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 2024-02-29 16:19:57.942906+00:00,2024-02-29 16:45:12.335647+00:00,"Student journalists, adviser sue school, alleging intimidation",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/student-journalists-adviser-sue-school-alleging-intimidation/,2024-02-29 16:45:12.210026+00:00,,,,Other Incident,,,,"Hanna Olson (Mountain View High School Oracle), Hayes Duenow (Mountain View High School Oracle)",,2024-02-22,False,Mountain View,California (CA),38.00881,-122.11746,"
Student journalists and the former adviser of a high school newspaper in California filed a lawsuit against the school district and administrators on Feb. 22, 2024, alleging intimidation and retaliation in violation of the state’s student press freedom law.
According to the complaint, the Oracle newspaper at Mountain View High School is entirely student-run, with the young journalists choosing, writing and editing their own articles. Former faculty adviser Carla Gomez would review articles before publication and provide guidance on journalistic standards and techniques.
In early 2023, students on the newspaper’s In-Depth team — which produces long-form investigative articles — began reporting on allegations of student-on-student sexual harassment at the school. Administrators learned of the article when students contacted them for comment.
Principal Kip Glazer spoke to the students on March 27, telling them that the planned article would lead to “catastrophic consequences” if published and that the newspaper should only present the school in a “positive light,” according to the suit. She also asserted that she could censor the article, but that she did not want to, and asked to review the piece before publication.
The students told reporters for The Talon, a student newspaper at a nearby high school, that following Glazer’s review they made some changes for journalistic reasons, but made many more because they were afraid of upsetting her.
“We were kind of confused and kind of scared of what her implications were,” Assistant In-Depth Editor Renuka Mungee said of Glazer’s mandate. “Was the entire Oracle going to get in trouble? Were we individually going to get in trouble for publishing it? I think we felt compelled to remove certain details because we were scared of what her reaction would be or what the consequences would be.”
Mungee and In-Depth Editor Myesha Phukan told the Talon that though they had followed journalistic and ethical best practices when reporting the piece, they ultimately self-censored: a decision they said they’ve come to regret
A modified version of the article was published on March 31, but without descriptions of some of the harassment, details of one of the accused harasser’s participation in the choir program or other contextual information, according to the suit. Less than a month later, Glazer announced that the school’s Introduction to Journalism course was being cut and that Gomez was being replaced as the newspaper’s adviser.
Glazer, who did not respond to requests for comment, told the Talon in May that she is a staunch supporter of the First Amendment and student journalism.
“I believe that the purpose of public education is to create an educated populace for the protection of democracy, and I believe that the role of the press is extremely important,” Glazer said. “Democracy doesn’t exist without a robust and free press.”
Attorney Jean-Paul Jassy sent a letter on behalf of Gomez and Hanna Olson, co-editor-in-chief, to the superintendent, board of trustees and Glazer on Sept. 27 detailing the alleged intimidation and retaliation, and requested the release of communications surrounding the incident.
The letter also asked for a written acknowledgement that Glazer’s actions amounted to censorship in violation of California Education Code 48907, a reinstatement of the introductory course with Gomez as the adviser and a written commitment that there would be no further attempts at censorship.
When those requests were not met, Jassy filed the lawsuit making similar requests on behalf of Gomez, Olson and Hayes Duenow, one of the authors of the article.
“The ideas and the principles that underlie the First Amendment are first experienced and first taught to students when they’re in high school or college,” Jassy told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “So it’s really important that they have the liberty to do investigative journalism, to do research and to report on issues in their communities, just like the professional or mainstream media do.”
Gomez told the Tracker that she hopes the lawsuit will ensure the independence of the Oracle and that students have a voice in the direction the newspaper takes. “If you don’t have the student-run aspect and the independence, it’s very hard to have a strong journalism program. If they’re worried about writing a story that offends somebody in power, that it’s going to affect the program, then it’s going to have a chilling effect,” Gomez said.
In a statement to the Student Press Law Center, Olson said that she joined the lawsuit to ensure the spirit of the Oracle carries on.
“This case matters to me because I want to ensure the long term stability and prosperity of my school’s journalism program,” Olson said, “and I want student journalists at my school to be empowered to stand by their rights to publish stories that need to be told.”
Two student journalists and the former adviser for a California high school sued the district and administrators on Feb. 22, 2024, alleging that the principal intimidated and retaliated against them over an article on sexual harassment at the school.
",None,None,None,None,False,24CV431640,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,student journalism,,, 2024-01-31 19:15:54.349134+00:00,2024-03-10 20:03:29.489929+00:00,U.S. News subpoenaed for documents by San Francisco city attorney,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/us-news-subpoenaed-for-documents-by-san-francisco-city-attorney/,2024-03-10 20:03:29.402304+00:00,,LegalOrder object (270),,Subpoena/Legal Order,,,,,,2024-01-09,False,San Francisco,California (CA),37.77493,-122.41942,"U.S. News & World Report was issued two subpoenas on Jan. 9, 2024, by the city attorney for San Francisco, California, seeking information about its hospital rankings and related business dealings.
For more than three decades, the digital media company has produced multiple such rankings, including its Best Hospitals Honor Roll, Best Hospitals by Specialty and Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll. It also licenses out “badges” with those rankings to interested hospitals.
The subpoenas order U.S. News to answer written questions and produce documents pertaining to the rankings and U.S. News’ relationships with various health care providers.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu first demanded answers about the media company’s process for ranking hospitals in a letter in June 2023, citing his authority under the California Business and Professions Code to investigate potentially unlawful business practices. Chiu alleged that the rankings had come under scrutiny for what he described as their “poor and opaque methodology.”
In a lawsuit filed on Jan. 23, 2024, U.S. News defended its methodology, noting that detailed reports on how the ranking is compiled are published each year. The suit requested protective orders to prevent the city attorney’s office from enforcing the subpoenas and asked that the media company be awarded attorneys fees and costs.
“The Subpoenas make clear that the City Attorney is using governmental process to engage in viewpoint discrimination—and, indeed, is proceeding as though he holds censorial (or editorial) authority over how U.S. News performs its journalistic work ranking hospitals,” attorneys for U.S. News wrote. “It is flatly unconstitutional for the City Attorney to harass U.S. News due to his differing views on these rankings; his mounting harassment must be put to a stop.”
In a statement shared with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Chiu said it was “ironic” that U.S. News was claiming that its speech has been chilled “when the purpose of the company's lawsuit is to chill and impede a legitimate government investigation.”
“Despite U.S. News’ stated commitment to transparency, the company has spent months evading tough questions about its undisclosed financial links to the hospitals it ranks,” Chiu said. “U.S. News is not above the law, and its bullying litigation tactics will not deter us from standing up for patients and consumers.”
In its filing, however, U.S. News stated that it responded to Chiu’s initial letter — explaining its well-documented methodology and raising concerns about the potential infringement of its rights — and did not receive any additional communications from his office for nearly six months.
“The City Attorney’s actions pose a fundamental threat to our First Amendment rights and set a dangerous precedent for all media platforms and news organizations,” the lawsuit argues. It added that if Chiu's actions are allowed to stand, “any journalistic enterprise that provides analyses or opinions to the public—analyses or opinions that elected officials may wish to fault—may for that reason be subject to subpoena and investigation.”
A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 23.
A portion of a subpoena issued to the U.S. News & World Report on Jan. 9, 2024, ordering the news outlet to provide documents concerning its hospital rankings.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:24-cv-00395,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,Institution,subpoena,State,None,False,[],U.S. News & World Report,,,, 2024-01-31 19:20:14.192860+00:00,2024-03-10 20:03:48.337612+00:00,U.S. News subpoenaed about hospital rankings by city attorney,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/us-news-subpoenaed-about-hospital-rankings-by-city-attorney/,2024-03-10 20:03:48.242467+00:00,,LegalOrder object (271),,Subpoena/Legal Order,,,,,,2024-01-09,False,San Francisco,California (CA),37.77493,-122.41942,"U.S. News & World Report was issued two subpoenas on Jan. 9, 2024, by the city attorney for San Francisco, California, seeking information about its hospital rankings and related business dealings.
For more than three decades, the digital media company has produced multiple such rankings, including its Best Hospitals Honor Roll, Best Hospitals by Specialty and Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll. It also licenses out “badges” with those rankings to interested hospitals.
The subpoenas order U.S. News to answer written questions and produce documents pertaining to the rankings and U.S. News’ relationships with various health care providers.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu first demanded answers about the media company’s process for ranking hospitals in a letter in June 2023, citing his authority under the California Business and Professions Code to investigate potentially unlawful business practices. Chiu alleged that the rankings had come under scrutiny for what he described as their “poor and opaque methodology.”
In a lawsuit filed on Jan. 23, 2024, U.S. News defended its methodology, noting that detailed reports on how the ranking is compiled are published each year. The suit requested protective orders to prevent the city attorney’s office from enforcing the subpoenas and asked that the media company be awarded attorneys fees and costs.
“The Subpoenas make clear that the City Attorney is using governmental process to engage in viewpoint discrimination—and, indeed, is proceeding as though he holds censorial (or editorial) authority over how U.S. News performs its journalistic work ranking hospitals,” attorneys for U.S. News wrote. “It is flatly unconstitutional for the City Attorney to harass U.S. News due to his differing views on these rankings; his mounting harassment must be put to a stop.”
In a statement shared with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Chiu said it was “ironic” that U.S. News was claiming that its speech has been chilled “when the purpose of the company's lawsuit is to chill and impede a legitimate government investigation.”
“Despite U.S. News’ stated commitment to transparency, the company has spent months evading tough questions about its undisclosed financial links to the hospitals it ranks,” Chiu said. “U.S. News is not above the law, and its bullying litigation tactics will not deter us from standing up for patients and consumers.”
In its filing, however, U.S. News stated that it responded to Chiu’s initial letter — explaining its well-documented methodology and raising concerns about the potential infringement of its rights — and did not receive any additional communications from his office for nearly six months.
“The City Attorney’s actions pose a fundamental threat to our First Amendment rights and set a dangerous precedent for all media platforms and news organizations,” the lawsuit argues. It added that if Chiu's actions are allowed to stand, “any journalistic enterprise that provides analyses or opinions to the public—analyses or opinions that elected officials may wish to fault—may for that reason be subject to subpoena and investigation.”
A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 23.
A portion of a subpoena issued to U.S. News & World Report on Jan. 9, 2024, ordering the news outlet to answer questions concerning its hospital rankings.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:24-cv-00395,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,Institution,subpoena,State,None,False,[],U.S. News & World Report,,,, 2024-01-05 17:51:11.548738+00:00,2024-03-10 20:00:52.985579+00:00,Texas attorney general subpoenas Media Matters after report on X,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/texas-attorney-general-subpoenas-media-matters-after-report-on-x/,2024-03-10 20:00:52.881935+00:00,,LegalOrder object (267),,"Subpoena/Legal Order, Chilling Statement",,,,,,2023-12-01,False,Austin,Texas (TX),30.26715,-97.74306,"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Dec. 1, 2023, demanded that Media Matters for America turn over what the media watchdog called a “sweeping array” of materials related to its reporting, according to court documents reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Media Matters sued on Dec. 11 to block the “civil investigative demand,” an administrative subpoena that is part of a probe launched Nov. 20 by Paxton into what his office characterized as “potential fraudulent activity” under the Texas Business Organizations Code and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The probe followed the Nov. 16 publication of a Media Matters report that found advertisements for major brands appeared next to pro-Nazi posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. Several major companies paused their advertising on the platform shortly after the report and following a post on X by owner Elon Musk that appeared to endorse an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Paxton, a Republican, said he was “extremely troubled” by allegations that the progressive, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit had manipulated data on X. “We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square,” he added.
The allegations of data manipulation were contained in a Nov. 20 lawsuit filed by X against Media Matters and senior investigative reporter Eric Hananoki in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. X’s suit alleged that the group and Hananoki, who wrote the story, manipulated the platform’s algorithms to produce feeds in which advertisers’ posts appeared next to pro-Nazi content, with the intent of harming X’s relationship with advertisers.
The suit sought unspecified damages and asked a judge to order Media Matters to remove the report from its website and social media accounts.
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone, in a statement after Musk filed the suit, said, “This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X’s critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting.”
In its suit against Paxton, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, where Hananoki lives and works, Media Matters said that the Texas attorney general demanded “a sweeping array of materials from Media Matters and Hananoki, including documents and communications about their research and reporting.”
The suit called the investigation “retaliatory” and an “extraordinarily invasive intrusion into Plaintiffs’ news gathering and reporting activities [that] is plainly intended to chill those activities.”
Media Matters accused Paxton of violating the plaintiffs’ First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, as well as its rights under reporters shield laws in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and asked the court to permanently block the investigation.
Carusone, in a Dec. 17 interview with MSNBC about the suit against Paxton, said, “In some respects, it was really our only path because the alternative would be to do nothing and have him continue to barrel ahead with this investigation, which he says could be both civil and criminal.”
Carusone told the Tracker in a phone interview that Paxton’s investigation added a “layer of unpredictability” in terms of “what could be exposed and what information somebody could get access to, and the process for that.” He added that the probe “leads to a culture, internally, of self-censoring.”
Paxton’s office did not reply to an emailed request for updates on the investigation.
Meanwhile, on Dec. 11, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey opened his own investigation into Media Matters. In a letter to the watchdog group, he alleged that it appeared to have used the “coordinated, inauthentic activity” described in X’s lawsuit “to solicit charitable donations from consumers,” and that his office would look into whether this violated Missouri’s consumer protection laws, “including laws that prohibit nonprofit entities from soliciting funds under false pretenses.” Bailey instructed the group to preserve all records related to the case.
Three days later, Bailey announced that he and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry had sent letters to several major companies that paused their advertising on X, including Disney, IBM and Sony, informing them of the investigation into Media Matters.
Bailey’s office told the Tracker in a Jan. 4, 2024, email that there were no further updates in the investigation.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seen at an August 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, subpoenaed watchdog Media Matters on Dec. 1, 2023, after the group reported on X, formerly known as Twitter.
",None,None,None,None,False,8:23-cv-03363,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,Institution,other,State,None,False,[],Media Matters for America,,,, 2023-08-14 20:43:52.272403+00:00,2024-03-10 20:10:17.936818+00:00,Kansas reporter injured when cellphone seized during police raid of newsroom,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/kansas-reporter-injured-during-police-raid-of-newsroom/,2024-03-10 20:10:17.825794+00:00,,,"(2023-10-02 00:00:00+00:00) Police chief in Kansas raid resigns; paper reports on new bodycam footage, (2023-08-30 14:52:00+00:00) Reporter sues police chief following phone seizure during newspaper raid","Assault, Equipment Search or Seizure",,cellphone: count of 1,,Deb Gruver (Marion County Record),,2023-08-11,False,Marion,Kansas (KS),38.34835,-97.01725,"Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver was injured when local law enforcement executed a search warrant on the newspaper’s offices and forcibly seized her cellphone, alongside other equipment and journalistic work product. The Kansas newspaper reported that the seizures jeopardized its ability to publish its weekly edition.
A copy of the search warrant, obtained by the Kansas Reflector, shows that the search was undertaken as part of an investigation into alleged unlawful use of a computer and identity theft. The warrant, however, did not include Gruver’s cellphone or another reporter’s cellphone, both seized by law enforcement during the raid.
According to the Record, when one of the paper’s reporters requested a copy of the probable cause affidavit that summarizes the circumstances and evidence supporting the warrant, the district court issued a signed statement that there wasn’t one on file.
The Record reported that during an Aug. 7 city council meeting a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, had accused the newspaper of illegally obtaining information that she had a prior DUI conviction and had driven without a license, as well as supplying the information to Marion Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel.
In an article responding to the allegations, Record Publisher and Editor Eric Meyer said that a source had reached out with the information via Facebook, and had independently sent it to Herbel as well. The Record had verified the allegations through a public website but decided not to publish it, instead alerting the Marion Police Department that the source may have obtained the information illegally.
The morning of Aug. 11, Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar signed the search warrant for the Record’s office. Marion Police Department officers and Marion County sheriff’s deputies executed it within two hours, ordering staff to leave the office as equipment was seized.
Meyer told the Reflector that officers seized “everything” from the newsroom, and that he wasn’t sure how the staff would complete the edition before it needed to go to press on Aug. 15.
Gruver alleged on Facebook that Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody injured her finger when he “forcibly yanked” her personal cellphone from her hand. “I’ve filed a report with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation because a previously dislocated finger was re-injured,” Gruver wrote.
The Associated Press reported that officers also read Gruver her rights while Cody watched, though the reporter was not arrested or detained.
Officers also executed a second warrant at Meyer’s home — where he lives with his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, a co-owner and correspondent for the Record, the Reflector reported. Joan Meyer passed away the following day, which the Record attributed in part to the stress of the raid.
Eric Meyer, a veteran reporter from the Milwaukee Journal and former journalism professor at the University of Illinois, told The Kansas City Star following the raid that the Record had also been investigating Cody’s background and allegations of wrongdoing.
Cody, who did not immediately respond to a request for further information, told the Star that the lack of an article about the allegations shows they had no basis. “If it was true, they would’ve printed it,” Cody said.
On Aug. 14, a coalition of more than 30 press freedom organizations sent a letter to Cody condemning the raid and calling for the return of the newspaper’s equipment and reporting materials.
Freedom of the Press Foundation, which operates the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, called the raid “alarming.”
“Based on the reporting so far, the police raid of the Marion County Record on Friday appears to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, and basic human decency,” said Director of Advocacy Seth Stern. “Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.”
In a statement released on Facebook, Cody defended the legality of the raid and said that the Marion Police Department had received assistance from local and state investigators.
“It is true that in most cases, [the federal Privacy Protection Act] requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search,” Cody wrote.
Eric Meyer, who could not immediately be reached for comment, told the Record that while the paper’s attorneys are working to have the equipment returned, they also plan to file a federal lawsuit to ensure that such a raid never happens again.
“Our first priority is to be able to publish next week,” he said, “but we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law.”
Editor’s Note: This incident has been updated to reflect that, while reporter Deb Gruver’s personal cellphone was seized during the raid on the Marion County Record, it was not part of the search warrant executed on the newsroom.
Security footage of the raid on the Marion County Record newsroom on Aug. 11, 2023, shows law enforcement seizing the Kansas paper’s computers.
",None,None,None,None,False,6:23-cv-01179,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in full,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,,,, 2024-02-09 17:45:05.673096+00:00,2024-02-09 17:45:05.673096+00:00,Kansas reporter files suit after phone seized in newsroom raid,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/kansas-reporter-files-suit-after-phone-seized-in-newsroom-raid/,2024-02-09 17:45:05.467078+00:00,,,,Equipment Search or Seizure,,cellphone: count of 1,,Phyllis Zorn (Marion County Record),,2023-08-11,False,Marion,Kansas (KS),38.34835,-97.01725,"Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn had her personal cellphone seized by local law enforcement as they executed a search warrant on the Kansas newspaper’s offices on Aug. 11, 2023. In February 2024, she filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the law enforcement officials involved in the raid, alleging violations of her First and Fourth amendment rights.
A copy of the search warrant, obtained by the Kansas Reflector, showed that the raid was part of an investigation into the Record’s alleged unlawful use of a computer and identity theft to obtain information about local restaurant owner Kari Newell’s prior DUI conviction and driving record. Marion Police Department officers and Marion County sheriff’s deputies executed the warrant within two hours of its approval by a Marion County District Court magistrate judge, ordering staff to leave the office as equipment was seized.
In September, however, the Record discovered in body camera footage captured during the raid that Marion police knew at the time how the paper had obtained the information — through a former friend of Newell’s.
In the recording, the Record reported, then Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody tells Zorn that “we’re pretty confident we know that [the former friend] delivered it.” Zorn tells Cody which computer she used to view the document and then verify it via the state Department of Revenue website. Cody asks Zorn if her cellphone was involved in the document viewing or verification; Zorn says no.
Despite this, Cody not only confiscated the computer Zorn had indicated but also directed the seizure of personal cellphones belonging to Zorn and her fellow reporter Deb Gruver, neither of which are listed in the search warrant. Law enforcement also seized three of the Record’s computers and computers at the paper’s co-owners’ home.
The sole copy of the document in question, the Record noted, was left untouched on a desk a few feet away from one of the confiscated computers.
Gruver, who alleged on Facebook that Cody injured her finger when he “forcibly yanked” the phone from her hand, has since filed a federal suit against him for First and Fourth amendment violations, alleging that the raid and the seizure of her phone were retaliation for her investigation into allegations of misconduct by Cody.
