on my phone and held my phone up in my hand to record all this happening, just to have a record,” Arvier said. The crew tried to remain calm to avoid misunderstandings that could have escalated, he told the Tracker.
The security guard, who the crew hired after observing street violence, informed the police that he had weapons in the car, Arvier said.
In Arvier’s video, a police officer warns other officers to not let the journalists and the security guard drop their hands because there are guns in the car.
Arvier asks an officer in the video if it is okay to keep holding his phone in his raised hands. The officer responds, “You’re good.”
The officer who drew his weapon searched Bovino and escorted him handcuffed to the curb, Arvier said. The security guard was brought by another officer to the curb handcuffed as well.
A third officer searched Arvier, who continued to film. Additional footage shows Arvier holding his credentials in one hand as he’s searched. As he is patted down, Arvier explains to the officer that he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
In the video, an officer explains why the Nine News Australia crew was being treated carefully. “You can hear all the gunshots going off all around us. It’s like a warzone,” the officer said. “And here you guys are in bulletproof vests with a rifle in the car.”
Arvier was escorted to the curb, but he was not handcuffed like his colleagues. After the police checked their press credentials, the crew was released. Arvier said the crew was carrying press passes issued by the Los Angeles Police Department since their bureau is based in Los Angeles.
The police warned the journalists that it was dangerous to be out and advised them to return to their hotel for their safety, Arvier said.
Arvier said they had been treated respectfully and he understood why the police would be anxious. But it was unclear why they had to be detained and handcuffed. They had previously been pulled over to have their credentials checked without issue, Arvier said.
“If it wasn’t for the one police officer there, I get the feeling that the other ones would’ve handled it a lot more calmly and we probably would have been fine like we were the first time we were pulled over,” Arvier said.
Minnesota Police Department spokesperson John Elder told the Tracker he was unable to comment about this and other incidents involving the press. He said, “Every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
The crew’s detention on May 30 was one of several incidents involving the police during the days of protests, Arvier told the Tracker. On the night of May 29 the crew was pinned down in a parking lot in the 5th Precinct as police confronted protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, Arvier said. They were trying to return to their car to send footage back to Australia, but the police line blocked their way. When the crew tried to approach the line while identifying as press, the police yelled at them to get back. Police eventually escorted Bovino to the team’s vehicle to retrieve the equipment they needed. The vehicle had a large dent that the journalists presumed came from a tear gas canister strike.
On May 31, the crew was filming police push back protesters near a highway, Arvier said. The crew positioned off to the side so that they could either fall back on the highway or behind police lines to stay safe, Arvier said. But Nine News footage shows Arvier and his cameraman forced by police to run through tear gas. "That is ugly, ugly scenes," Arvier said in a video posted to Twitter as he struggled with the effects of the tear gas.
Arvier told the Tracker he recognized the risks the police were facing and did not feel bitter toward them. But he noted their attitude toward journalists seemed different than in previous protests he has covered.
In other protests, “the cops just sort of let you work through it and we don’t get in their way and they don’t get in our way and everyone is fine,” Arvier said “But that certainly seemed to be a different state of affairs in terms of the police attitude in Minneapolis.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Minneapolis police briefly detained a Nine News Australia news crew and security guard in the early hours of May 31, 2020, the outlet reported. Cameraman Adam Bovino and U.S. Correspondent Tim Arvier were covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
Arvier reported that police and the Minnesota National Guard deployed throughout Minneapolis on the night of May 30 in an attempt to assert control. The Nine News crew documented protesters marching in defiance of an 8 p.m. curfew as the police pushed back with less-lethal projectiles and tear gas.
The crew was driving to find a backdrop for a live interview when they heard gunfire and encountered a police roadblock, Arvier told the Tracker.
“We didn’t want to approach the roadblock, or drive up to it because obviously we’d seen numerous examples in the past 48 hours of how jumpy the police were,” Arvier said.
So Bovino stopped the car short of the roadblock and waited for the police to notice them, Arvier told the Tracker. As the police officers approached, the crew held their hands out the windows and shouted that they were press.
Two officers seemed calm, Arvier said, but a third yelled at them to get out of the car and drew his firearm.
“That’s when I hit record on my phone and held my phone up in my hand to record all this happening, just to have a record,” Arvier said. The crew tried to remain calm to avoid misunderstandings that could have escalated, he told the Tracker.
The security guard, who the crew hired after observing street violence, informed the police that he had weapons in the car, Arvier said.
In Arvier’s video, a police officer warns other officers to not let the journalists and the security guard drop their hands because there are guns in the car.
Arvier asks an officer in the video if it is okay to keep holding his phone in his raised hands. The officer responds, “You’re good.”
Bovino, who declined an interview because Arvier had already spoken with the Tracker, said in an email that the officer who drew a firearm handcuffed him. Officers escorted Bovino and the security guard in handcuffs to the curb.
A third officer searched Arvier, who continued to film. Additional footage shows Arvier holding his credentials in one hand as he’s searched. As he is patted down, Arvier explains to the officer that he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
In the video, an officer explains why the Nine News Australia crew was being treated carefully. “You can hear all the gunshots going off all around us. It’s like a warzone,” the officer said. “And here you guys are in bulletproof vests with a rifle in the car.”
Arvier was escorted to the curb, but he was not handcuffed like his colleagues. After the police checked their press credentials, the crew was released. Arvier said the crew was carrying press passes issued by the Los Angeles Police Department since their bureau is based in Los Angeles.
The police warned the journalists that it was dangerous to be out and advised them to return to their hotel for their safety, Arvier said.
Arvier said they had been treated respectfully and he understood why the police would be anxious. But it was unclear why they had to be detained and handcuffed. They had previously been pulled over to have their credentials checked without issue, Arvier said.
“If it wasn’t for the one police officer there, I get the feeling that the other ones would’ve handled it a lot more calmly and we probably would have been fine like we were the first time we were pulled over,” Arvier said.
Minnesota Police Department spokesperson John Elder told the Tracker he was unable to comment about this and other incidents involving the press. He said, “Every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
The crew’s detention on May 30 was one of several incidents involving the police during the days of protests, Arvier told the Tracker. On the night of May 29 the crew was pinned down in a parking lot in the 5th Precinct as police confronted protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, Arvier said. They were trying to return to their car to send footage back to Australia, but the police line blocked their way. When the crew tried to approach the line while identifying as press, the police yelled at them to get back. Police eventually escorted Bovino to the team’s vehicle to retrieve the equipment they needed. The vehicle had a large dent that the journalists presumed came from a tear gas canister strike.
On May 31, the crew was filming police push back protesters near a highway, Arvier said. The crew positioned off to the side so that they could either fall back on the highway or behind police lines to stay safe, Arvier said. But Nine News footage shows Arvier and Bovino forced by police to run through tear gas. "That is ugly, ugly scenes," Arvier said in a video posted to Twitter as he struggled with the effects of the tear gas.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.