In a response to Gruver’s complaint, Cody claimed that he and other law enforcement officers confiscated the newsroom’s computers and Zorn’s cellphone because it was taking hours to download the newsroom’s data onto the sheriff’s office’s equipment.
Cody initially defended the legality of the raid on Facebook, but resigned in October several days after being suspended, the Record reported.
Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer previously told The Kansas City Star that prior to the raid the weekly newspaper had been investigating Cody’s background and allegations of wrongdoing.
Gruver resigned from the paper after viewing the body camera footage, according to the Record. Joan Meyer, a co-owner and correspondent for the Record at whose home law enforcement executed the second warrant, passed away the day after the raid, which the Record attributed in part to the stress of the experience.
An Aug. 16 court order mandated that police return all equipment seized in the raid, but a separate USB drive that law enforcement had used to copy the newspaper’s computer files was not returned until Aug. 30, after the paper’s attorney discovered it on an inventory list released by the Marion District Court.
On Feb. 6, 2024, Zorn filed a federal suit against Cody, the city of Marion, the Board of Marion County Commissioners, various members of law enforcement involved in the raid and a former mayor.
“The defendants are co-conspirators in an unconstitutional effort to deny Ms. Zorn her rights under the First and Fourth Amendments,” Zorn alleges in her complaint, arguing the raid was an act of retaliation for Zorn’s exercise of her First Amendment rights, and that the seizure of her phone and computer without any evidence that they had been used to commit crimes exceeded the scope of the warrant.
Zorn adds that within days of the raid, her Grand Mal seizures returned after a five-year reprieve. “The seizures have been debilitating,” her complaint notes, “and have led to extreme depression and anxiety.”
“We just can’t have people doing this,” Zorn’s attorney Randall Rathbun told KSHB and said that he and his client are suing for $950,000 in damages “so they don’t do this again.”
Editor’s Note: The seizure of reporter Phyllis Zorn's personal cellphone was originally reported in connection with the raid of the Marion County Record. While her phone was seized during the raid, it was not part of the search warrant executed on the newsroom, which is documented here.
Reporter Phyllis Zorn, pictured at left among other staffers of the Marion County Record, filed a federal lawsuit on Feb. 6, 2024, alleging her constitutional rights were violated during a raid on the paper’s newsroom in August 2023.
",None,None,None,None,False,2:24-cv-02044,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in full,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,,,, 2022-10-14 14:04:01.367425+00:00,2023-06-29 17:35:42.863600+00:00,KC photographer shoved to ground by NFL player after game,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photographer-shoved-to-ground-by-nfl-player-after-game-in-kc/,2023-06-29 17:35:42.631182+00:00,,,"(2023-05-02 11:01:00+00:00) Photographer files lawsuit against NFL player, teams following assault, (2023-06-05 12:09:00+00:00) Assault charge dropped against NFL player who shoved photographer",Assault,,,,Park Zebley (Unidentified production company),,2022-10-10,False,Kansas City,Missouri (MO),39.09973,-94.57857,"Photographer Park Zebley was shoved to the ground by Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams after a Monday Night Football game in Kansas City, Missouri, on Oct. 10, 2022.
In footage published by SportsCenter and shared widely, Adams can be seen pushing Zebley with two hands following a 30-29 Raiders loss.
Davante Adams was visibly upset after the Raiders’ loss to the Chiefs. pic.twitter.com/XW2fmx6adJ
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 11, 2022
When reached by email, Zebley declined to comment and referred the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to his attorney, Dan Curry. Curry said Zebley is a college student who had just started working for a local production company that provides content to ESPN. He did not identify the name of the production company.
In a written statement, Curry said it was the photographer’s first day on the job and he had been given the task of carrying equipment for a camera operator.
After arranging transportation to the hospital, Zebley filed a police report with the Kansas City Police Department. In an emailed statement to the Tracker, a KCPD spokesperson said Zebley’s injuries were thought to be non-life threatening and the incident is being investigated.
Zebley’s attorney confirmed that the photographer suffered a headache, whiplash and was still recovering from a concussion.
After the incident, Adams apologized for his behavior, saying he was frustrated by the loss and was surprised when Zebley “jumped” in front of him, ESPN reported.
A Kansas City Municipal Court public information officer told the Tracker that Adams was charged with assault under a city ordinance on Oct. 12. According to the ordinance, he faces up to six months of jail time or a fine of up to $500. The citation, also shared with the Tracker by KCPD, identifies him as Ryan Zebley. His attorney said Park is his name.
The Raiders receiver is also facing possible suspension from the NFL, according to ESPN. He is scheduled to appear in Kansas City Municipal Court on Nov. 10.
“What happened was egregiously unsportsmanlike and an act of violence that should not be excused by the NFL,” Zebley said in a statement provided by his attorney.
Editor’s note: The article was updated with a clarifying statement from a Kansas City Municipal Court public information officer around the type of assault. Davante Adams was charged under a city ordinance, not a state statute as previously reported.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal filed a motion for a protective order on Sept. 26, 2022, arguing that authorities should be barred from searching the electronic devices seized as part of the investigation into the murder of reporter Jeff German.
German, who had covered crime and political corruption in Las Vegas for more than 40 years, was stabbed outside his home on Sept. 2. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested on suspicion of murder less than a week later and is being held without bail awaiting trial.
According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, both Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson contacted the Review-Journal, alerting the newspaper to the seizure of German’s devices and requesting a waiver to allow authorities to search them.
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
In total, officers seized an iPhone, three iMacs, a Macbook and an external hard drive from German’s home, according to the motion. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told the newspaper in writing on Sept. 16 that the devices had not been searched and would not be until the court issued an order authorizing the review.
Ashley Kissinger, an attorney representing the newspaper, sent a letter to the Metro Police Department, the Clark County public defender representing Telles and the District Attorney’s Office on Sept. 21 listing their concerns and requesting a call to further discuss the issue. Kissinger sent a follow up letter two days later proposing a resolution before resorting to filing a motion for a protective order.
When reached for comment, Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook provided a copy of the motion and declined to comment further.
The letters and the motion filed on the Review-Journal’s behalf on Sept. 26 argue that German’s contacts, communications and work product are protected from seizure and review under Nevada’s shield law and the federal Privacy Protection Act.
“The Review-Journal appreciates the efforts of law enforcement to investigate the murder of Mr. German, and of all those seeking to ensure that justice is done for this horrific crime,” the motion states. “However, the newspaper has serious and urgent concerns about the protection of confidential sources and other unpublished journalistic work product contained in the Seized Devices.”
The motion further requests that the court allow the Review-Journal to review the devices, identify the newsgathering materials contained on them and determine whether it wishes to waive its privilege concerning any of the files.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the Tracker, expressed its support for the newspaper.
“A murder investigation should not be used as a pretext to access unreported source material that should be protected by both the First Amendment and Nevada’s shield law,” CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen said in a statement. “If law enforcement were to gain access to decades of Jeff German’s unpublished work, including sensitive source material, it would make an already difficult situation even worse.”
According to the court filing, a hearing on the motion is scheduled for Sept. 28.
A portion of the motion filed on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal seeking to protect the newsgathering materials contained on multiple devices seized from slain reporter Jeff German’s home in September 2022.
",None,None,None,None,False,A-22-859361-C,['ONGOING'],Civil,in custody,True,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,Journalist,warrant,State,None,False,[],,,,, 2022-12-27 18:51:46.479469+00:00,2023-05-22 16:11:23.929453+00:00,"Filmmaker detained, pressured to delete footage",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/filmmaker-detained-pressured-to-delete-footage/,2023-05-22 16:11:23.838135+00:00,,,(2023-05-16 12:09:00+00:00) Filmmaker files lawsuit against City of Atlanta following detainment,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Michael Watchulonis (Independent),,2022-06-15,False,Atlanta,Georgia (GA),33.749,-84.38798,"A documentary filmmaker was detained by Atlanta Police Department officers while filming in a forest southeast of Atlanta, Georgia, on June 15, 2022, according to a news report and an interview with the journalist.
The filmmaker — who has produced work for CNN and Discovery Channel — asked to remain anonymous out of concern of retribution. He told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he had begun working on a documentary about the Defend the Atlanta Forest campaign, a grassroots movement against the destruction of forest area to make way for a 85-acre police training facility.
“On that day in particular I had seen on social media that the police were in the forest cutting trees and looking for protesters so I decided to take my cameras and go down,” the filmmaker said. “The protesters in the forest were all hiding, so I didn’t see any of them that day. I walked through the forest and I came to a clearing and I saw the police down the hill on a dirt road in the forest.”
The filmmaker said that he was standing approximately 50 to 80 yards away from the officers and began filming.
“I was standing right in the middle of the road, I was not hiding, I had my vest on that was clearly marked with large patches, front and back, ‘PRESS’,” he said. “And when they approached me I did not run, I did not do anything other than identify myself as a journalist.”
The officers informed him that he was trespassing and that he needed to leave the area. As he began walking in the direction the officers had indicated, the filmmaker said more officers arrived on an all-terrain vehicle and told him that he was being detained.
The filmmaker told the Tracker he was alarmed by the behavior of the officer who seemed to be a supervisor and who had initially told him he was under arrest for trespassing.
“I have no doubt that he’s done this before and he’s confident that he can intimidate a journalist with impunity,” the journalist said.
After examining his ID for 15 minutes, another officer was called in and took the lead in questioning him, at first about what he was doing in the area and then more extensively about his reporting and what he had filmed.
“Everything seemed to stop at that point,” the filmmaker said.
“The next 30 to 40 minutes was all about, ‘We want to see your footage. Delete your footage. We want to see your footage. You might be going to jail. You’re going to be arrested,’” he said. “They were just continually trying to intimidate me into deleting my footage or showing it to them.”
In footage of the incident, an officer tells the filmmaker his responses could determine his ability to walk away.
“I’m going to ask you to delete all the footage that you have today since it was obtained illegally,” the officer says. “And depending on how the rest of this interview goes, will determine whether or not you’re going to be arrested.”
The filmmaker said he believed the officer to be from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The journalist repeatedly refused to show them or delete the footage, and said he was released after approximately 90 minutes with a warning not to return.
Drago Cepar, an attorney advising the filmmaker, told the Tracker that it is clear the detainment was in retaliation for the journalist exercising his First Amendment rights.
“I think if you detain somebody and tell them they have to delete their footage or else, it’s pretty clear that’s what’s going on,” Cepar said. “I think it’s a pretty egregious situation.”
The APD announced that it would investigate the detainment in December, according to SaportaReport. When emailed for comment, APD’s Public Affairs Office responded with an automated reply that it was operating on holiday on-call capacity, and that it would follow up.
The executive editor of a Chicago-based news publication filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts on June 13, 2022, over access to a meeting of the Tennessee Judicial Conference.
According to the Tennessean, Dan McCaleb, executive editor of The Center Square, learned on June 6 of a new policy put forth by Michelle Long, the Director of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts, preventing the public and members of the media from attending the annual meetings.
The annual conference comprises the state’s active and retired judges who meet to consider laws, draft legislation and make recommendations to the state’s general assembly. Court documents obtained by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker shows that Long, named in the lawsuit in her official capacity, approved the policy on Feb. 1, to “ensure the safety and security of conference attendees, staff, and invited speakers during AOC conferences.”
In the lawsuit, McCaleb argues that the policy violates his First Amendment right to assign reporters to cover “future Tennessee Judicial Conference meetings either virtually or in person,” and “limits necessary transparency around the state court rulemaking process.” McCaleb added that the yearly meetings “played a significant and positive role in the rulemaking process regarding federal court policy.”
During an emergency hearing on June 15, two days after McCaleb filed the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw declined to order this year’s Tennessee Judicial Conference to be opened to the public and media. Instead, according to the Tennessean, Crenshaw sided with the state’s Deputy Attorney General Janet Kleinfelter, who testified during the hearing that the conference meetings would be “entirely educational” for the attendees. While the conference will not be open to the public, McCaleb’s lawsuit will continue in federal court and can argue for future meetings to be open if the meetings discuss public policy.
In response to a request for comment, Barbara Peck, the Director of Communications for the Tennessee State Courts, directed the Tracker to the state’s filing opposing the temporary restraining order filed by McCaleb. In it, Long argues that “while the First Amendment right of access covers certain judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings and records filed in those proceedings, neither the Sixth Circuit nor the Supreme Court has ever recognized a First Amendment right of access to meetings of a state judiciary such as the TJC.”
McCaleb did not respond to requests for comment.
Independent journalist Justin Pulliam was arrested and his equipment seized while filming a mental health check by Fort Bend County Sheriff’s deputies in Damon, Texas, on Dec. 21, 2021. He was charged with interference with public duties but the initial proceedings ended in a mistrial in March 2023. In the interim, Pulliam filed a federal lawsuit against the county.
Pulliam lives in Fort Bend County near Houston and independently reports on local government and law enforcement for his social media channels, including on YouTube and Facebook. According to his lawsuit, Pulliam followed officers to a remote corner of the county where they were conducting a wellness check on a man whose case Pulliam had been following for several years.
“Justin had recorded previous [sheriff’s office] interactions with the mentally ill man and believed officers had a history of unnecessarily escalating their responses to him,” the lawsuit stated.
Pulliam began filming from a gas station located approximately 130 feet from the man’s home after receiving permission from his mother, according to his footage from the incident. At some point, a deputy informed the other officers via radio that Pulliam had arrived, identifying him by name and as a “local journalist,” Pulliam’s lawsuit stated.
Moments after two mental health advocates arrived at the scene, a deputy approached and first directed only Pulliam and then the advocates to go across the street. Pulliam began walking toward the street, but turned to resume filming when the advocates began speaking to the officer.
Seconds later, the officer again directed Pulliam to leave; Pulliam responded that he had a right to be there as long as the other bystanders were permitted to remain. As the officer began walking toward him while counting down from five, Pulliam’s footage shows him backing up further until the officer reached him and placed him under arrest.
During the booking process, Sheriff Eric Fagan and the chief deputy took Pulliam into a room and attempted to question him, according to his lawsuit. When he refused to speak without an attorney, both reportedly became agitated and indicated that the booking process would continue, according to the lawsuit.
Pulliam was released after several hours once his $500 bail was posted. His equipment — which included a hand-held camera, body camera and cellphone — remained in police custody. The majority of the equipment was returned on Jan. 7, 2022, though the sheriff’s office continued to hold his body camera, memory cards and cellphone.
A week later, officers obtained search warrants for the memory cards and body camera, arguing that they held evidence of Pulliam’s alleged interference with public duties. A grand jury indicted Pulliam on May 16, 2022.
Pulliam’s case went to trial on March 28, 2023, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. It was ruled a mistrial after one of the six jurors held that Pulliam should be convicted while the other jurors voted to acquit, confirmed Christie Hebert, one of the attorneys at the public interest law firm Institute for Justice representing Pulliam in his federal suit.
Wesley Wittig, second assistant district attorney for Fort Bend County, told the Tracker that no new trial date has been requested.
For Pulliam, it has been a life-altering experience. “It’s not just the arrest and one police officer,” Pulliam told the Tracker in July 2023. “It’s like the whole system is out to get you. And so that, taken as a whole, is very chilling. It makes me scared to really do much of any filming in this county.”
The Institute for Justice filed the civil rights lawsuit on Pulliam’s behalf on Dec. 5, 2022, against the county, Sheriff Fagan and four others in the sheriff’s office. The suit alleges violations of Pulliam’s First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights by arresting him and seizing his equipment, as well as by barring him from one of the sheriff’s press conferences in July 2021.
On June 29, 2023, District Judge David Hittner denied the county’s motion to dismiss the majority of Pulliam’s claims. Hittner ruled that Pulliam had sufficiently argued that he had been singled out for exercising his First Amendment rights and that the officers are not protected by qualified immunity at this time.
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment when reached in July 2023, citing the ongoing litigation.
Hebert said in a statement following the ruling that Hittner recognized the gravity of Pulliam’s claims.
“The heart of the First Amendment is the right to speak out about government, and Fort Bend County does not get to pick and choose who will cover their activities,” Hebert said.
Hebert told the Tracker that the case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in early 2024.
Independent journalist Justin Pulliam was arrested by a Fort Bend County Sheriff’s deputy while documenting a mental health call on Dec. 21, 2021. A year later, Pulliam filed a civil rights lawsuit against the sheriff’s office.
",arrested and released,Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office,None,None,False,4:22-cv-04210,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in part,True,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,Journalist,warrant,State,None,False,None,,,,, 2021-12-07 20:51:40.432682+00:00,2023-11-03 18:10:10.144717+00:00,"Photojournalist arrested, equipment seized while documenting homeless encampment",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-arrested-equipment-seized-while-documenting-homeless-encampment/,2023-11-03 18:10:09.904030+00:00,"assault: battery on a police officer with injury (charges dropped as of 2021-12-28), obstruction: resisting an executive officer (charges dropped as of 2021-12-28), assault: battery on a police officer (charges dropped as of 2021-12-28)",LegalOrder object (164),"(2021-12-09 12:33:00+00:00) Police obtain search warrant after seizing photojournalist’s equipment during an arrest, (2021-12-28 11:42:00+00:00) No charges for photojournalist arrested while reporting on Sausalito homeless encampment, (2022-02-21 09:51:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues city, police following arrest while reporting on Sausalito homeless encampment","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Search or Seizure, Subpoena/Legal Order",,"cellphone: count of 1, external battery: count of 1, recording equipment: count of 3, camera: count of 1, storage device: count of 2, camera equipment: count of 1, camera lens: count of 1",,Jeremy Portje (Freelance),,2021-11-30,False,Sausalito,California (CA),37.85909,-122.48525,"Freelance photojournalist Jeremy Portje was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors and a felony while documenting a homeless encampment in Sausalito, California, on Nov. 30, 2021, according to an officer from the Sausalito Police Department.
Portje was filming for a documentary about homelessness in Marin County, according to the Pacific Sun, a weekly newspaper in the county. A witness identified as a volunteer at the encampment told the Pacific Sun that an officer was following Portje and deliberately stood in front of his camera as he tried to film.
The volunteer told the newspaper an officer grabbed Portje’s camera without provocation, and appeared to accidentally hit himself with the equipment.
“The officer reacted to the camera hitting him,” the volunteer told the Pacific Sun. “He started punching Jeremy.”
Portje attempted to defend himself from the blows but was quickly forced to the ground and placed under arrest, the newspaper reported. At some point during the altercation the officer threw Portje’s camera to the ground. No equipment damage was mentioned in initial reports of the incident.
In footage of Portje’s arrest published by the Pacific Sun, the photojournalist can be heard saying, “Why are they doing this? Because I asked them questions?”
Neither Portje nor his attorney responded to requests for comment.
Portje’s camera can be seen lying on the pavement behind him as two officers work to place him in handcuffs while a third keeps the growing crowd back as voices can be heard shouting “let him go” and “don’t hurt him.”
An officer from the Sausalito Police Department told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Portje was arrested shortly after 5 p.m. and charged with resisting an executive officer, battery on a police officer and battery on a police officer with injury. If convicted on all charges, Portje faces up to $5,000 in fines, three years imprisonment or both.
Charles Dresow, a criminal defense attorney representing Portje, told the Pacific Sun the photojournalist spent the night in jail and was released the following morning on $15,000 bail.
“My journalist client ended up on the ground,” Dresow said. “It’s clear the Sausalito police used force to arrest a journalist. To say this is an outrage of constitutional proportions is an understatement.”
When reached for comment, Sausalito Mayor Jill Hoffman told the Tracker officers were called to the park to respond to a disturbance and that Portje had interfered with police activity, injuring a police sergeant in the process.
“We have shown that we support and respect the right to free speech,” Hoffman said. “What is unacceptable is impeding a police investigation and injuring a member of our department.”
Hoffman confirmed that Portje’s camera equipment was seized as evidence.
The Pacific Sun reported that the three officers who arrested him were the same officers who arrested two homeless people for camping in a park two weeks prior. According to the newspaper, Portje had recently made a public records request for the body camera footage from that incident.
Journalist Lev Omelchenko, arrested on Sept. 8, 2021, while filming a protest in Atlanta, has since filed a lawsuit against the city and two police officers.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2023, states that Omelchenko, an independent documentary filmmaker, was arrested while recording a protest outside the Atlanta home of then-City Councilmember Natalyn Archibong as she took part in a virtual council meeting. Four protesters also arrested have filed similar lawsuits.
The Atlanta City Council, at its meeting, approved the lease for a controversial public safety training center for the Atlanta Police Department. Opponents of the center, who dubbed it “Cop City,” allege that the 85-acre, $90 million facility will harm the environment and contribute to the militarization of the police in the Atlanta area.
According to Omelchenko’s lawsuit, around 12 people were holding cardboard signs and chanting in front of Archibong’s home. Omelchenko was “present at the site of this protest but did not participate in the protest itself,” the suit states, adding that he was “not chanting but was present in his role as a filmmaker to film the protest.” The suit notes that the protesters and Omelchenko were “standing or striding as near as practicable to an outside edge of the roadway” on a street without sidewalks or shoulder.
About 20 minutes after police arrived, officers told the protesters that they were in violation of the noise ordinance, the suit says. Soon after, officers told the protesters that they were obstructing traffic and ordered them to leave. After a few minutes of walking back and forth, the protesters decided to leave. At that time, one of the officers ordered the arrest of the protesters.
Olemchenko was also arrested, the lawsuit says, despite the fact that he “was not participating in the protest, was not chanting, but was instead filming the entire time” and “clearly informed the officers of same.”
Omelchenko was charged with “pedestrian walking in roadway,” a misdemeanor, and released on his own recognizance on Sept. 9, 2021, according to his arrest report and court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He pleaded not guilty on Oct. 27, 2021, and the case was transferred from Atlanta Municipal Court to Fulton State Court.
According to the lawsuit, “The Fulton County Solicitor’s Office never filed an accusation in Plaintiff’s case and therefore no criminal prosecution against this Plaintiff is currently pending.” It went on to state that “based on this information and belief – and although the case was never formally dismissed – Plaintiff believes that Fulton County Solicitor’s Office has decided not to prosecute his case.”
The solicitor’s office, when asked for an update on the case, told the Tracker that the case was handled in the Municipal Court of Atlanta. Fulton County, in response to an open records request, said, “We have no record of this case as of yet.”
Drago Cepar Jr., an attorney representing Omelchenko in the lawsuit, had no further comment when reached by phone.
The lawsuit alleges that Omelchenko was falsely arrested in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights, and that the detention was retaliation for exercising his right to film the protest.
It further asserts that the filmmaker was arrested “because officers believed that he shared the views of the protesters” and accuses the city of failing to properly train police officers and of routinely arresting protesters “under the pretext of violating pedestrian in the roadway laws.”
The suit seeks damages and the recovery of attorneys fees and other expenses.
A protester is detained during demonstrations in Atlanta over a planned police training center on Jan. 21, 2023. Filmmaker Lev Omelchenko sued the City of Atlanta and police after his arrest while covering a 2021 protest against the center.
",arrested and released,Atlanta Police Department,2021-09-09,2021-09-08,False,1:23-cv-04041,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"environmentalism, protest",,, 2023-07-25 18:30:11.516511+00:00,2023-12-20 21:11:59.917890+00:00,"Texas journalist barred from briefing by sheriff, files civil rights suit",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/texas-journalist-barred-from-briefing-by-sheriff-files-civil-rights-suit/,2023-12-20 21:11:59.795363+00:00,,,,Denial of Access,,,,Justin Pulliam (Independent),,2021-07-12,False,Richmond,Texas (TX),29.58218,-95.76078,"Independent journalist Justin Pulliam was barred from attending an open-air press conference by Fort Bend County Sheriff Eric Fagan in Richmond, Texas, on July 12, 2021. Pulliam subsequently filed a civil rights suit against the county and members of the sheriff’s office over the barring and a later arrest.
Pulliam lives in Fort Bend County near Houston and independently reports on local government and law enforcement for his social media channels, including on YouTube and Facebook. According to the lawsuit, he arrived at Jones Creek Ranch Park to film as officers responded to reports of a submerged vehicle connected to a missing persons case.
Sheriff’s deputies closed the park, directing Pulliam and other media to a designated area at its entrance for a press conference with a representative of the sheriff's office. Afterward, Pulliam went to his vehicle but returned when Fagan approached the designated area, according to his footage from that day.
Fagan was then filmed gesturing in Pulliam’s direction and saying, in part, “... if he don’t do it, arrest him. He’s not a part of the local media so he has to go back.” Moments later, two officers — identified in the lawsuit as Robert Hartfield and Jonathan Garcia — approached Pulliam, saying, “You are not media, so at the sheriff’s request could you step back this way with us please.”
Hartfield then gestured in the direction of Pulliam’s vehicle and escorted him approximately 85 feet away, where Pulliam said he could not hear what was being said by Fagan or the other journalists, according to the lawsuit.
Public interest law firm Institute for Justice filed the lawsuit on Pulliam’s behalf on Dec. 5, 2022, against the county, Fagan and four others. The suit alleges violations of his First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights by barring him from the July 2021 press conference, as well as by arresting him and seizing his equipment during a subsequent incident in December 2021.
“The Defendants did not have a compelling, or even legitimate, governmental interest in removing Justin from the open-air press conference, which occurred at a public park,” the lawsuit stated. “Instead, the Defendants removed Justin because they did not deem him a member of the media, disagreed with his viewpoint, and disliked that he was critical of the police both earlier that day and in his work generally.”
Pulliam told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the experience has significantly chilled his willingness to cover incidents involving the sheriff’s office or to attend its press conferences.
“I basically don’t film Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office anymore; I’ve greatly reduced my direct coverage of filming live police incidents,” Pulliam said.
On June 29, 2023, District Judge David Hittner denied the county’s motion to dismiss the majority of Pulliam’s claims. Hittner ruled that Pulliam had sufficiently argued that he had been singled out for exercising his First Amendment rights and that the officers are not protected by qualified immunity at this time.
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment when reached in July 2023, citing the ongoing litigation.
Christie Hebert, one of the attorneys at the Institute for Justice representing Pulliam, said in a statement following the ruling that Hittner recognized the gravity of Pulliam’s claims.
“The heart of the First Amendment is the right to speak out about government, and Fort Bend County does not get to pick and choose who will cover their activities,” Hebert said.
Hebert told the Tracker that the case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in early 2024.
Independent journalist Justin Pulliam reviews footage from a law enforcement investigation in Richmond, Texas, on July 12, 2021. A local sheriff ordered officers to bar Pulliam from attending a press conference about the investigation that day.
",None,None,None,None,False,4:22-cv-04210,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,['GOVERNMENT_EVENTS'],,,,,Law enforcement: Local 2021-07-09 18:43:52.678964+00:00,2024-03-12 20:22:31.533250+00:00,"Journalist shoved, his camera damaged, while covering Portland protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-shoved-his-camera-damaged-while-covering-portland-protest/,2024-03-12 20:22:31.332918+00:00,,,(2022-06-27 00:00:00+00:00) Oregon video journalist files suit over Portland police assaults,"Assault, Equipment Damage",,,recording equipment: count of 1,Mason Lake (Independent),,2021-06-25,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent video journalist Mason Lake said a Portland police officer shoved him with a baton and damaged his on-camera microphone while he was covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on June 25, 2021.
According to The Oregonian, protesters gathered near the Oregon Convention Center after a Portland police officer shot and killed a man outside a Motel 6. Some demonstrators shouted for officers to quit their jobs, while officers stood facing the protesters with shields and batons. The Portland Police Bureau on Twitter said officers throughout the city responded to help with “scene security.” A few days earlier on June 16, all of the officers with the Portland Police Bureau's Rapid Response Team resigned together following news of investigations for excessive force, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
“The PPB maced & fired 40mm rounds into a crowd of protestors gathered on NE Grand Ave,” Lake wrote on Twitter at 12:04 p.m. on June 25, alongside a video of officers shoving and spraying demonstrators. At the 19-second mark, it appears that an officer physically knocked the camera, cutting the audio for the rest of the clip.
“I was on the front line and I was nearly bear-maced before being physically shoved by & officer with a baton,” Lake wrote the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a text message. “He hit/shoved me marking my neck & hitting my on-camera microphone damaging it.” He also tweeted a photograph of his neck with a red mark across the middle and said he had multiple “press” markings across his clothes and helmet, as well as a National Press Photographers Association badge on his front strap.
A PPB officer hit/shoved me with a baton, marking the skin on my neck & damaged my on-camera microphone while I was filming them push/mace the crowd of protestors gathered tonight by the Portland Convention Center after a shooting report. #portland #police #assault #press pic.twitter.com/rDlWYPiYSl
— Mason Lake Media (@MasonLakePhoto) June 25, 2021
“The officer issued no orders for press to move or go to designated area,” he added.
PPB didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
A group of police officers surround demonstrators during a protest on Oct. 1, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Journalist Mason Lake was shoved by police and had equipment damaged while documenting protests there in June 2021.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,protest,,, 2024-01-10 21:01:18.198096+00:00,2024-01-10 21:01:18.198096+00:00,"Jersey City Times sues mayor, city after removal from press list",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/jersey-city-times-sues-mayor-city-after-removal-from-press-list/,2024-01-10 19:52:06.174286+00:00,,,,Denial of Access,,,,,,2021-05-20,False,Jersey City,New Jersey (NJ),40.72816,-74.07764,"The Jersey City Times was removed from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s press list after publishing a May 20, 2021, story critical of Fulop’s claims that his administration had reduced crime in the city. As a result, the local news site stopped receiving media advisories, news releases and invitations to news conferences and other official events, the outlet said.
The Times and its publisher and editor-in-chief, Aaron Morrill, subsequently sued the city, Fulop and his press secretary, Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione, in federal court on Dec. 18, 2023, alleging that the outlet had been denied access in retaliation for the 2021 report.
Morrill told the Times, which has been covering Jersey City news since he founded the site in 2019, that the outlet had a “relatively good relationship” with the mayor’s office until May 2021. “After the story, it was radio silence. We received no media advisories, press releases, nothing.”
The Times noted in its suit that in 2019, Wallace-Scalcione had offered to meet with the outlet and said its reporters “are fantastic to work with.” However, after the May 2021 article, both the mayor and his press secretary were critical of the Times’ coverage. Citing emails obtained via public records requests, the suit quoted Fulop describing the Times as “not a real news outlet,” and Wallace-Scalcione alleging that the outlet had a “political agenda against the Mayor.”
The mayor’s office did not respond to Morrill’s emails asking that the Times be restored to the press list, according to the suit. This continued until Jennifer Borg, a lawyer with Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic who is representing the outlet, sent a protest letter to the city’s attorneys on April 7, 2022.
In the months after that letter was sent, the Times said it began to receive news releases again — often about events after they occurred — but still failed to receive media advisories and invitations to official events such as news conferences.
Attorneys for the Times sent a follow-up letter on July 25, 2023, stating that the city’s actions violated the outlet’s constitutional rights and asking again for it to be restored to the press list. It did not receive a response.
The Times’ attorneys sent another letter to the city on Nov. 24, 2023. Then, on Dec. 14, the city’s attorneys responded, stating that the Times “is already added to the press list for the City of Jersey City and will receive future press releases and media advisories.” However, according to the suit, the Times did not receive an emailed invitation to a news conference that was sent to other news organizations the next day.
The Times said it continued to receive “only sporadic and belated notices of local events” and did not receive “a single invitation to a press conference or event to which other members of the press have been invited.”
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, accused the defendants of violating the First and 14th Amendment rights of both the Times and of Morrill, who wrote the May 2021 story, and of violating their due process rights and their rights under New Jersey’s constitution.
It alleges that the defendants treated the Times differently than other news organizations that retained access to the mayor’s office and that it retaliated against the outlet based on its critical reporting. It also noted that the city did not publish criteria for the press list.
The suit asks for the plaintiffs to be restored to the press list and that they be provided with the same “information and access” as other news organizations and journalists.
Wallace-Scalcione, in a statement emailed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the Times “was notified before the lawsuit that they were on the email list to receive all press releases and have been.”
Morrill told the Tracker in an email that two days after the suit was filed he received his first media advisory from the mayor’s office since May 2021, but that it was “unclear” if this would continue.
Morrill also described the detrimental effects of the outlet’s removal from the press list, saying, “It’s impossible to know how many leads for stories might have come from attending the events we missed or how many contacts we might have made.”
He added, “Having to reconstruct a story about the opening of a new homeless shelter or what was said at a press conference from press reports isn’t the kind of journalism we want to do. Being hours and sometimes days behind because you weren’t there hurts us in the eyes of our readers and hurts our site traffic to boot.”
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop delivers the State of the City address on April 5, 2023. The Jersey City Times sued Fulop, his press secretary and the city on Dec. 18, 2023, after the outlet was removed from the press list in May 2021.
",None,None,None,None,False,2:23-cv-23197,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,"['GOVERNMENT_EVENTS', 'PRESS_CREDENTIAL']",Jersey City Times,,,,Local government: Mayor 2021-05-07 14:19:18.055768+00:00,2024-03-10 23:16:45.677274+00:00,"Photojournalist assaulted, detained while covering Brooklyn Center protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-assaulted-detained-while-covering-brooklyn-center-protest/,2024-03-10 23:16:45.566758+00:00,,,"(2022-02-08 12:09:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks, (2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Freelance photojournalist sues following assault while covering Brooklyn Center protest","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage",,,camera: count of 1,Tim Evans (Freelance),,2021-04-16,False,Brooklyn Center,Minnesota (MN),45.07608,-93.33273,"Freelance photojournalist Tim Evans told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was assaulted by multiple law enforcement officers and detained while reporting on a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 16, 2021.
Evans was one of at least 10 journalists detained that night, according to reports given to the Tracker, noted on social media or published in other news outlets.
Several hundred protesters had marched to the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, by a white police officer during a traffic stop. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier. According to state officials, a coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Minnesota State Patrol, and the Brooklyn Center Police Department, was involved in enforcement that night.
Evans, whose work has been published by the European Pressphoto Agency, the Guardian, NPR and other outlets, told the Tracker he arrived to cover the protests earlier in the evening. The demonstration was peaceful, he said, though a few people in the crowd shook the fence around the police station or threw a water bottle at law enforcement. Evans said he heard law enforcement announce an order to disperse at 9:45 p.m. Shortly after 10, he said, law enforcement moved swiftly to form a “kettle,” a crowd-control tactic in which officers block people from leaving.
As law enforcement closed in around the crowd, Evans said, dozens of Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies moved out from behind a fence that surrounded the Brooklyn Center police station, tackling people and spraying them with chemical agents “indiscriminately.”
Evans said that after he’d photographed an officer tackle someone to the ground in front of him, he’d looked to his right, toward a group of other photojournalists. When he turned to look back to his left, he said, he saw a sheriff’s deputy running directly at him. Evans said the officer, about 5 feet away, sprayed him in the face with a chemical agent he believes was mace.
Evans, who was wearing a helmet and goggles, said he dropped to his knees and held up his press credential in one hand and one of his cameras in the other; his credential, he said, is a card he made himself that features his name and photo and states “press” on the top and “photojournalist” on the bottom. In addition to his credential, he said, he had a label fixed to his backpack that identified him as “PRESS.”
Evans said that while he was still kneeling, he took a photograph of another photojournalist being confronted by a law enforcement officer. Right after taking the frame, he said, he heard someone shout, “Get on the ground!”
Evans said he then looked to his left and saw a sheriff charging at him. He said he held out his press credential and shouted to identify himself as press, but the officer proceeded to tackle him onto his back and punch him in the face. Evans said his face was largely protected because the brunt of the blow hit the padded goggles he was wearing.
The officer then ordered him to roll over onto his stomach, Evans said, and told him he was under arrest.
Evans said he complied, continuing to tell the officer he was a journalist. The officer, he said, ignored him and told him to “shut up.” While lying on his stomach, on top of his camera, Evans said he held his press credential over his shoulder. He said the officer grabbed the card, unsnapping the clasp on the lanyard, and threw the pass facedown.
“He rips it off and just, like, throws it into the ground and tells me he doesn’t give a fuck who I am, he doesn’t care if I’m media, and that I should have left when I had a chance,” Evans told the Tracker.
Evans said the officer kneeled on his back and used a shield to push down on him. At that point, Evans said, it seemed clear the officer was not going to release him because he was a journalist, so Evans said he started to try and attract the attention of other law enforcement nearby.
Evans said another officer soon came up to them and asked the deputy if Evans was being arrested. Evans said he tried to tell the new officer that he was press. The new officer told him to “shut the fuck up” and smashed the back of Evans’ helmet, thrusting his face into the dirt. Evans said he could not clearly see this officer, but he believes it was also a sheriff’s deputy.
Evans’ hands were restrained with zip-tie cuffs behind his back, he said. After a few minutes on the ground, he said, he was raised to his feet and brought to sit on a curb.
About 10 minutes later, he said, another officer, who Evans believes was a Minnesota State Patrol trooper, came by and offered to make adjustments so he would be more comfortable. He said he told her he shouldn’t be there because he was a member of the press.
The officer looked at his credential and asked him about who he worked for. Evans said she then went to speak to a lieutenant. When she returned, she said they would let him go, “as long as I agreed to leave the area, and not continue to cover,” Evans said.
“I agreed because at that point, you know, I was not in a position to make demands, I suppose,” he told the Tracker.
He said the officer cut the zip-ties and escorted him to the police perimeter, about a block away, where he was allowed to go.
Evans said he does not believe he was targeted by the first officer, who sprayed the chemical agent at him. “But everything from that point on felt targeted,” he told the Tracker.
Evans said he felt the second officer who attacked him “became more aggressive when he realized that I was a member of the media.”
Evans said the spray left him with rashes on his face, though the impact was mitigated because he was wearing personal protective equipment. His helmet and goggles also protected him from the impact of the punch and having his head shoved into the ground, he said. He said he had scratches on his hands, which he thinks were from the scuffle, but he did not require any medical attention.
The body of one of his cameras was scuffed, the screen protector was broken, and a rubber thumb grip was ripped off, he said. He said his equipment, including his lenses, is all still functional.
Evans’ detainment came hours after a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order barring Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or using force against journalists, in response to a motion filed earlier in the week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
Evans wrote a declaration about his experience, which the ACLU presented with a letter to the court the following day. He told the Tracker he is planning to file a formal complaint with relevant law enforcement agencies and is considering other action.
A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office told the Tracker that the department is aware of the incident and is investigating whether any of its staff were involved. He declined to comment further, pending the determination of the investigation. Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.
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 here.
Photojournalist Tim Evans was detained while covering an April 16, 2021, protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Evans said the officer who detained him kneeled on his back and used a shield to push down on him.
",detained and released without being processed,Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department,None,None,True,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2021, chemical irritant, protest",,, 2021-05-10 15:35:51.521838+00:00,2024-03-10 23:16:54.532951+00:00,"Photojournalist threatened, assaulted by Minnesota State Patrol while covering Brooklyn Center protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-threatened-assaulted-by-minnesota-state-patrol-while-covering-brooklyn-center-protest/,2024-03-10 23:16:54.434112+00:00,,,"(2022-02-08 12:06:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks, (2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Freelance photojournalist sues following assault while covering Brooklyn Center protest",Assault,,,,Chris Tuite (Independent),,2021-04-16,False,Brooklyn Center,Minnesota (MN),45.07608,-93.33273,"Minnesota State Patrol troopers assaulted and threatened to arrest independent photojournalist Chris Tuite while he documented protests in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 16, 2021, according to a letter to a judge by the ACLU of Minnesota.
Demonstrators had gathered in front of the Brooklyn Center Police Department following the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black man, who was fatally shot by a white police officer on April 11. On April 16, Minnesota District Judge Wilhelmina Wright granted a motion for a temporary restraining order barring all local law-enforcement agencies from arresting, threatening to arrest, using physical force against or seizing the equipment of journalists documenting the demonstrations.
ACLU of Minnesota’s Legal Director Teresa Nelson sent a letter to Judge Wright the following day, saying: “Last night, hours after the TRO took effect, the State Defendants escalated the level of assault and harassment of journalists to an intolerable degree.”
Tuite was listed among the journalists affected in the ACLU letter, which Tuite confirmed in an interview with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Tuite told the Tracker that he was taking photos of Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies arresting freelance photojournalist Tim Evans when he was suddenly confronted by other law-enforcement officers.
“I was taking a photo of an officer kneeling on Evans’ back and that’s when I got grabbed,” Tuite said. “Someone was verbally threatening me and then an officer grabbed me from behind and told me that I was under arrest.” Tuite said that the officer pulled him hard enough to rip the neck of his shirt.
“As soon as that happened another cop came over and grabbed me by the arm and ripped me away from the first cop and told me to go north, which is what I had been trying to do anyway,” Tuite said. “I got around the corner of the apartment complex to the north and got jumped by five more officers, one put pepper spray right in my face and screamed, ‘What the fuck do you not understand? Go fucking north. This was your one free pass. Are you fucking stupid? Go now or I’ll arrest you.’”
Tuite was ultimately directed to a “media checkpoint” at a nearby gas station, where members of the press had their faces, press passes and state identifications photographed before they were permitted to leave the area.
“To get out of their kettle, we had to take off our gas masks and helmets and hand them our media passes and IDs. They took photos of our faces up close and then of our IDs and media passes,” Tuite said. “They told us nothing of what they were going to do with the photos, and they essentially brushed it off as, ‘We just want to make sure you guys are legit.’”
Tuite told the Tracker that his press pass was around his neck and he was carrying several cameras, and that he was certain the officers were aware he was a journalist as they specifically said to him, “Media: Get out of here!”
The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being 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 here.
Law enforcement at a protest in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center on April 16, 2021, after the police killing of Daunte Wright. Photojournalist Chris Tuite was grabbed, threatened and photographed by law enforcement while documenting the protest.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2021, protest",,, 2021-05-10 17:59:39.563165+00:00,2024-02-21 15:18:50.761555+00:00,"Officers point weapons at photojournalist, pull him out of car at Brooklyn Center protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/officers-point-weapons-at-photojournalist-pull-him-out-of-car-at-brooklyn-center-protest/,2024-02-21 15:18:50.346557+00:00,,,"(2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Freelance photojournalist sues following assault while covering Brooklyn Center protest, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks, (2022-02-08 12:05:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing",Assault,,,,Chris Tuite (Independent),,2021-04-13,False,Brooklyn Center,Minnesota (MN),45.07608,-93.33273,"Chris Tuite, a freelance photojournalist, said law enforcement officers aimed firearms at him and pulled him from a vehicle as he covered a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 13, 2021.
The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11, 2021 rekindled a wave of racial-justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd. Protests began outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department the day Wright was killed, and continued daily through mid-April.
Tuite told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was at a gas station near the protests when he ran into a second photojournalist, Joshua Rashaad McFadden, who was on assignment for The New York Times. McFadden told the Tracker that police had gotten more aggressive with the crowd as the protest continued into the night, and that he heard officers order press to leave the area.
The two photographers saw a car coming toward them, McFadden said, and the driver offered to take them to where McFadden’s car was parked. Right after they got in the car, he said, a large number of officers started up the street. Police and National Guard vehicles also pulled into the area, he said.
Officers surrounded the car Tuite and McFadden were in and beat on the windows with batons and the butts of their weapons, Tuite said.
“The state police rolled up with their AR-15s, pointed them at us and then tried to knock the window in using the butt of their guns,” Tuite said.
Both photojournalists, who were in the back seat, were ordered to exit the vehicle but were unable to because the vehicle was surrounded.
“We didn’t know the driver, but they pulled the driver away, arrested him and took him away,” Tuite said. “I screamed ‘Media!’ maybe 20 times, and held my media pass up to the window.”
The officers then pulled Tuite from the vehicle, he said. After again identifying himself as a member of the press, Tuite said the officer standing nearest him finally listened.
At around the same time, two officers got into the vehicle — one into the driver’s seat and the other in the back next to him — and began hitting him with their clubs, striking him on his legs and hitting his camera.
“I saw them hitting Josh with their batons, including his camera,” Tuite said. “He’s a Black male, and they trusted me more than him. It took me saying 10 times that he was media before they got off of him.”
The Tracker has documented McFadden’s assault and damage to his equipment here.
The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Officers ultimately allowed the pair to leave once Tuite offered to walk McFadden back to his car. The photojournalists crossed the street to where other members of the press were gathered, Tuite said, and documented a little more of the standoff between law enforcement and the protesters before leaving the scene.
Tuite told the Tracker that a reporter for progressive independent outlet Status Coup, Jon Farina, captured footage of law enforcement stopping cars and ordering the passengers to exit where he and McFadden were stopped, but hadn’t filmed their specific encounter.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being 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 here.
Police set off flash-bangs at a protest on April 13, 2021, in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, over the killing of Daunte Wright. Photojournalist Chris Tuite was documenting the protest when law enforcement officers with AR-15s surrounded him.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2021, protest",,, 2021-03-26 19:42:04.148375+00:00,2022-05-12 19:36:34.324393+00:00,"Knock LA reporter arrested while covering Echo Park protest, charged with failure to disperse",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/knock-la-reporter-arrested-while-covering-echo-park-protest-charged-with-failure-to-disperse/,2022-05-12 19:36:34.175917+00:00,rioting: failure to disperse (charges dropped as of 2021-04-07),,"(2021-04-07 13:03:00+00:00) Charges dropped against reporter for community news site Knock LA, (2022-05-09 15:35:00+00:00) Knock LA journalists sue Los Angeles Police Department following arrests in 2021",Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Jonathan Peltz (Knock LA),,2021-03-25,False,Los Angeles,California (CA),34.05223,-118.24368,"At least 13 journalists, and likely more, were arrested or detained in Los Angeles, California, while documenting demonstrations near Echo Park Lake on March 25, 2021, as reported to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, on social media and in other news outlets.
As crowds demonstrated against the city’s plan to clear a large homeless encampment, Los Angeles Police Department officers declared the gathering at the park’s northern entrance unlawful shortly after 8 p.m., The Washington Post reported.
Before anyone could exit, according to The Post, a supervising officer announced that everyone was under arrest and officers surrounded the group using a police tactic called “kettling.”
Jonathan Peltz, a reporter for nonprofit community journalism outlet Knock LA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was covering the protest with his colleague Kate Gallagher. Police made an announcement to disperse at around 7:45 p.m, but the message was inaudible to him and most of those present, Peltz said.
About 15 minutes later, an officer ordered members of the media and legal observers to disperse. The police designated a pen for media that was several blocks away, according to Peltz, but he said he wasn’t concerned because there were other journalists around him.
“From my perspective, you know, I was doing my job,” he said. “This was where the protest was happening.”
Peltz said that protesters began to move up the street away from the police line when law enforcement moved in to “kettle” the group and began arresting people.
Peltz told the Tracker that he repeated to police that he and his colleague were journalists. He said he heard other people nearby say that they were press, too.
Peltz said he continued to record video of the confrontation until 8:35 p.m.; he said he noted the time on his camera just before officers restrained his wrists in zip-tie cuffs. He asked the officer who was recording his personal information what he was being charged with, but the officer did not know.
A tweet from the Knock LA Twitter account posted at 9:45 p.m. said that Peltz and Gallagher were arrested by the LAPD while they were covering the protest.
Two of our reporters have been arrested at #EchoParkRiseUp pic.twitter.com/T1zeBPm7Dw
— Knock LA (@KNOCKdotLA) March 26, 2021
Knock LA called for police to release its journalists immediately, and demanded that any charges be dropped.
“Law enforcement cannot be allowed to jail journalists for doing their job,” the statement reads.
Peltz told the Tracker he again identified himself as a journalist to police as he was loaded onto a bus with other people who had been arrested. They were transported to the LAPD Metropolitan Detention Center, where he was processed. Peltz said his wrists were zip tied so tightly that his hands went numb.
He said he was released at around 12:30 a.m. on March 26 but was ordered to appear in court on July 30 on a charge of failure to disperse.
UPDATE: Jonathan Peltz and Kate Gallagher are free. Thank you to everyone who advocated for their release. pic.twitter.com/wB0eiqiKcF
— Knock LA (@KNOCKdotLA) March 26, 2021
Around the time it was making arrests, LAPD issued a statement on Twitter that reads, in part, “As a reminder, members of the media are also to obey the dispersal orders. Members of the media are to use the designated media viewing area.”
At around 1 a.m. on March 26, the LAPD posted another statement specifically addressing the detainments of members of the press.
“An unlawful assembly was declared by the Incident Commander after the unlawful activity of individuals threatened the safety of the officers and all those present,” the statement reads. According to the statement, police declared the gathering unlawful in part because protesters were shining strobe lights at police, which can “cause significant injury to the eyes.”
The statement says members of the press were directed to identify themselves and relocate to a media area about 350 feet away from the crowd.
The LAPD statement notes that as individual arrests were made of those inside the kettle, police officers “learned that several credentialed and non-credentialed members of the media were part of the group. Members from the Department’s Media Relations Division were summoned to assist in identifying these individuals and they were released at scene without being arrested.”
The Los Angeles Police Department, which only accepts requests for comment via email, did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
The Tracker documents all arrests separately. Find all arrests and detainments from the Echo Park Lake protest here.
Los Angeles Police Department assemble near Echo Park Lake amid evictions of homeless encampments there on March 25, 2021. At least 19 journalists were arrested or detained while covering demonstrations against the evictions.
",arrested and released,Los Angeles Police Department,2021-03-26,None,False,2:22-cv-03106,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"encampment, kettle, protest",,, 2021-03-26 21:06:13.051259+00:00,2022-05-12 19:37:43.395062+00:00,Reporter for Knock LA arrested with colleague while covering Echo Park protest in LA,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-for-knock-la-arrested-with-colleague-while-covering-echo-park-protest-in-la/,2022-05-12 19:37:43.312768+00:00,rioting: failure to disperse (charges dropped as of 2021-04-07),,"(2021-04-07 13:11:00+00:00) Charges dropped against Knock LA reporter arrested with colleague while covering Echo Park protest in L.A., (2022-05-09 15:37:00+00:00) Knock LA journalists sue Los Angeles Police Department following arrests in 2021",Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Kate Gallagher (Knock LA),,2021-03-25,False,Los Angeles,California (CA),34.05223,-118.24368,"At least 13 journalists, and likely more, were arrested or detained in Los Angeles, California, while documenting demonstrations near Echo Park Lake on March 25, 2021, as reported to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, on social media and in other news outlets.
As crowds demonstrated against the city’s plan to clear a large homeless encampment, Los Angeles Police Department officers declared the gathering at the park’s northern entrance unlawful shortly after 8 p.m., The Washington Post reported.
Before anyone could exit, according to The Post, a supervising officer announced that everyone was under arrest and officers surrounded the group using a police tactic called “kettling.”
Kate Gallagher, who was reporting on the protest for the nonprofit community journalism outlet Knock LA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was covering the protest with her colleague Jonathan Peltz.
She said police made an announcement directing journalists and legal observers to disperse around 8 p.m., but she said the announcement was difficult to hear and she only learned about it on Twitter.
Gallagher said she was concerned about what police planned next for the protesters, so she decided to stay and continue reporting. Meanwhile, police had set up a pen for media several blocks away, but a number of other journalists also decided to stay at the scene of the protest, according to Peltz, the other Knock LA reporter.
About 20 minutes later, Gallagher said, police started to form a kettle to detain the group. Gallagher and Peltz were standing with about a dozen other journalists at the time, she said.
“No one really seemed very alarmed at first,” she said. According to Gallagher, journalists did not expect that police would arrest them because they were there covering the scene, not as part of the protest.
She said that it became clear that journalists were also going to be arrested when one member of the press tried to leave the police kettle and was not allowed to go.
A tweet from the Knock LA Twitter account posted at 9:45 p.m. said that Peltz and Gallagher were arrested by the LAPD while they were covering the protest.
Two of our reporters have been arrested at #EchoParkRiseUp pic.twitter.com/T1zeBPm7Dw
— Knock LA (@KNOCKdotLA) March 26, 2021
The publication called for police to release the journalists immediately and demanded that any charges be dropped.
“Law enforcement cannot be allowed to jail journalists for doing their job,” the statement reads.
Gallagher said that she identified herself as a journalist several times during her interactions with the police, including when police were forming the kettle, again when she was patted down during her arrest, and as she was loaded onto a bus to be transported to the LAPD Metropolitan Detention Center.
Gallagher and Peltz were released from the detention center at around 12:30 a.m. March 26, she said, and she was ordered to appear in court on July 30 on a charge of failure to disperse.
UPDATE: Jonathan Peltz and Kate Gallagher are free. Thank you to everyone who advocated for their release. pic.twitter.com/wB0eiqiKcF
— Knock LA (@KNOCKdotLA) March 26, 2021
Around the time it was making arrests, LAPD issued a statement on Twitter that reads, in part, “As a reminder, members of the media are also to obey the dispersal orders. Members of the media are to use the designated media viewing area.”
At around 1 a.m. on March 26, the LAPD posted another statement specifically addressing the detainments of members of the press.
“An unlawful assembly was declared by the Incident Commander after the unlawful activity of individuals threatened the safety of the officers and all those present,” the statement reads. According to the statement, police declared the gathering unlawful in part because protesters were shining strobe lights at police, which can “cause significant injury to the eyes.”
The statement says members of the press were directed to identify themselves and relocate to a media area about 350 feet away from the crowd.
The LAPD statement notes that as individual arrests were made of those inside the kettle, police officers “learned that several credentialed and non-credentialed members of the media were part of the group. Members from the Department’s Media Relations Division were summoned to assist in identifying these individuals and they were released at scene without being arrested.”
The Los Angeles Police Department, which only accepts requests for comment via email, did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
The Tracker documents all arrests separately. Find all arrests and detainments from the Echo Park Lake protest here.
Los Angeles Police Department officers arrive at Echo Park Lake to evict homeless encampments. Protests against the eviction on March 25, 2021 resulted in the arrests or detentions of at least 19 journalists while reporting.
",arrested and released,Los Angeles Police Department,2021-03-26,None,False,2:22-cv-03106,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"encampment, kettle, protest",,, 2021-04-27 15:51:54.306465+00:00,2024-03-12 20:17:22.833290+00:00,Videojournalist hit by bike police while covering Portland protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/videojournalist-hit-by-bike-police-while-covering-portland-protest/,2024-03-12 20:17:22.652196+00:00,,,(2022-06-27 00:00:00+00:00) Oregon video journalist files suit over Portland police assaults,Assault,,,,Mason Lake (Independent),,2021-02-27,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent videojournalist Mason Lake was assaulted by Portland police while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on Feb. 27, 2021.
According to KGW8, a Portland-based NBC affiliate, an estimated 150 people gathered in The Fields Park in Portland’s Pearl District to protest the treatment of undocumented people held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, Willamette Week reported. At the ICE field office, protesters spray-painted the boarded-up office with slogans such as “No Kids in Cages,” as well as the names of Black people killed by police in recent months.
In a statement released shortly after midnight on Feb. 28, the Portland Police Bureau called the protest “destructive,” noted damage to buildings and warned that perpetrators would be subject to detention, arrest or targeted with crowd control devices such as tear gas.
Around 10:30 p.m. on the 27th, Lake said he was recording Portland police on bicycles as they pedaled quickly toward a crowd. One officer on a bike slammed into Lake, who was on foot with his camera, as seen at 0:08 in a video tweeted at 12:28 a.m. on Feb. 28 by independent journalist Melissa Lewis. Lake is hit by the officer, then surrounded by several officers on bikes, one of whom yells “Get off the street” at someone off camera. A voice can be heard yelling that Lake is press.
“You’ve just assaulted press. He was trying to get out of your fucking way,” the voice says.
In the video, Lake can be seen yelling at police as they close in around him. He continues arguing with them after he moves to the sidewalk, where he can be seen holding his camera and wearing large letters that say “PRESS” across his chest.
In an email interview with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Lake said the officer who slammed into him with a bike injured him. “His helmet slammed into my head, breaking skin.”
“He and other officers proceeded to hit my camera and shove me as I was encircled,” Lake told the Tracker. “I gestured at him and he hit my camera a second time.”
In a compilation video shared to YouTube, which included Lake’s own footage, he describes the incident in more detail. At around 0:37, he is audibly angry, yelling at the officers, “Keep hitting me, keep hitting me,” and in response to them telling him to move, he adds, “How am I gonna do it? You surrounded me.”
“Their justification for running me over was that I was ‘in the street,’” Lake told the Tracker. At 0:27 in the video, he yells at the officer, “You’ve been after me all night.” He later told the Tracker that he believes it was a targeted assault. He said that in addition to the PRESS marking on his chest, he had press credentials from the National Press Photographers Association, the nonprofit media cooperative Halospace Media and Boop Troop Eugene LLC, a live media outlet that covers protests and local events.
The PPB directed the Tracker to contact the City Attorney’s Office, which did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
A discarded shield calling for abolishing the Portland Police Bureau at a rally outside of a federal facility in Portland, Oregon, in January 2021. Journalist Mason Lake was assaulted by police while documenting another protest there a month later.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,protest,,, 2021-10-14 17:09:21.607724+00:00,2024-03-12 20:07:28.948574+00:00,Journalist covering Portland protest shoved by law enforcement officers,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-covering-portland-protest-shoved-by-law-enforcement-officers/,2024-03-12 20:07:28.850053+00:00,,,(2022-06-27 00:00:00+00:00) Oregon video journalist files suit over Portland police assaults,Assault,,,,Mason Lake (Independent),,2020-11-04,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent photojournalist Mason Lake said he was pushed by law enforcement officers while covering demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 4, 2020.
Protests had been held in Portland on almost a nightly basis since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering BLM protests across the country.
There were two main demonstrations in Portland on Nov. 4, with one group calling for every vote cast in the U.S. presidential election to be counted and another expressing a combination of dismay with the electoral system and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. While the protests were organized separately, the two groups converged briefly at one point in the night. After some protesters smashed windows of downtown businesses, law enforcement officers declared the protests a “riot” at around 6:45 p.m.
Several law enforcement agencies were involved in policing the protests, with the Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police all working together after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered a “unified command” to respond to protests. The Oregon National Guard was also activated to help with enforcement.
The initial round of shoving incidents reported occurred a little after 8 p.m. near the corner of Southwest Park Ave. and Southwest Washington Street, where a group of journalists got caught up in a push by law enforcement officers to clear protesters from the area.
Lake was documenting law enforcement officers arresting someone on the ground when he got shoved, he told the Tracker. A video of the incident published on Twitter by freelance journalist Sergio Olmos shows police and state officers pushing multiple protesters and apprehending someone on the ground. The footage captures a state trooper pushing Lake, wearing a helmet marked “press” on the back and sides, several times before finally pushing him to the ground about 25 seconds into the video.
“I was shoved to the ground,” Lake told the Tracker. “My hand and knuckle had a bruise on it, so I think a baton hit me.”
In response to the Tracker’s inquiries on this incident, Stephan Bomar, public affairs director of the Oregon Military Department, which oversees the National Guard, said in a statement: “It appears as though during this chaotic situation that all remained safe and secure.”
Since July, law enforcement officers from the PPB and federal agencies have been barred by court rulings from arresting, harming or impeding journalists or legal observers of the protests. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon didn’t include the state police or National Guard when it filed the cases.
The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing the continuing ACLU litigation. The Oregon State Police didn’t respond to a request for comment on the shoving incidents.
Police stand in front of protesters the day after Election Day in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 4, 2020. Journalist Mason Lake was shoved by police while documenting protests there that day.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, election, Election 2020, protest",,, 2024-03-07 20:32:56.403152+00:00,2024-03-07 20:32:56.403152+00:00,Video journalist presses charges over police assault,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/video-journalist-presses-charges-over-police-assault/,2024-03-07 20:32:56.250655+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Mason Lake,,2020-10-10,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent video journalist Mason Lake is pressing charges after he said a Portland, Oregon, police officer grabbed and physically moved him to the sidewalk, away from filming a mass arrest at a protest on Oct. 10, 2020.
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.
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.
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 thousands to the streets continuously throughout that period.
“When someone like me or other independent press are actually in between police officers and protesters, they (police officers) don’t like that,” Lake told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a March 2024 interview. “I do believe the police knew who I was, and I do very much believe they were trying to get rid of me.”
By pressing charges, Lake said he hopes to set a legal precedent for press freedom cases in the future, adding, “I didn’t break any laws. I never contributed to anything (illegal), like breaking windows or anything like that.”
When contacted, the Portland Police Bureau said they could not comment on ongoing litigation but referred the Tracker to the city attorney, Robert L. Taylor. Taylor did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Police officers shoving a group of protesters back before arresting many of them at an Oct. 10, 2020, protest in Portland, Oregon. Video journalist Mason Lake was shoved away from the scene shortly after a police officer saw him filming.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,,,, 2024-03-07 20:39:16.527006+00:00,2024-03-07 20:39:16.527006+00:00,"Video journalist threatened, shoved during Portland protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/video-journalist-threatened-shoved-during-portland-protest/,2024-03-07 20:39:16.370163+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Mason Lake,,2020-10-02,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent video journalist Mason Lake is pressing charges after he said he was threatened and shoved by a Portland, Oregon, police officer on Oct. 2, 2020.
According to court documents, Lake also alleges that after the assault, some of the officer’s pepper spray hit him.
Lake filed the 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.
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.
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 thousands to the streets continuously throughout that period.
Lake says that by pressing charges, he hopes to set a legal precedent for press freedom cases in the future. “I was really just trying to report what I saw, record it, and share as much as I could,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a March 2024 interview. “I didn’t break any laws. I never contributed to anything (illegal), like breaking windows or anything like that.”
When contacted, the Portland Police Bureau said it could not comment on ongoing litigation but referred the Tracker to the city attorney, Robert L. Taylor. Taylor did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
A police officer pointing at journalist Mason Lake moments after the independent videographer was shoved and threatened at an Oct. 2, 2020, protest in Portland, Oregon.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"chemical irritant, protest",,, 2020-10-20 19:59:38.764014+00:00,2023-02-21 18:26:24.189970+00:00,Journalist arrested while reporting on homeless encampment in Oregon,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-arrested-while-reporting-homeless-encampment-oregon/,2023-02-21 18:26:24.027763+00:00,"trespassing: criminal trespass (charges dropped as of 2022-08-26), obstruction: interfering with a peace officer (charges dropped as of 2020-10-20), obstruction: resisting arrest (charges dropped as of 2022-08-30)",,"(2022-09-20 16:34:00+00:00) Reporter cleared of charges files lawsuit alleging wrongful arrest, (2021-11-18 11:48:00+00:00) Trial date set for Jefferson Public Radio reporter, (2022-08-26 17:26:00+00:00) Charges dropped against reporter nearly two years after her arrest","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,April Ehrlich (Jefferson Public Radio),,2020-09-22,False,Medford,Oregon (OR),42.32652,-122.87559,"Jefferson Public Radio reporter April Ehrlich was arrested while covering police evictions of a homeless encampment in a public park in Medford, Oregon, on Sept. 22, 2020.
Medford police arrested JPR reporter April Ehrlich as she was covering the MPD's operation this morning removing campers from the city's Hawthorne Park. She was one of 11 people arrested during the police action. We'll have more details as they become available.
— JPR News (@JPRnews) September 22, 2020
JPR Executive Director Paul Westhelle said in a statement that Ehrlich had arrived at Hawthorne Park near downtown Medford in the early morning to interview some of the nearly 100 unhoused people who had taken up residence in the park. Police arrived at approximately 8 a.m. to enforce a 24-hour eviction notice.
Officers directed members of the press to a “media staging area” located at one of the entrances to the park, Westhelle said. He added that “it was not possible to adequately see or hear interactions between police officers and campers, or gather audio” from the staging area.
MPD’s Lt. Mike Budreau told the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that Ehrlich was arrested after reportedly refusing to go to the media staging area. Budreau added that members of the press “had full access to the park up until the public closure and the media staging location was well within view of the officers’ interactions with campers.”
JPR reported that Ehrlich was released later that afternoon with charges for criminal trespassing, interfering with a peace officer and resisting arrest.
If convicted, Ehrlich could face more than a year in prison and fines up to $7,500.
“April is a professional journalist and part of her job is being present during charged situations that sometimes involve law enforcement,” Westhelle wrote. “She knows how to be close enough to report without interfering.”
“JPR stands by April’s award-winning journalism and supports the courage it can take to tell compelling stories that don’t echo the narratives the institutions we cover sometimes lead us to.”
The Oregon Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement condemning the arrest, as did CPJ and Reporters Without Borders.
JPR News Director Liam Moriarty told the Tracker that Ehrlich has a preliminary court appearance on Oct. 22.
In police body camera footage obtained by her attorneys, Medford Police officers confront and arrest then-Jefferson Public Radio reporter April Ehrlich during an encampment sweep on Sept. 22, 2020.
",arrested and released,Medford Police Department,None,None,True,1:22-cv-01416,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,encampment,,, 2021-04-13 16:48:46.968187+00:00,2023-09-20 18:44:51.492295+00:00,"Freelance journalist assaulted, arrested during LA protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-journalist-assaulted-arrested-during-la-protest/,2023-09-20 18:42:54.008371+00:00,rioting: failure to disperse (charges dropped as of 2021-01-06),,"(2021-01-06 15:47:00+00:00) Charges dropped against freelance journalist assaulted, arrested during LA protest, (2023-05-18 16:47:00+00:00) Freelance journalist’s phone searched after arrest, warrant confirms","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage, Equipment Search or Seizure",,camera: count of 1,"cellphone: count of 1, equipment bag: count of 1, camera: count of 1",Julianna Lacoste (Freelance),,2020-09-08,False,Los Angeles,California (CA),34.05223,-118.24368,"Freelance journalist and National Press Photographers Association member Julianna Lacoste was struck with crowd-control munitions, assaulted by law enforcement and arrested while documenting protests in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 8, 2020.
Lacoste told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an email that at around 7:30 p.m. she’d arrived at the intersection of Normandie Avenue and West Imperial Highway, where protesters had gathered outside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department following the fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man, by deputies on Aug. 31.
According to Lacoste, at approximately 8:30 p.m., the deputies declared the protest unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse. Shortly thereafter, she said, they began to advance on the crowd and fire crowd-control munitions.
“I began to run down Normandie trying to escape the clouds of tear gas, rubber/foam bullets, pepper balls, stinger grenades and sand bags being fired,” Lacoste said. “I kept running, but it seemed like I couldn’t get away from the action.”
Lacoste said that as things began to calm down, about an hour later, she saw some people walking to their cars and that no deputies were in sight. Lacoste said she continued to move and had just passed a group of individuals when she felt a crowd-control munition strike her hand and knock her phone away.
“Then my head was shot, but I was luckily wearing a helmet,” she said. “Then my shoulder was shot as well. At that point I was only looking to find shelter because I was simply getting pelted with shots.”
Lacoste said she was eventually able to crouch behind a nearby car, but almost immediately after hunching down, two deputies appeared beside her. Lacoste said one aimed a weapon at her as the other forced her onto her stomach.
“I said, ‘I’m not resisting. I’m press. OK, OK, I’m not resisting,’” Lacoste recounted. She said she had a press badge in her bag and her helmet featured a “PRESS” label.
Lacoste said that the camera she was wearing around her neck broke from the weight of the deputies during the course of the arrest. “Their knee was on my back and neck as they wrestled for the cuffs,” she said.
Lacoste said the deputies secured the handcuffs incredibly tight, which worsened the pain in her injured hand.
She said they refused to pick up her cellphone from where it had fallen and escorted her to an LASD vehicle, where she waited as others were loaded in “like sardines.” The detainees were taken to a van and then transported to the Imperial Sheriff’s station, Lacoste said. There, she said, deputies used a knife to cut the straps of both her backpack and camera in order to pull them off without removing her handcuffs.
Lacoste also alleged that at the station some of the officers used personal cellphones to photograph her and other detainees. Student journalist Pablo Unzueta, who was also arrested that evening, made similar allegations. The Tracker has published his case here.
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department values the media and highly respects the freedom of the press,” Deputy Trina Schrader, a spokesperson for the department, told the Tracker in an emailed statement when asked for comment on Unzueta’s arrest. Schrader also noted that an investigation had been launched into the events that day. The department did not respond to an emailed request for comment about Lacoste’s arrest as of press time.
Lacoste said she was detained for more than an hour before being transported to a hospital for treatment. At approximately 6 a.m. the following day, she said, she was transported back to the sheriff’s station.
Lacoste said that at around 10 a.m. she was finally able to speak with her lawyer, who informed her that her bail had been posted and she should be released within two hours. According to Lacoste’s bail paperwork, which was reviewed by the Tracker, she posted a $5,000 bond.
Before her release, Lacoste said, she was transferred to the women’s jail and asked about her injuries. Upon detailing them, the officer processing Lacoste rejected her paperwork and instructed deputies to transport her back to the hospital so her injuries could be fully documented. According to Lacoste, deputies did not transport her back to the hospital, however, and placed her in a cell at the sheriff’s station.
“After hours of begging for a phone that worked they finally let me use the phone,” Lacoste said. “At that point I called my boyfriend and he informed me that I was going to get out soon and they had been making hundreds of calls on my behalf. During that phone call is when I got released.”
Lacoste was charged with misdemeanor failure to disperse and ordered to appear in court on Jan. 6, 2021. Lacoste hasn’t responded to the Tracker’s latest requests for comment, and the status of her case remains unknown.
Freelance photojournalist Julianna Lacoste photographed the multiple injuries she sustained when she was assaulted, arrested and her equipment damaged and seized by sheriff’s deputies while documenting a protest in Los Angeles on Sept. 8, 2020.
",arrested and released,Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,2020-09-09,None,True,2:23-cv-04917,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in full,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,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, shot / shot at",,, 2023-09-25 16:44:59.569652+00:00,2023-10-02 14:15:14.135230+00:00,"Livestreamer arrested, assaulted during LA protest; phone searched",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/livestreamer-arrested-assaulted-during-la-protest-phone-searched/,2023-10-02 14:15:13.923580+00:00,rioting: failure to disperse (charges dropped as of 2020-09-11),LegalOrder object (241),,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage, Equipment Search or Seizure, Subpoena/Legal Order",,"cellphone: count of 1, protective equipment: count of 1, bicycle: count of 1",cellphone: count of 1,Hugo Padilla (Independent),,2020-09-08,False,Los Angeles,California (CA),34.05223,-118.24368,"Livestreamer Hugo Padilla was allegedly struck with crowd-control munitions and assaulted by law enforcement before being arrested while documenting protests in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 8, 2020. Deputies later obtained a search warrant for one of his cellphones.
Padilla subsequently joined as a plaintiff in a lawsuit with three others in October 2020 against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County and then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva, alleging violations of his Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Colleen Flynn, an attorney representing Padilla, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Padilla attended the protest to broadcast it on his YouTube channel, Alien Alphabet, while providing audio narration.
Protesters had gathered outside the South Los Angeles Sheriff's Station following the Aug. 31 fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man, by deputies in a nearby neighborhood.
Flynn said that Padilla began filming the demonstration from the parking lot of a nearby 7-Eleven, and confirmed to the Tracker that throughout the protest Padilla was wearing a black bicycle helmet with “PRESS” written in silver lettering on multiple sides.
Approximately an hour into the protest, deputies declared the protest unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse. According to the lawsuit, officers began to advance on the demonstrators and shortly after fired crowd-control munitions. The crowd dispersed and many individuals — including Padilla — fled into the neighborhood.
In Padilla’s livestream from the protest, he said that he was attempting to circle around to the far side of the crowd, but as he did, a law enforcement helicopter shined a searchlight on him. Within seconds and without warning, Padilla was shot with a crowd-control munition, he said.
The lawsuit claimed the hard projectile struck Padilla in the knee, knocking him off his bicycle and onto the ground. Deputies then “jumped” on him and one of them punched him in the face, splitting his lip, Flynn said. Padilla was tightly handcuffed — his lawsuit states that restraint marks were still visible weeks later — and forced into the back of a large truck where loose pepper ball munitions caused his eyes to water painfully.
According to Flynn, Padilla had no opportunity to identify himself verbally as press before he was arrested, but he did tell deputies he was a journalist while in the truck and in an interrogation room.
Padilla’s bicycle was seized, as was his personal iPhone, which was booked into evidence and later searched. But a Samsung cellphone Padilla was using to livestream fell from his hand and, his suit claimed, deputies did not retrieve it.
Flynn told the Tracker that she believed deputies deliberately left Padilla’s phone and that of freelance photographer Julianna Lacoste, who is also her client, because they were livestreaming.
“It appears that the deputies that abandoned Mr. Padilla and Ms. Lacoste's cell phones on the street while they were livestreaming did so to get rid of the evidence that may have recorded their actions, including their use of excessive force and violation of my clients' constitutional rights,” Flynn wrote in an email.
Padilla’s lawsuit states that once he arrived at the South Los Angeles Sheriff's Station, some of the officers used personal cellphones to photograph Padilla and the other detainees while laughing. Lacoste and student journalist Pablo Unzueta, who were also arrested that evening, said the same.
Padilla was ultimately released from a county jail in downtown LA midmorning the following day with a citation for failure to disperse. His wallet, headphones and a set of keys — not his — were returned to him; the remainder of his equipment was not. Deputies ultimately returned Padilla’s bicycle in December 2020 and his iPhone in June 2021; his bicycle helmet was never returned.
When Padilla appeared for his hearing date at the Inglewood Courthouse on Sept. 11, 2020, according to his lawsuit, a court clerk told him that no charges had been filed.
Sheriff's Deputy Trina Schrader, a spokesperson for the department, told the Tracker in the days following the protest that an investigation had been launched into the events that day. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department values the media and highly respects the freedom of the press,” she added.
The day following the protest, sheriff’s deputies obtained a search warrant for cellphones belonging to more than a dozen individuals, including Padilla. The search warrant and an affidavit in support of the warrant were only released in May 2023, more than 2 1/2 years after the incident, and following an August 2022 motion to unseal filed by the First Amendment Coalition and independent news organization Knock LA.
The media organizations said that the sheriff’s department had fought the release of the materials for more than two years, in violation of California state law and the First Amendment. The release only came after Villanueva was ousted in a November 2022 election and replaced by Robert Luna, who acceded to the unsealing.
Susan E. Seager of the UC Irvine School of Law, who represented Knock LA and FAC in the case, said the timing shows that the department never had a good reason to seal the warrants in the first place.
Photos accompanying the warrant materials included the helmet marked “PRESS,” which Padilla’s attorney confirmed belonged to him. FAC noted in a later statement that police records confirmed that the LASD knew journalists were included as targets, which raises press rights concerns.
“Those photos, along with the fact [the] journalists have said they verbally identified themselves as press, should have put pause on the probe or, at a minimum, prompted the department to make disclosures to the judge to ensure press rights were protected,” the FAC statement said.
David Snyder, executive director of FAC, also commented: “While we are grateful the public can finally see these documents, they should have been able to do so long ago. There can be no real accountability without knowledge – what did the police tell the judge who issued this warrant? Now this crucial question can be answered, and accountability for any unjustified arrest and seizure can at long last begin.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include additional details concerning the seizure and return of some of Padilla’s equipment.
Livestreamer Hugo Padilla, extreme left, filmed multiple protests outside a Los Angeles Sheriff’s station in 2020. During a Sept. 8 protest, he claims deputies shot him with a munition, then arrested him and seized his equipment.
",arrested and released,Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,2020-09-09,2020-09-08,True,2:20-cv-09805,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in part,True,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,None,None,None,Journalist,warrant,State,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-01-15 17:57:53.586681+00:00,2024-03-12 20:09:19.874346+00:00,Videographer shoved by Portland police officers,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/several-journalists-pushed-portland-police-officers-while-covering-protests/,2024-03-12 20:09:19.695025+00:00,,,(2022-06-27 00:00:00+00:00) Oregon video journalist files suit over Portland police assaults,Assault,,,,Mason Lake (Independent),,2020-08-22,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Mason Lake, an independent videographer, said he was shoved by police officers while covering a protest in the early morning of Aug. 22, 2020 in Portland, Oregon.
Lake was documenting one of the many protests that have been held on almost a nightly basis since late May 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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction, barring the Portland Police Bureau from harming or impeding journalists.
In the early hours of Aug. 22, Lake and a group of other journalists were covering a demonstration at the PPB’s North Precinct station. After the gathering was declared a riot around 1 a.m., police used smoke and physical force to disperse protesters, according to Al Jazeera.
In a video shared by Oregon Public Broadcasting journalist Sergio Olmos on Twitter at 12:58 a.m., a police LRAD can be heard warning that “all persons, including press and legal observers,” must move onto Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
In a video posted by Olmos at 1:37 a.m., an officer approaches and pushes Lake.
The PPB has said it wouldn’t comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.
This article was updated to identify a previously “unidentified journalist” as videographer Mason Lake, who confirmed the incident to the Tracker.
Police officers detain a protester following a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 24, 2020. Journalist Mason Lake was shoved by police while documenting protests there two days earlier.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:23-cv-01870,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2022-05-09 19:31:24.124785+00:00,2023-11-01 15:27:55.350603+00:00,"Suit alleges federal officers targeted photographer at Portland protest, caused burns",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/suit-alleges-federal-officers-targeted-photographer-at-portland-protest-caused-burns/,2023-11-01 15:27:55.160490+00:00,,,,"Assault, Equipment Damage",,,press identification: count of 1,Rian Dundon (Economic Hardship Reporting Project),,2020-07-22,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Documentary photographer Rian Dundon was on assignment for the Economic Hardship Reporting Project on July 22, 2020, when he was repeatedly thrown to the ground and pinned down by a federal officer while covering protests in downtown Portland, Oregon, according to a lawsuit filed by the photographer in 2022.
Protests had been held in Portland on almost a nightly basis since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. The Portland protests had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering BLM protests across the country.
Dundon filed a lawsuit against the regional director of the Department of Homeland Security, which coordinated the federal presence in Portland, and more than 100 federal officers in April 2022. Dundon declined to comment on advice from counsel.
According to the suit, Dundon was photographing a fire started outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland alongside other journalists in a group away from protesters, and was wearing a press badge.
“Federal officers dressed in military fatigues and wearing gas masks approached Plaintiff [Dundon] and the other journalists from behind,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiff turned to run, but federal officers grabbed him and threw him to the ground.”
Dundon landed on a live, unexploded gas canister which then exploded.
“Plaintiff stood and again tried to flee, but federal officers again threw him to the ground. Federal officers then pinned Plaintiff on the ground,” the lawsuit says. In footage of the incident, Dundon can be seen pinned under an officer as a cloud of gas engulfs them.
Federal officers stormed towards the crowd from the North entrance arresting many along the way. There was a brief exchange of tear gas cannisters flying in different directions. #PortlandProtest #Portland #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ggIS9vhLv9
— Justin Yau (@PDocumentarians) July 22, 2020
“One of the Marshals rips the press ID from around my neck,” Dundon wrote in a description of the incident for The Washington Post. “Another pinned me under the gas with his nightstick for 10 excruciating seconds before allowing me to leave the area.
“I walked home with third-degree burns that night, bedraggled but buzzing on residual adrenaline,” Dundon wrote.
The lawsuit alleges that the officers violated Dundon’s First and Fourth Amendment rights and restricted his ability to cover the protests. Neither Dundon’s attorneys nor DHS responded to requests for additional information.
“Targeting journalists was not a quirk of the federal enforcement efforts, it was one of its objectives,” the suit alleges. “DOJ and DHS agents could have completed the objectives of their response without causing harm to Plaintiff.”
The Tracker documented seven other journalists assaulted while covering the Portland protests that day.
Dundon is seeking noneconomic, economic and punitive damages in the lawsuit.
This screenshot, cited in Rian Dundon’s lawsuit, shows the photographer after he was thrown to the ground amid protests in Portland, Oregon, in July 2020. The 2022 suit alleges that federal officers deliberately targeted him.
",None,None,None,None,False,3:22-cv-00594,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2021-01-25 21:46:30.501424+00:00,2024-02-09 15:15:50.083502+00:00,Independent photojournalist hit projectiles fired by Portland federal agents,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/two-independent-photojournalists-said-portland-federal-agents-hit-them-crowd-control-munitions/,2024-02-09 15:15:49.953696+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,John Rudoff (Independent),,2020-07-19,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Independent photojournalist John Rudoff said he was hit with crowd-control munitions fired by federal law enforcement officers while he was covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on July 19, 2020.
Rudoff was covering one of the many protests that had broken out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement after the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
The Portland protests, held nightly since late May, had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23. Rudoff gave declarations in support of the class action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon, that led to the TRO.
Rudoff was hit in the shoulder with a projectile while documenting federal agents emerging from the courthouse and shooting tear gas and munitions, he said in his declaration for the ACLU.
“Suddenly, and for no reason, a federal agent shot me in my right shoulder, inches from my head,” Rudoff wrote, adding that he believes he was hit with a 40mm rubber bullet. “The pain was so bad that I had to retreat into the park and stop documenting for around 15 minutes while I recovered.”
Rudoff said he felt targeted as press. “I have body armor that has ‘press’ on it in several-inch-high letters front and back, and a helmet that has ‘press’ on it in inch-high letters front and back,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “I intentionally stand away from crowds as best I can, and intentionally I’m dressed in light-colored clothing as much as possible.”
In the declaration, he also noted that he had two large professional cameras with him and was wearing a National Press Photographers Association press pass.
The Department of Homeland Security, which has coordinated the federal presence in Portland, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Documentary photographer Rian Dundon was on assignment for the Economic Hardship Reporting Project on July 17, 2020, when a federal officer targeted him with crowd-control munitions while he was covering protests in downtown Portland, Oregon, according to a lawsuit the photographer filed in 2022.
Protests had been held in Portland on almost a nightly basis since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. The Portland protests had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering BLM protests across the country.
Dundon filed a lawsuit against the regional director of the Department of Homeland Security, which coordinated the federal presence in Portland, and more than 100 federal officers in April 2022. Dundon declined to comment on advice from counsel.
According to the suit, Dundon was standing alone on the sidewalk of SW Madison Street between 3rd and 4th avenues, while the nearest group of protesters was half a block away outside the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building.
Dundon noticed several federal officers positioned among the shrubbery around a nearby plaza so he approached to take a picture through the chain-link fence separating the sidewalk from the park.
“When he raised his camera to photograph the scene, a DHS agent trained his weapon on Plaintiff and fired several rounds of pepper balls, striking the fence and sidewalk near his feet,” the lawsuit states. “The pepper balls exploded on contact and released a powder into the air. They came in direct contact with Plaintiff, causing him injury.”
The lawsuit alleges that the officers violated Dundon’s First and Fourth Amendment rights and restricted his ability to cover the protests. Neither Dundon’s attorneys nor DHS responded to requests for additional information.
“Targeting journalists was not a quirk of the federal enforcement efforts, it was one of its objectives,” the suit alleges. “DOJ and DHS agents could have completed the objectives of their response without causing harm to Plaintiff.”
Dundon is seeking noneconomic, economic and punitive damages in the lawsuit.
A portion of the lawsuit documentary photographer Rian Dundon filed against a regional director of the Department of Homeland Security, others alleging he was assaulted twice while covering protests in Portland in July 2020.
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Protests 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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
The Portland protests, held nightly since late May, had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23.
At 1:58 a.m. on July 12, Lewis-Rolland began filming live on Facebook, documenting as federal agents emerged from the U.S. Courthouse and started moving the crowd toward the west. About one minute into the video, a federal officer can be seen raising his gun at Lewis-Rolland, but not firing. When Lewis-Rolland reached the intersection of Southwest Fourth Avenue and Southwest Main Street, about a block from the Courthouse, he turned to take a photograph of a teargas canister rolling into the intersection when he was shot multiple times. The impact of the non-lethal plastic munitions ripped his T-shirt in at least two places.
In a declaration in support of the ACLU lawsuit that led to the TRO, Lewis-Rolland said that one or more federal agents shot him 10 times with impact munitions. He shared photographs of his injuries with the ACLU, including one large laceration and two smaller contusions on his right side, a laceration on his right elbow, two large lacerations on his back and four smaller contusions on his left side. Munitions recovered from the intersection are also pictured.
These are some of the #munitions I recovered from the intersection at sw 4th and Main in #PortlandOregon where I was targeted and shot 10 times. pic.twitter.com/OUkOAEXR35
— Mathieu Lewis-Rolland (@MathieuLRolland) July 16, 2020
“I was not posing any type of threat to Agent Doe or anyone else. I was not even facing him,” Lewis-Rolland said in the declaration.
While a number of federal agencies had officers in Portland in July, it wasn’t clear which agency the officers were from. The Department of Homeland Security, which coordinated the federal presence in Portland, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Freelance journalist Justin Yau was arrested on July 1, 2020, while filming the arrest of a protester in northeast Portland, Oregon.
Yau, a student at the University of Portland whose work has been featured by the Daily Mail and The New York Times, was covering one of the many protests that had 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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the start of nightly demonstrations in late May, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. Yau is a plaintiff in the suit, which led to a U.S. District Court judge issuing a temporary restraining order the day after his arrest that barred police from arresting or harming journalists. The city later agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not arrest, harm or impede the work of journalists or legal observers of the protests.
In the early hours of July 1, Yau was following a group of protesters moving toward the North Precinct of the Portland Police Bureau. The police had earlier declared a riot and dispersed the protesters shortly after 10 p.m., and the group had reassembled.
Yau told the Tracker that the crowd he was following made visual contact with a police riot line at around 12:45 a.m. at the intersection of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Northeast Killingsworth Street. Police pushed the crowd westward. “I was about like 30 feet away from the police line and I was walking away following instructions and I was on the sidewalk matching their pace,” said Yau.
As they moved down Killingsworth toward Northeast Mallory Avenue, Yau observed a protester walking slowly with their hands up. Then he heard police warn the protester to get out of the street faster, followed by an order to arrest them. He began to film the arrest on his cellphone. But when the police charged forward, Yau didn’t initially realize they were taking him into custody as well.
Yau was tackled from his right side and fell on his left side on top of his camera and the gimbal he used to stabilize it. His phone flew out of his hands and was permanently damaged, though still working. “I just went limp and didn’t say anything,” he told the Tracker.
Freelance photojournalist Alex Milan Tracy captured video of Yau’s arrest. The video shows Yau being cuffed on the ground. “The person that you are arresting clearly is identified as press from his helmet,” Tracy could be heard telling the officers, who didn’t respond. “Why are you arresting a member of the press?”
I question officers actions as police arrest an identifiable member of the press @PDocumentarians near NE Killingsworth and Mallory. pic.twitter.com/AqMQ5kvm3q
— Alex Milan Tracy (@AlexMilanTracy) July 1, 2020
In addition to wearing a helmet marked as “press,” Yau said he had a glow vest attached to a backpack labeled “press.” He was also wearing neutral colors to distinguish him from protesters, who are often in all black.
Tracy also captured footage of one of the arresting officers putting his backpack in a bag and escorting him into a police van. The restraining order required the police “to return any seized equipment or press passes immediately upon release of a person from custody,” but Yau’s equipment was not returned until July 6, according to the ACLU claim.
Yau appears to be limping in the second video from the impact of landing on his knee during the arrest. “My left knee was kind of in a lot of pain throughout booking, I couldn’t sleep,” he told the Tracker.
The reason given for Yau’s arrest was felony riot and interfering with a peace officer — this resulted in a no-complaint charge after the district attorney decided not to press charges.
Yau believes he was targeted for being press, a view shared by Tracy, who referenced Yau’s arrest in a declaration for the ACLU suit. “It seemed to me that the police were specifically targeting and retaliating against reporters for seeking to enforce out First Amendment protections,” said Tracy.
The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.
Portland photojournalist Alex Milan Tracy said the Portland Police Bureau seized his GoPro camera “as evidence” when he was covering a protest outside the police union office in the Oregon city’s North Portland neighborhood on June 30, 2020.
The protest was one of the many that broke 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 in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Tracy was documenting a protest near the Portland Police Association on North Lombard Street “when the police declared an unlawful assembly and charged at the crowd,” he said in a declaration on behalf of a class action suit the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon filed against the PBB in June. Tracy is a plaintiff in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and an agreement by the city in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.
While Tracy was running, his GoPro Hero 8 fell out of a pouch on his waist, he said in the claim. “One officer told me that it would be seized ‘as evidence’ because it was behind the police line at this point,” he said, adding that the police prevented him from looking for the camera. Tracy wasn’t available to comment.
In a video Tracy tweeted after the incident, he says to the camera: “Moments ago, during a police charge, a GoPro camera that I use for newsgathering purposes, fell out of my pocket attached to my waist and has been taken by the police as evidence. I do not condone this act, and I would appreciate if I could get my camera back without having to go through the evidence office downtown.”
He got his camera back from the PPB Property Warehouse on July 2.
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.
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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
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 class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. Woodstock is a plaintiff in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and an agreement by the city in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.
The June 30 demonstration took place the day before a planned vote 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.
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.
“I got to the PPA just in time to watch PPB shoving protesters, NLG, and press while insisting that they walk faster,” Woodstock tweeted at 9:26 p.m. In the accompanying video, the camera goes askew as police push people around Woodstock.
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 court documents in the ACLU case. Despite informing an officer that they were press, Woodstock was pushed at least four times, the filing said.
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 tweeted a video of the incident, writing, “Yup just got hit in the leg with shrapnel. Seems very superficial.”
Yup just got hit in the leg with shrapnel. Seems very superficial. pic.twitter.com/2KqSIgwRDI
— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) July 1, 2020
Woodstock declined to comment further about the incidents.
The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.
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.
According to court documents, 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.
The incident caused “physical injuries including pain, burning sensations, as well as fear and embarrassment,” claimed Lake’s complaint. Lake posted video from the protest on social media.
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.
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.
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 thousands to the streets continuously throughout that period.
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.
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.
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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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
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 class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon in June. Rudoff is a plaintiff in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and an agreement by the city of Portland in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.
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 declaration for the ACLU suit.
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.
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.
“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.
PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing the continuing ACLU litigation.
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.
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 reported, focusing their coverage on online retailers, including Amazon, Craigslist and eBay.
The Steiners did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
According to a Department of Justice press release, 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.”
The FBI alleges that one of those executives and five other eBay employees then executed a harassment campaign against the Steiners.
“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.
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 affidavit referred to as a “White Knight Strategy.”
Joseph Bonavolonta, the FBI special agent in charge of the case, told 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.”
The six employees are each charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses:
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling told 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.”
In a press release, 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.
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.”
The Journal reported that the U.S. attorney’s office is still investigating whether the company targeted any other critics with similar harassment campaigns.
Independent multimedia journalist Jordan Pickett was hit and injured by a crowd-control projectile fired by law enforcement officers while he covered protests against police violence in Seattle on June 8, 2020.
The Seattle demonstrations were one of many that have swept across the country in response to the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis on May 25.
On the evening of Sunday, June 7, most protesters were gathered in one area near Capitol Hill along East Pine Street and 10th Avenue, Pickett told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He had been covering the action in the front, but began to slowly retreat as police officers deployed tear gas to force protesters to disperse.
“At that point, a flash bang grenade went off almost directly on my foot and that was scary enough that I started to push back further,” Pickett remembered. “I was walking with both of my cameras held up to try to appear as not intimidating as possible.”
Pickett said he also had a press badge around his neck and large pieces of white duct tape with the word “PRESS” written in black Sharpie on his hat and backpack.
At 12:23 a.m. on June 8, officers hit Pickett with what he believes was a 40mm baton round in the back of his right thigh, he told the Tracker. In a tweet sent at 3:02 a.m., he wrote the projectile tore through thick jeans from more than 50 feet away, breaking the skin and making him collapse in pain.
According to his estimates, officers were still more than 50 feet away. Picket crawled behind a parked car to regain his composure while more tear gas was released around him. He said he was momentarily blinded and still disoriented when he got up and started walking towards Broadway, where a protester sprayed a baking-soda solution in his eyes.
“Either officers identified me as press and shot anyway, are shooting so quickly or indiscriminately that they can’t identify their targets first or weren’t aiming for me and shot inaccurately,” Pickett wrote in another tweet. “All three seem problematic.”
On Sept. 25, the law firm of Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore filed a lawsuit against the City of Seattle and State of Washington on the behalf of “peaceful protesters,” including Pickett, claiming the city enabled police officers’ “unreasonable and disproportionate conduct” and the “widescale use of excessive force,” violating rights protected under the First Amendment.
Seattle Police Department spokesman Randy Huserik declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing pending litigation. He confirmed that SWAT officers were deployed but said they do not use baton rounds.
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.
Shortly after being hit with a crowd-control munition while covering a protest in Seattle on June 8, journalist Jordan Pickett posted these images on Twitter, saying he was clearly identifiable as working press.
",None,None,None,None,False,20-2-14351-1,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,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, shot / shot at, student journalism",,, 2020-11-04 19:24:02.788059+00:00,2022-03-10 17:03:26.180017+00:00,Freelance photojournalist hit by police paint projectile while covering Portland protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-photojournalist-hit-police-paint-projectile-while-covering-portland-protest/,2022-03-10 17:03:26.124737+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Alex Milan Tracy (Freelance),,2020-06-07,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"Freelance photojournalist Alex Milan Tracy was hit with a green paint projectile fired by police while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on June 7, 2020.
The protest was one of many that broke 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 in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
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. Even after the curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to a class action suit the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon filed against the Portland Police Bureau in June. Tracy is a plaintiff in the suit, which resulted in a temporary restraining order and an agreement by the city in July not to arrest, harm or impede any journalists or legal observers.
Tracy was covering one of three protests in the city on the night of June 7. The protest originated at the Multnomah County Justice Center with a speech by faith leaders. The protest remained peaceful until 11 p.m., when protesters began to shake the fence around the Justice Center and police countered with pepper balls. Around 11:45 p.m., an unlawful assembly was declared and the use of crowd control munitions escalated.
As officers cleared the area in front of the Justice Center, Tracy was hit in the lower leg by the police paint marker round, according to the ACLU declaration. Tracy wasn’t available for further comment.
In a video Tracy tweeted of when he got hit, green paint can be seen on the ground where he had been standing. He also tweeted a picture of his pants covered in green paint below the knee.
Just before midnight, Tracy fell while running from a police charge. “I fell backwards on a curb, got up and turned around and was seconds away from getting grabbed by riot police who were tackling people to the ground as they made arrests,” he said in the declaration. In a video Tracy tweeted, he appears to fall about 20 seconds in, and then a protester can be seen getting tackled as Tracy gets up to run.
— Alex Milan Tracy (@AlexMilanTracy) June 8, 2020
The PPB has said they wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Sergio Olmos was shoved by a police officer while covering a protest in downtown Portland, Oregon, in the early morning hours of June 6, 2020.
Olmos was covering one of the many protests that broke 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 documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
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. Even after the curfew was lifted, journalists continued to be targeted by police, according to a class action suit the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon filed against the Portland Police Bureau in June. The city agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests or impede their work. Olmos is a plaintiff and provided a declaration in support of the suit.
Olmos was covering a protest at the Multnomah County Justice Center that began the evening of June 5 and stretched into the next morning. Shortly after 11 p.m., he tweeted that the PPB had declared an “unlawful assembly.”
Tear gas pushed the protesters further into the downtown, according to a tweet Olmos posted at 11:41 p.m. Ten minutes later, Olmos posted an image of an email from a police spokesperson urging the media to “leave the area please for your safety.” In the tweet accompanying the image, Olmos wrote, “This reporter is staying.”
After midnight, the crowd returned to the Justice Center and was soon dispersed by police yet again. Olmos gets shoved by an officer using a baton while leaving the area. “This reporter is shoved by police, I try to vocalize my moments and tell police officer I’m behind him and blocked,” he tweeted at 1:27 a.m,
The accompanying video shows Olmos filming two police vans from across the street. “I’m going this way,” Olmos can be heard saying to an officer. “Hey, I’m behind you.” Another officer approaches and shoves Olmos with his baton, then points a can of tear gas at him. The officer gestures for him to follow the path of the sidewalk, which appears to have been rerouted for construction. “I didn’t see that, I’m going,” Olmos can be heard saying.
At 4:15 a.m., Olmos posted footage of the incident from another angle. “I vocalize my movements, telling two police officers I’m behind them. I think the sidewalk is closed and I’m stuck. I call out to police to let them know. Police officer shoves as I explain,” he wrote in the post.
Olmos also tweeted a photo of himself marked as “press” and wearing a press pass around his neck.
“He had his press pass clearly visible,” the ACLU court filing said. “Nevertheless, the police attacked him with a baton.”
Olmos didn’t respond to a request for comment. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing the continuing ACLU litigation.
Police struck a Dallas journalist with projectiles, zip-tied his wrists and placed him under arrest while he was covering a protest march against police violence on a bridge over the Trinity River in Dallas, Texas on June 1, 2020.
Steven Monacelli, a freelance writer on assignment for the Dallas Voice, an LGBT magazine serving north Texas, had been documenting the march of several hundred protesters from the Dallas County courthouse to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge over the Trinity River, he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. The evening of June 1 was the second that downtown Dallas was under a 7 p.m. curfew, from which members of the media were explicitly exempt.
On the bridge, police employed a technique known as “kettling” to hem in demonstrators from both sides. Monacelli was standing between the crowd and a police line, hugging one side of the bridge, when police began advancing towards the crowd, he said. One of the officers fired a wooden pellet, he said, which hit someone nearby before falling to the ground near Monacelli’s feet.
Seconds later, Monacelli was hit by a projectile. “I just got hit in the leg,” he exclaims on a video recording of the incident, which he posted to Instagram. A second projectile then struck his backpack and lower back. “They shot me twice, I’ve been shot twice with wooden pellets.”
Monacelli was wearing PRESS badges on his front and back, but said he didn’t have the opportunity to verbally identify himself as a member of the media before police fired on the crowd. He said it was dark on the bridge and very loud.
Monacelli told the Tracker while he initially suspected the projectiles that hit him were made of wood, he now believes the object that hit the back of his left thigh was a canister of tear gas, because of the sound it made on the video and the size of his resulting bruise. “In various videos of the moment at which I was shot you can hear a loud ‘POP’ and then metal sounding ricochet,” he tweeted days later.
The second projectile he believes was a green marking round, he said. Another freelance journalist on the bridge, Benjamin Diez, captured a video of Monacelli being hit, showing the round that hit Monacelli’s back and backpack gave off a puff of green dust on impact.
Around ten minutes later, Monacelli was then detained with a group of protesters, despite his repeated declarations that he was a member of the media, he said. The officers demanded to see Monacelli’s laminated press credentials, which he didn’t have, and ignored his repeated invitations to view his LinkedIn profile on his phone, as well as his email exchanges with his editors.
“I'm reporting for the Dallas Voice, I've got the email from the editor. I'm a freelance journalist, so I can show you all the information...the magazine I'm with,” he told the police, in a video he posted to Instagram. He said he had emailed his editor, who he hoped would call the police. “Not sure what else I could do to show you who I am.”
“What sort of credentials, when you ask me that, are you looking for?” Monacelli asked the officer standing before him. The officer replied that he wanted to see a press ID on a lanyard. "I'm stuck here because I don't have a laminated card," Monacelli then tells the viewers of his Instagram livestream.
After detaining him over an hour, an officer placed him in zip ties at around 10:40 p.m. and told him he was under arrest. “Are you aware that I am a member of the press?” he said he asked the officer. In response, the officer replied, “you are under arrest,” Monacelli said.
After midnight, an officer took him up on his invitation to look at his email messages with his editor and his LinkedIn page. Satisfied he was a journalist, the officer released Monacelli from the zip ties. He was released without charges.
Later that morning, he snapped a photo of the newly formed bruise on the back of his leg, and posted it to Twitter on June 11. Monacelli documented his experience on the bridge in a story in the Dallas Voice and in a piece for Central Track, a website covering Dallas culture.
Ryan Michalesko, a staff photographer at the Dallas Morning News, was hit in the thigh with a foam round while covering the same protest on the bridge. That incident is documented here.
Asked for comment on Monacelli’s arrest and the use of projectiles that led to his injuries, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department, Sgt. Warren Mitchell, wrote, “We are not at a place we can speak on a specific incident during any nights of the protests.”
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, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.
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 Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Steven Monacelli, left, was hit with projectiles and detained while covering protests in Dallas, Texas, on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on June 1, 2020.
",detained and released without being processed,Dallas Police Department,None,None,False,3:21-cv-02649,['ONGOING'],Civil,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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2022-08-16 20:16:18.860235+00:00,2023-12-21 19:35:56.886031+00:00,"Independent photojournalist sues following arrest, assault at Des Moines protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-photojournalist-sues-following-arrest-assault-at-des-moines-protest/,2023-12-21 19:35:56.662141+00:00,rioting: failure to disperse (charges dropped as of 2020-08-13),,"(2023-10-11 13:40:00+00:00) Appeals court revives journalist’s unlawful seizure, excessive force claims","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,Mark “Ted” Nieters (Freelance),,2020-06-01,False,Des Moines,Iowa (IA),41.60054,-93.60911,"A photojournalist was tackled to the ground and arrested while documenting protests in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 1, 2020. Mark Nieters, who publishes under Ted Nieters, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the city, the chief of police and the officer involved in the incident.
The protest was one in a series of national demonstrations against police brutality sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As the protests continued nightly, Iowa’s Polk County Board of Supervisors implemented a 9 p.m. curfew on May 31 due to “the violent outbreak of civil unrest” in Des Moines.
According to Nieters’ lawsuit, protesters had gathered at the Iowa Capitol on June 1 for an event called “Together We Can Make a Change: A Call to Action.” The formal event ended at 8:15 p.m., but several hundred people marched to the Des Moines Police Department and some ultimately looped back to the Capitol. Police engaged the crowd at around 11:45 p.m., according to the lawsuit, issuing an order to disperse and throwing tear gas canisters and flashbangs toward the protesters. Nieters confirmed the details of the filing to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and his attorney was not immediately available for comment.
Nieters had left the complex before officers began attempting to disperse the crowd, and was walking alone on Locust Street toward an Embassy Suites located across the street from City Hall. He stopped in one of the hotel’s driveways and began taking photos as officers ran past City Hall in his direction. One of the officers, identified as Brandon Holtan and named as a plaintiff in the suit, ran directly toward Nieters.
“As Defendant Holton approached, Mr. Nieters placed his hands in the air and stated that he was a journalist. Mr. Nieters perceived that Defendant Holton was going to run directly into him and so Mr. Nieters turned his back and tried to brace himself,” the lawsuit states.
Holtan then tackled Nieters to the ground and pepper-sprayed him in the eyes. Nieters confirmed to the Tracker that while this was happening he identified himself as a journalist and said that he had his National Press Photographers Association press card in his back pocket.
In addition to the press card — which Holtan located and examined — the lawsuit states that Nieters was carrying two cameras and wearing a bright blue helmet at the time of the incident.
“Despite observing confirmation that Mr. Nieters was working as a photographer, Defendant Holton proceeded to tightly zip-tie Mr. Nieters’ hands together behind his back and arrest him,” the lawsuit said.
In an email to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Nieters said that the Des Moines Police officers repeatedly acted recklessly and without regard for the law or common sense.
“I believe I was targeted for being recognizable and in front while covering protests,” Nieters said.
Nieters confirmed to the Tracker that he was held in police custody for 12 hours, during which time he wasn’t allowed to make any calls to arrange for bail or alert anyone to his whereabouts until after his initial court appearance at around 12:30 p.m. Afterward, he was charged with failure to disperse and released.
According to Nieters’ lawsuit, officers lied about the course of events in both the affidavit supporting the charges and in a report about the incident.
On the morning of June 2, Gov. Kim Reynolds held a news conference, where Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens answered a few questions about the protests. Bayens said law enforcement’s response to the protests had been defined by “restraint, restraint, restraint,” adding that law enforcement did not have “any desire to see anyone that is there in a peaceful capacity or as a member of the media to get caught up with that.”
According to the Register, Nieters had to appear multiple times in court before the charge against him was ultimately dropped on Aug. 13, with all of his court costs to be paid by the prosecutors.
Nieters told the Tracker he was relieved by the outcome, but was alarmed by the prosecutor’s continued pursuit of charges against a Des Moines Register reporter who was arrested while covering protests the day before his arrest.
“It was a relief but also bothersome because Andrea Sahouri was still being charged for her journalism and neither of us were doing anything wrong,” Nieters said.
Sahouri was ultimately acquitted of all charges.
Nieters filed his lawsuit against Officer Holtan, Chief of Police Dana Wingert and the City of Des Moines on Dec. 23, seeking compensation for his injuries and violations of his constitutional rights as well as injunctive relief.
City attorneys moved Nieters’ case from state to federal court in February 2021 and filed a motion for summary judgment in April 2022.
On July 19, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled in favor of the Des Moines Police Department on the federal claims, finding that Holtan had “arguable probable cause” to arrest Nieters because of his proximity to the protesters not complying with orders to disperse.
“Even if Holtan was mistaken in believing Nieters heard the dispersal orders and was following an unlawful assembly, such a mistake was objectively reasonable given the information Holtan received about a 'large' group traveling on Locust Street,” Ebinger wrote.
She added that Nieters turning away from Holtan as he approached could reasonably have been interpreted as an attempt to flee. Ebinger declined to rule on Nieters’ state claims, however, saying they should be decided by Iowa courts.
Gina Messamer, the photojournalist’s attorney, appealed the decision to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 27. Messamer told the Register that she expects the state proceedings to remain on hold until the appeal process is completed.
Independent journalist Mason Lake said he was shot by law enforcement officers with a projectile that injured his arm while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, on May 31, 2020.
Lake, a videographer based in Portland, was filming one of the many protests that broke 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, a Black man. A viral video showed a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
In Portland, 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. Lake, who wasn’t wearing anything to identify himself as press, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting protesters at Southwest Main Street and Southwest Third Avenue around the time the curfew was going into effect on May 31.
Lake said law enforcement officers began using force against protesters.
“The police gave no announcement. They were shooting tear gas with no warning,” he said.
Derek Carmon, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman, disputed Lake’s version of events. He told the Tracker that it is “not our practice to use any crowd-control device without warning. Multiple announcements were given in the area during that time frame.”
Video taken by Lake at around 8:05 p.m. shows protesters in a haze of tear gas. One of the law enforcement officers stationed at the Multnomah County Justice Center can be seen throwing a flash bang grenade at protesters, and an announcement can be heard warning that the officers will use force if the demonstrators don’t leave.
In another video Lake sent to the Tracker, at around 8:10 p.m., he filmed demonstrators kneeling and chanting across from the Justice Center building. Somebody near Lake yells, “incoming!” Then the video goes askew as Lake yells in pain.
When Lake recovers, he films his injured arm and says, “I just got shot by the Portland police.”
“It shoved my hand and left me with welts,” Lake told the Tracker. “I stayed for a little bit to keep recording, but the tear gas came on, and I had to leave and recover.”
Lake said he believes he was hit by a “foam baton,” a projectile used by law enforcement officers for crowd control, due to the sound it made. The Tracker couldn’t independently verify what kind of munition was used.
He said both the Portland Police Bureau and Multnomah County Sheriff's Office policed protests that day. It isn’t clear which agency the officer who fired the shot works for.
On June 6, Lake filed a lawsuit against the City of Portland over the alleged battery by the police that occurred on May 31, seeking up to $450,000 in damages. “Mr. Lake believes he was specifically targeted by City of Portland police officers because he was a photographer documenting police brutality,” the lawsuit states.
Portland City Attorney Tracy Reeve told the Tracker she couldn’t comment on pending litigation.
In an emailed response to questions about Lake’s allegations, Carmon of the Portland Police said: “If it is Portland officers in the video who use force, they know that all uses of force are required to be documented in a police report and administratively reviewed per our policy to determine if they meet our standards. If there is a determination that something was out of policy, it would follow the process for investigation with [Independent Police Review]/[Internal Affairs] to determine if discipline is warranted.”
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 here.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect information gained from a copy of Lake's lawsuit against the City of Portland.
Independent photographer Mathieu Lewis-Rolland said he was fired on by police and targeted with tear gas at close range while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, on May 31, 2020.
Lewis-Rolland, based in Portland, was covering one of the many protests that broke 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, a Black man. A viral video showed a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
In Portland, 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. Around 10:40 p.m. on May 31, Lewis-Rolland went to investigate a loud bang at the intersection of Southwest Salmon Street and Southwest Third Avenue, on the same corner as the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, according to a class-action lawsuit filed by American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. Lewis-Rolland is a plaintiff in the case, which led to an agreement by the Portland Police Bureau in July not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests.
The intersection by the U.S. Courthouse was mostly clear of protesters when Lewis-Rolland arrived, according to his case filing. As he began photographing, an officer aimed a gun directly at him. Shortly after, the officer fired several projectiles toward him without warning, according to the filing.
The police also threw tear gas, according to the suit. “Mr. Lewis-Rolland was overcome by the effects of tear gas and was unable to continue documenting protests or police action at that location, but he attempted to continue operating his camera to the best of his ability while recovering from the effects of the tear gas,” says the complaint. “He was able to capture a visual cloud of gas hovering over the intersection he had just retreated from.”
Lewis-Rolland later posted a photo on Facebook showing the officer just before he fired. “He could see I was holding a camera as well as I could see he was holding a gun,” Lewis-Rolland said in the post. He added that while he wasn’t injured, he felt shrapnel hit his body.
About an hour later, he was photographing a protest around the corner from the first incident, at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Southwest Taylor Street, when a different officer threw a canister of tear gas designed for crowd control at his feet, according to the suit. The photographer was again momentarily incapacitated by the effects of the tear gas.
When he started covering the protests on May 30, Lewis-Rolland wore a shirt and jeans and carried a Nikon camera with a telephoto lens, he told the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, in a recent interview. “Before this I covered local music, festivals, local business editorials, landscapes, and weddings,” he said.
Lewis-Rolland told CPJ that he later had a T-shirt printed with the word “press” on the front and back and received a press pass from the Portland Mercury. He couldn't be reached for further comment about the incident.
The ACLU class-action complaint said that during the May 31 incident, Lewis-Rolland was “unmistakably present in a journalistic capacity” since he was carrying a “large Nikon D850 camera with a 70-200mm lens and a flash.”
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 here.
Johnathen Duran, the content editor at Colorado-based Yellow Scene Magazine, said he was hit in the groin by a rubber bullet while he livestreamed from a Black Lives Matter protest in Denver on May 31, 2020.
Duran, who writes under the name De La Vaca, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was at the intersection of Colfax Avenue and North Pearl Street at around 9:30 p.m. when a police officer shot at him with a rubber bullet.
“I was shot in the left testicle with a rubber bullet while wearing a press pass, carrying a camera bag and backpack, holding a cellphone to livestream,” he said, adding he was wearing a white helmet with MEDIA written on it in four places while he shot video with his phone.
In video supplied by Duran and reviewed by the Tracker, gunfire can be heard amid the scene of an apparent protest. In the video he shows a large rubber bullet to the camera.
“It feels like I was kicked in the balls, but I am walking,” he said in the video, adding later: “There’s no blood on my pants, so I should be OK.”
A Denver Police Department spokesperson said the incident was investigated and closed because the officer couldn’t be identified. However, the spokesperson said the department had undertaken a review of its response to the large-scale demonstrations in the city following the killing of George Floyd, some of which escalated into violence.
The department reviewed the use and tracking of “less-than-lethal” munitions, the processes for documenting use of force during protests, the use of body cameras and improving dispersal orders, among other issues.
A European Pressphoto Agency photojournalist was assaulted and later arrested alongside two other journalists while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 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. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents all arrests separately. Find arrests of journalists covering protests related to the death of George Floyd here.
Tannen Maury told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting a peaceful protest when Minnesota State Patrol troopers began to enforce the 8 p.m. curfew, warning all those still present to disperse.
“Five minutes later, they started marching up the street, launching tear gas and I guess rubber bullets, and everything else they have, and I got hit in the back with a projectile,” Maury said.
He believes he was struck with a tear gas canister judging from the large, white residue mark on his shirt and bulletproof vest. Because of his protective gear, Maury said, he was uninjured and able to continue working.
At just after 9 p.m, Maury was walking with freelance photojournalists Stephen Maturen and Craig Lassig on Nicollet Avenue toward 28th Street where a “parade” of police cruisers was driving, according to Maturen.
Maturen told the Tracker that a police cruiser had stopped abruptly on their block and began shooting less-lethal rounds at the handful of people around them.
The three photojournalists identified themselves as members of the media, and were initially told to keep moving.
A moment later, Maturen said, someone made the call to arrest the journalists.
Sheriff’s deputies ordered all three to get on the ground face down with their hands out, and they complied.
Maury said they explained that they were journalists and exempt from the curfew. “They were gentle, they weren’t rough with us at all,” he said.
The photojournalists were taken to the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis and cited with breaking the city’s curfew order, a misdemeanor which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail. The curfew order specifically exempted members of the news media, however. They were in police custody for approximately two hours.
Maury confirmed that all of their belongings were returned to them upon their release.
Neither the Minneapolis State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department could immediately be reached for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting damage of equipment and multiple journalists arrested or struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas while covering related protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
Law enforcement at a Minneapolis protest on May 30, 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd. Photojournalist Tannen Maury was hit with a tear gas canister fired by a state trooper and arrested while documenting protests in the city.
",arrested and released,Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-06-03 03:23:07.491717+00:00,2024-02-16 21:42:01.158971+00:00,Freelance photojournalist arrested while covering Minneapolis protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-photojournalist-arrested-while-covering-minneapolis-protest/,2024-02-16 21:42:01.045436+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-08-03),,"(2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks, (2022-02-08 12:00:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2020-06-08 00:00:00+00:00) Freelance photojournalist sues following arrest while covering Minneapolis protest, (2020-08-03 16:08:00+00:00) Charges dropped against freelance photojournalist arrested while covering Minneapolis protest",Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Craig Lassig (Freelance),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Freelance photojournalist Craig Lassig was arrested alongside two other journalists while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 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. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents all arrests separately. Find arrests of journalists covering protests related to the death of George Floyd here.
At just after 9 p.m., Lassig was walking with photojournalists Stephen Maturen and Tannen Maury on Nicollet Avenue toward 28th Street where a “parade” of police cruisers was driving, according to Maturen.
Maturen told the Tracker that a police cruiser had stopped abruptly on their block and began shooting less-lethal rounds at the handful of people around them.
The three photojournalists identified themselves as members of the media, and were initially told to keep moving.
A moment later, Maturen said, someone made the call to arrest the journalists.
Lassig told the Tracker that the arrest was uneventful.
“The cop that handled me was professional and was careful with my gear,” Lassig said.
Aside from the fact that there was no reason to detain the three of them, he said, they were treated well and only in police custody for approximately two hours.
The journalists were taken to the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis and cited with breaking the city’s curfew order, a misdemeanor which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail. The curfew order specifically exempted members of the news media, however.
Maturen told the Tracker that all of their belongings were returned to them upon their release.
Neither the Minneapolis State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department could immediately be reached for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting damage of equipment and multiple journalists arrested or struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas while covering related protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
Law enforcement at a Minneapolis protest on May 30, 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd. Photojournalist Craig Lassig was documenting protests when he was arrested for breaking a curfew order that specifically exempted members of the media.
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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. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents all arrests separately. Find arrests of journalists covering protests related to the death of George Floyd here.
Maturen told the Tracker that he had met up with fellow photojournalists at around 9 p.m. Approximately 10-15 minutes later, they were walking north on Nicollet Avenue toward 28th Street when they saw a “parade” of police cruisers driving to where the majority of protesters had scattered.
“[A police cruiser] stopped abruptly and a number of members of the Sheriff’s Department poured out shooting either markers or gas canisters at the handful of people on that block,” Maturen said.
Maturen — along with European Pressphoto Agency photojournalist Tannen Maury and freelance photojournalist Craig Lassig — identified themselves as members of the media, and were initially told to keep moving.
“There was a moment where it seemed as though we would just be pushed out of that block, but then someone decided to call for us to be arrested,” Maturen said.
The photojournalists were all ordered to get on the ground face down with their hands out.
Maturen said that he was not injured in the course of the arrest and that things “were relatively smooth, all things considered.” He added, however, that when his hands were zip-tied he was still wearing his backpack, and officers cut its straps instead of redoing the ties.
Maturen, Lassig and Maury were taken to the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis and cited with breaking the city’s curfew order, a misdemeanor which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail. The curfew order specifically exempted members of the news media, however.
They were in police custody for approximately two hours, and Maturen said that his belongings — including his damaged backpack and camera — were returned to him upon his release.
Neither the Minneapolis State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department could immediately be reached for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting damage of equipment and multiple journalists arrested or struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas while covering related protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
Law enforcement at a Minneapolis protest on May 30, 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd. Photojournalist Stephen Maturen was documenting protests when he was arrested for breaking a curfew order that specifically exempted members of the media.
",arrested and released,Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-06-04 03:20:43.248216+00:00,2022-05-25 16:53:47.105498+00:00,"Photojournalist arrested covering Dallas protests, camera equipment seized",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-arrested-covering-dallas-protests-camera-equipment-seized/,2022-05-25 16:53:46.984784+00:00,blocking traffic: obstructing a highway or passageway (charges dropped as of 2020-07-01),,"(2020-07-01 21:34:00+00:00) Charges dropped against photojournalist arrested covering Dallas protests, (2022-05-23 12:52:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues Dallas Police Department, officer following 2020 arrest","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Equipment Search or Seizure",,"camera: count of 1, camera lens: count of 4",,Christopher Rusanowsky (ZUMA Press),,2020-05-30,False,Dallas,Texas (TX),32.78306,-96.80667,"Freelance photojournalist Christopher Rusanowsky was arrested by Dallas police while on assignment for ZUMA Press documenting protests in the city on May 30, 2020.
Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 have spread across the country, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Rusanowsky, 29, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was booked in Dallas County jail on a count of obstructing a highway or other passageway and was held overnight. He was released on bail the following day.
The count is a Class B misdemeanor in Texas, according to the Texas penal code. If convicted, he could face up to 180 days in jail, and a fine of up to $2,000.
Rusanowsky denies that he was obstructing a highway. He said he had been photographing a group of protesters as they blocked traffic on Interstate 35E.
He said he stepped across the highway guardrail and onto the shoulder to take photographs, taking care not to step into the lanes of traffic. Soon after he moved to a grassy area near the interstate to photograph protesters.
Rusanowsky said he began to take photographs of a police officer shooting nonlethal ammunition at a protester at close range when the officer began pointing and yelling at him. He said the officer told him, “You are going to jail too!”
In response, Rusanowsky said he held up his two cameras and showed the officer his ZUMA-issued press credentials. Rusanowsky said the officer replied, “Yeah, yeah. Press, press. You are going to jail.”
The officer then threw him to the ground, he said, where another officer handcuffed him.
He said an officer seized his cameras and four lenses. He later retrieved the items from police headquarters; he said they do not appear to be damaged.
He was booked into Dallas County jail at 11:38 p.m., according to booking records reviewed by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and was released after posting $300 bail the next day. He posted on Facebook about his release.
The experience has left him shaken, he said. “I’m terrified of cops right now,” he said.
“I don’t have training in hostile environment situations,” he said. “This makes me feel very vulnerable. But I believe in this job so much and I want to do this to give people voices.”
An emailed request for comment on Rusanowsky’s arrest to the Dallas Police Department was not immediately returned.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting damage of equipment and multiple journalists arrested or struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas while covering related protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
Tom Fox, photographer for The Dallas Morning News, captured the arrest of photojournalist Christopher Rusanowsky while both were documenting protests on May 30, 2020, in Dallas, Texas.
",arrested and released,Dallas Police Department,2020-05-31,None,False,3:22-cv-01132,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in full,False,law enforcement,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, protest",,, 2020-06-04 03:57:05.140721+00:00,2024-02-15 20:33:55.489602+00:00,"NBC producer, group of journalists targeted in assault by state patrol",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nbc-producer-group-journalists-targeted-assault-state-patrol/,2024-02-15 17:21:59.076239+00:00,,,"(2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) NBC journalist sues following arrest while covering Minneapolis protest, (2022-02-08 11:58:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks","Assault, Equipment Damage",,,"camera equipment: count of 2, miscellaneous equipment: count of 1, protective equipment: count of 1, recording equipment: count of 1",Ed Ou (NBC News),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Minnesota State Patrol fired tear gas, pepper spray, and concussion grenades at NBC journalist and producer Ed Ou and a group of other journalists in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020, Ou told the Committee to Protect Journalists via phone.
The journalists were covering ongoing protests in the city sparked by the alleged police killing of George Floyd, a black man, on May 25.
Ou told CPJ that the journalists were standing apart from the protesters in an indented section of a brick wall when troopers assaulted them. Ou said that he held up his press badge and screamed “Press!” but the patrol continued the assault.
"We were very explicit about saying we were press and we were nowhere close to any protesters or anyone else," Ou told CPJ. "They kept on throwing concussion grenades at us. They came up to us and maced me or pepper sprayed me on my camera and my face."
Ou, who was videotaping the protest, told CPJ that he was hit in the head. He said he couldn’t see the weapon or projectile as his eyes were blurred by tear gas and pepper spray. He said he stumbled past law enforcement officers asking for help, but none provided assistance. Eventually, a colleague found him, he said.
Ou told CPJ he later went to a hospital and received four stitches in his head.
Ou said that troopers damaged his equipment in the assault. He said the XLR connector between his microphone and camera was damaged, one of his lens filters was cracked, and a UV filter is no longer usable. He said that he can no longer safely use his microphone because pepper spray reached the microphone through the windsock. His gas mask, he added, is now unusable even with a new filter because of the large amount of pepper spray that entered it.
CPJ emailed Minnesota State Patrol for comment but did not receive an immediate reply. It also called the patrol’s press center but was unable to leave a message because the voicemail box was full.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting damage of equipment and multiple journalists arrested or struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas while covering related protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
A video posted to Twitter by journalist Ed Ou shows Minnesota State Patrol troopers coming upon Ou and a group of journalists and spraying them with tear gas and pepper spray during protests on May 30 in Minneapolis.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-08-07 17:38:02.302763+00:00,2023-11-03 14:00:35.972777+00:00,Independent journalist says LA police damaged his equipment while arresting him,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-journalist-says-la-police-damaged-his-equipment-while-arresting-him/,2023-11-03 14:00:35.832385+00:00,failure to obey: failure to obey a lawful order (charges dropped as of 2021-05-31),,(2021-05-31 00:00:00+00:00) Charge dropped against journalist arrested at LA protest,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage",,,recording equipment: count of 1,Jonathan Mayorca (The Convo Couch),,2020-05-30,False,Los Angeles,California (CA),34.05223,-118.24368,"Jonathan Mayorca, a journalist and co-owner of video news outlet The Convo Couch, was arrested by Los Angeles police while filming a demonstration on May 30, 2020.
The protest was part of Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality demonstrations across the country. The protests were sparked by the release of a video showing a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Mayorca told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he arrived at the protest in the Fairfax area of Beverly Boulevard at around 3:30 p.m. along with two crew members, including his sister, Fiorella. Mayorca immediately began to livestream the demonstration. Video shows protesters gathering, holding signs, facing off with a line of police officers and then walking with their hands up and chanting.
The protesters moved west down Beverly Boulevard, and Mayorca and his crew followed. At around 4 p.m the protesters went down an alley near Beverly Boulevard and North Fairfax Avenue because the police had blocked off all other streets, Mayorca said. Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department then blocked all exits, or kettled the protesters in the alley. Mayorca and his crew were prevented from leaving.
Mayorca said he told the police he was a member of the press, but they ignored him. Mayorca was wearing a press badge on a lanyard hanging from his neck.
“We told them multiple times, ‘we’re press, we’re press’,” he said.
Protesters and Mayorca and his crew knelt on the ground in the alley as police officers watched them from a “line in front and behind us,” he said.
“One protester was crying hysterically,” Mayorca told the Tracker. “She threw up.”
Soon after being kettled, LAPD officers moved into the alley. Mayorca did not hear a dispersal order and was not given an opportunity to leave before he was arrested, according to a class-action lawsuit Mayorca joined against the LAPD for alleged federal and state constitutional rights violations. Mayorca’s video of the incident does not appear to pick up an audible warning from police.
Officers grabbed Mayorca, pushed him to the ground, and arrested him, he said. The officers’ actions broke the microphone attachment for his camera.
“It was the height of aggressiveness,” Mayorca said.
According to Mayorca, an officer said his camera equipment was broken before his interaction with police.
The police used zip-tie handcuffs to detain him.
Here’s the quick clip of us getting arrested as the cops lied and kettled the people into an alley. People were asking where to go & the cops led them to more cops. They refused to let us go even though we had badges and told them. pic.twitter.com/nfYvTl561J
— Fiorella Isabel🌹🔥 (@Fiorella_im) June 1, 2020
“The police put me against a wall and searched me,” Mayorca said.
The police brought Mayorca to the Van Nuys police station, where he was held for about two hours and then released, he said. Mayorca said he repeatedly complained about the tightness of his zip-tie handcuffs, but the police ignored him.
“It cut off my circulation a bit,” Mayorca said. “It was uncomfortably tight.”
He was issued a citation for failure to obey a lawful order, a misdemeanor.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said in June that he would use a “non-punitive approach” to resolve the cases of peaceful protesters outside the court system.
Jorge Gonzalez, a civil rights lawyer who's part of the team representing protesters, said the city has tentatively agreed to dismiss the charges if protesters complete an online course on the First Amendment. Gonzalez told the Tracker Aug. 3 that he is rejecting the city’s condition and awaiting the city’s response.
However, Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for City Attorney Feuer, said protesters will be invited to a voluntary, virtual conversation about policing, bias, and inequity organized with the help of local cultural, academic and criminal justice institutions.
Mayorca is a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the LAPD for allegedly violating protesters’ constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and protest, using excessive force, and holding protesters in unlawful conditions of confinement. When reached for comment, LAPD spokesperson Officer Norma Eisenman said the “department does not comment on pending complaints.”
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 related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find all of these cases here.
Independent photojournalist Nick Stern said he was shot by police with crowd-control projectiles twice while covering a protest in Los Angeles, California on May 30, 2020.
The L.A. protest was one of many held across the country in response to a video showing the police killing of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
The demonstration that began in the city’s Fairfax District started out peaceful, but tensions escalated later in the day as police cars were set on fire and law enforcement used tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters, according to LAist.
Stern, whose work has been published by the Daily Mail and other publications, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he followed the protest from Pan Pacific Park as the crowd moved through the neighborhood, coming to a halt at the intersection of Third Street and Fairfax Avenue around 2:30 p.m. When a line of police formed to block the route along Third Street, Stern said he was among the protesters, at the front of the crowd.
The police would occasionally shout “move back” and use batons to push the crowd of protesters back.
Stern said an officer was very aggressive with him, even though he was displaying press credentials and holding two professional cameras. He said the officers prodded him repeatedly in the ribs with a baton. Frustrated, Stern moved within the crowd of protesters to another area, but a second officer started jabbing him with a baton, he said.
The Los Angeles Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Stern said he moved again to another area within the protest group and displayed his press credentials to an officer who led him through the skirmish line, away from the crowd.
Stern said he was standing about 10 feet behind the line of police. He said he brought his camera up to his face to start taking photographs of a group of officers carrying crowd-control weapons as they walked under a cloud of smoke billowing from a police car that had been set on fire.
“As I started taking the picture I realized that one of the cops has got his 40-millimeter gun actually pointing straight at me,” Stern said.
Stern told the Tracker he used his other hand to grab his press credentials, which were hanging from his neck on a lanyard, and held it up by the side of his face. He said he also shouted out that he was a journalist.
Then the officer fired, shooting Stern on his right thigh with a 40-millimeter crowd-dispersal round, Stern told the Tracker.
Stern said he wasn’t near any protesters when he was shot. He said he was the only civilian on that side of the police line and other officers were at least two yards away from him.
About half an hour later, Stern said that he was standing talking with another journalist on the police side of the skirmish line when another round grazed his left knee. He said he didn’t see where the projectile came from, but he said both he and the other journalist were clearly identifiable as members of the press.
Stern said he believed he was targeted because he was a journalist. In addition to shouting out that he was a journalist and showing his press credentials, he said he was carrying two large Nikon cameras.
“It's clear that I was not a protester,” Stern said. “I see no other reason why I was targeted. I was not chanting, not acting aggressively.
Stern said the shot on his right thigh was intensely painful. He had a bruise and said he had difficulty walking for about a week because it was painful to put pressure on that leg.
Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole was one of more than a dozen journalists fired at with crowd-control munitions and pepper spray while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020.
Protests began in Minnesota on May 26, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Half an hour after the 8 p.m. curfew began, Minnesota State Patrol officers fired pepper spray and rubber bullets at a group of at least 20 journalists including Cole, according to Cole’s account of the incident in the LA Times.
Cole wrote that many of the journalists were wearing clearly marked press vests, and that another journalist loudly identified the group as journalists. Cole wrote that an officer came very close to the group and fired pepper spray, and that she “could feel the full force of the pepper spray go into my left ear and eye.”
Cole wrote that a local resident helped her get to a hospital for assistance after being pepper-sprayed.
More than three dozen journalists were assaulted, arrested or had equipment damaged while covering protests that night. The Minneapolis Police Department, Minnesota State Police, and Minnesota National Guard did not reply to emailed requests for comment about these incidents.
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 here.
Los Angeles Times correspondent Molly Hennessy-Fiske was one of more than a dozen journalists fired at with crowd-control munitions and pepper spray while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020.
Protests began in Minnesota on May 26, sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest the day before. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Half an hour after the 8 p.m. curfew began, Minnesota state patrol officers fired pepper spray and rubber bullets at a group of at least 20 journalists including Hennessy-Fiske and LA Times photographer Carolyn Cole, according to Cole’s account of the incident in the LA Times and social media posts by the journalists.
You can hear me and @Carolyn_Cole attacked in this video; see me scaling a wall at the end. I stand corrected: @MnDPS_MSP did shout something at us: "Move!" Hence, I replied "Where do we go?" Thanks @ryanraiche #MinneapolisUprising #Minneapolis https://t.co/1fT36u03kZ
— Molly Hennessy-Fiske (@mollyhf) June 3, 2020
Cole wrote that many of the journalists were wearing clearly marked press vests, and that Hennessy-Fiske loudly identified the group as journalists.
More than three dozen journalists were assaulted, arrested or had equipment damaged while covering protests that night. The Minneapolis Police Department, Minnesota State Police, and Minnesota National Guard did not reply to emailed requests for comment about these incidents.
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 here.
Police officers shoved, threatened and shot projectiles at two freelance journalists while they reported for the New York Times on protests in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020, according to interviews with the journalists and videos of the incidents.
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 violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
Journalists Katie G. Nelson and Mike Shum told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that they were reporting in the Fifth Precinct of Minneapolis for the Times as an 8 p.m. curfew came into effect.
As seen in a video from local ABC affiliate KSTP, a line of state police formed to the south of the station on Nicollet Avenue. “Please disperse or you will be arrested,” a loudspeaker blares. Within seconds of the warning, the police appear to use flash bang grenades and tear gas. They then begin to advance.
The video shows a line of State Patrol troopers, in maroon pants and helmets, and what appear to be Department of Natural Resources conservation officers in green pants and helmets approaching a group of journalists huddled on the side of the street. As previously reported by the Tracker, State Patrol troopers pepper sprayed the group at close range as the journalists identified themselves as press.
Nelson and Shum had gas masks, but a third person working with them didn’t, Nelson said, so she escorted this person to safety as Shum stayed to film.
Shum reunited with Nelson and they continued to report on the dispersal of protesters near the Fifth Precinct police station. About an hour later, the team was filming a couple of people approaching a police line with their hands up near a Kmart a few blocks from where Shum was shoved, Nelson said. A Minneapolis Police officer about fifty feet away pointed a projectile launcher at them, Nelson said.
Nelson said she yelled that they were press, adding there was no question they looked like journalists given their large cameras, ballistic helmets and protective vests.
In a video filmed shortly after that Nelson provided to the Tracker, Minneapolis police officers in a line start ordering people to move. Nelson can be heard warning Shum, “Mike, Mike, Mike, they’re gonna push us. Keep shooting Mike.”
Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder told the Tracker he couldn’t comment on the incident. He added that “every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
Late into the night, Nelson and Shum were driving a couple of blocks off Lake Street on their way to 38th and Chicago, where protesters had created a memorial on the site of Floyd’s killing.
Nelson turned the car onto a road blocked by a police checkpoint, the journalists told the Tracker. Nelson said the police shined a bright light at them. Blinded, she slowed the car down. Nelson said she yelled that they were press through the open windows of the car.
Nelson said the police yelled “Go home” and “We don’t care” in response.
Nelson pulled a U-turn and drove away as the journalists heard the pinging of projectiles hitting her car. They said they believe the car was hit with pepper balls.
“I start coughing and it’s really hard to see. My eyes are watering. It felt very close to tear gas,” Nelson said. “I was just like, we gotta get out of here.”
At around the same time, unidentified law-enforcement officers fired projectiles at the car of a television crew for France’s TF1 and arrested them, the Tracker previously reported.
It isn’t clear which law enforcement agency fired the projectiles at Nelson’s car. Protesters, journalists and even law-enforcement officials have had difficulty at times identifying specific officers during the protests. More than a dozen different agencies joined the law-enforcement effort in Minnesota, often wearing similar looking uniforms.
Nelson’s car wasn’t damaged and the journalists were uninjured. However, Nelson told the Tracker on Aug. 13 that a doctor diagnosed recurring eye inflammation as a result of tear gas exposure.
DNR spokesman Chris Niskanen said the department respects the freedom of the press but “disagrees with [the Tracker’s] characterization of events.” He didn’t specify why. Niskanen added he couldn’t comment further on the incident because it “may be subject to ongoing litigation initiated against the State of Minnesota by multiple media members.”
Nelson and Shum have joined a lawsuit seeking class-action status filed by the ACLU of Minnesota against Minneapolis and state officials concerning the treatment of journalists covering the Floyd protests.
The Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Patrol, didn’t respond to the Tracker’s emailed list of questions. In a May 31 press conference, the Chief of the State Patrol, Col. Matt Langer, praised the law-enforcement effort during a dangerous and unpredictable night while also saying: “We are never perfect.”
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 here.
Nelson told the Tracker this Minneapolis police officer pointed a projectile launcher directly at her and her reporting partner, Mike Shum, on May 30, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-09-24 20:12:15.487217+00:00,2024-02-16 21:04:00.764013+00:00,Reporter struck in the eye with less-lethal round during second day of Minnesota protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-struck-in-the-eye-with-less-lethal-round-during-second-day-of-minnesota-protests/,2024-02-16 21:04:00.652924+00:00,,,"(2022-02-08 11:54:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2020-06-02 16:05:00+00:00) Freelance journalist files class action suit against Minneapolis police department, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks",Assault,,,,Jared Goyette (Freelance),,2020-05-27,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Freelance journalist Jared Goyette was struck in the eye with a crowd-control munition and tear gassed while documenting demonstrations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 27, 2020.
Police were attempting to reign in a second day of protests following the death of George Floyd, a black man. Floyd died at a hospital on May 25, after an officer knelt on his neck during an arrest, ignoring Floyd's repeated exclamations that he could not breathe. A video of the arrest sparked widespread outrage, and protests began the following day in Minneapolis.
On May 26, thousands of protesters gathered outside the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct. That afternoon and evening, police clad in riot gear fired tear gas, flash-bang grenades and less-lethal rounds into the crowd, and some demonstrators built barricades and set fires.
Protesters took to the streets again the following day.
On the 27th, Goyette began tweeting at 7 p.m. about a young protester who had been hit in the side of the head by a crowd-control round by police. He continued tweeting as other demonstrators attempted to carry the man to safety and eventually loaded him into a car to be taken to the hospital.
Ten minutes later, Goyette tweeted that he had been struck in the eye and then tear gassed.
I got hit in the eye and then tear gassed. pic.twitter.com/wXm1P5yPKb
— Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) May 27, 2020
Goyette, who was not immediately available for comment, posted that people had rushed to help him bandage his eye and helped him to safety when a cloud of tear gas came upon them.
“I wasn’t trying to put myself at risk. I wanted to document what was happening to the young man who seemed critically injured, and the people who were trying to keep him alive,” Goyette wrote.
Photojournalist Dymanh Chhoun of WCCO-TV tweeted that he, too, had been caught in a cloud of tear gas.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately respond to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s request for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists being 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 here.
Minneapolis police spray a crowd-control agent on protesters on May 27, 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. While documenting events that day, freelance photojournalist Jared Goyette was tear gassed, hit in the eye with a crowd-control munition.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2022-01-14 14:40:32.348102+00:00,2022-08-22 19:57:21.799115+00:00,Photojournalist questioned by CBP in Detroit after being denied entry to Mexico,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-questioned-by-cbp-in-detroit-after-being-denied-entry-to-mexico/,2022-08-22 19:57:21.743345+00:00,,,,Border Stop,,,,Kitra Cahana (Freelance),,2019-01-18,False,Detroit,Michigan (MI),42.33143,-83.04575,"Freelance photojournalist Kitra Cahana was questioned about her journalistic work by U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities in Detroit, Michigan, on Jan. 18, 2019.
Cahana was one of many journalists covering the Central American migrant caravan’s arrival to Mexico. According to a lawsuit in which Cahana is a plaintiff, the photojournalist was flagged for secondary screening by CBP at a preclearance location in Montreal while traveling from Canada to Mexico City via Detroit on Jan. 17. Cahana was ultimately denied entry to Mexico and put on a return flight to Detroit the following day.
According to the lawsuit, when Cahana landed and passed through customs the machine printed out a ticket with a picture of her face with a large “X” on it, indicating that she had been flagged for secondary screening.
Two plainclothes officers questioned Cahana in a private room, asking about her denial of entry to Mexico and her interactions with the Mexican authorities. The officers also asked her to confirm details of an incident that took place the day after Christmas.
“This suggested to Ms. Cahana that the officers knew more about her and her journalism work in Mexico in December 2018 than Ms. Cahana had revealed during questioning by them,” the lawsuit states.
On March 6, NBC 7 in San Diego broke the story that Department of Homeland Security officials in San Diego had created a database of journalists, activists and attorneys who were involved in some way with the migrant caravan, including Cahana. The anonymous whistleblower who brought the documents to NBC 7 told the news outlet that the DHS had created dossiers on each individual in the database.
“We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the anonymous source said. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
DHS confirmed to NBC 7 that the seal on the documents indicates that “the documents are a product of the International Liaison Unit (ILU), which coordinates intelligence between Mexico and the United States.”
“In the current state of journalism, it's really freelancers who are bringing so much news to the public,” Cahana told NBC 7. “And the uncertainty of having an alert placed on your passport and not knowing where and when that's going to prevent you from doing your work is really problematic.”
On Nov. 20, Cahana and four other photojournalists — all of whom were questioned about their work covering the migrant caravan and documented in the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — filed a lawsuit against the heads of DHS, CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This lawsuit challenges U.S. border officers’ questioning of journalists about their work documenting conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border,” the suit begins “The border officers’ questioning aimed at uncovering Plaintiffs’ sources of information and their observations as journalists was unconstitutional.”
The suit seeks a ruling that such questioning violates the First Amendment and an injunction requiring the agencies to expunge any records or files about the photojournalists. The suit remains ongoing and discovery is underway.
Freelance photojournalist Kitra Cahana had an alert placed on her passport and was entered into a database authorized by the U.S. government, which collected information about her and other journalists. Cahana was ultimately denied entry into Mexico multiple times.
Cahana was one of many journalists covering the Central American migrant caravan’s arrival to Mexico. While traveling from Canada to Mexico City on Jan. 17, 2019, Cahana was pulled aside at U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance in Montreal due to a “flag” on her passport, she said.
According to a lawsuit in which Cahana is a plaintiff, officers questioned Cahana about her work, how it was funded, whether she was covering the caravan on assignment and how she obtained assignments. After approximately 10 minutes, she was allowed to board her flight, but upon arrival was pulled aside again due to the alert on her passport — this time, by Mexican authorities, who Cahana said separated her from her phone.
According to the lawsuit, Cahana repeatedly asked the officers why she was being held and if it was because she is a journalist. An officer responded that she was being held because of a flag with Interpol by U.S. authorities.
She was ultimately denied entry to Mexico and was forced to return to Detroit; upon landing, she was once again flagged for secondary screening.
On March 6, NBC 7 in San Diego broke the story that Department of Homeland Security officials in San Diego had created a database of journalists, activists and attorneys who were involved in some way with the migrant caravan. The anonymous whistleblower who brought the documents to NBC 7 told the news outlet that the DHS had created dossiers on each individual in the database.
“We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the anonymous source said. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
DHS confirmed to NBC 7 that the seal on the documents indicates that “the documents are a product of the International Liaison Unit (ILU), which coordinates intelligence between Mexico and the United States.”
“In the current state of journalism, it's really freelancers who are bringing so much news to the public,” Cahana told NBC 7. “And the uncertainty of having an alert placed on your passport and not knowing where and when that's going to prevent you from doing your work is really problematic.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented other journalists covering the migrant caravan who were targeted by U.S. authorities for additional border screening measures. Some, including Go Nakamura and Ariana Drehsler, are listed in the database.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated with information detailed in a lawsuit Kitra Cahana filed in November 2019.
A political blogger in Iowa has been denied press access to the Iowa Legislature two years in a row, despite the lack of a clear policy that would disqualify her.
Laura Belin, who runs the independent news site Bleeding Heartland, covers Iowa politics and has been critical of the Republican-led House and Senate. Belin told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she first sought information about press credentials in the Iowa House of Representatives in early 2019. Since then, officials have denied her requests for credentials or access to press work areas multiple times, each time citing different reasons that did not align with written policies in place. Both the House and the Senate have also changed press qualification criteria since her first application.
When Belin first sought credentials in the House, the clerk at the time, Carmine Boal, told her by email on Jan. 3, 2019, that credentials “are not issued to members of the public.”
Boal referenced Iowa House rules, which did not elaborate on qualifications for the press. She also told Belin the House consulted U.S. congressional press gallery rules, which would not appear to disqualify Belin. Boal never responded to multiple requests for further explanation from Belin.
Boal stood by the denial of Belin’s credentials in a statement to The Associated Press but did not elaborate on why she did not meet the chamber’s rules that restricted access to the press box to “representatives of the press, radio, and television.”
After the Iowa Freedom of Information Council wrote to Boal expressing concerns about Belin’s rejection, Boal responded on Feb. 5 that House rules “do not offer a definition” of members of the media, and again pointed to congressional rules. In a copy of the response letter provided to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, she wrote that online outlets are not excluded and said that credentials are not denied based on content. However, she also said that the House has not “credentialed any ‘non-traditional media’ since 2015,” a policy that did not appear in writing.
Belin also applied for access to desks reserved for members of the press in the Iowa Senate in January 2019. She was initially told that she could access vacant spaces on day passes. However, Belin said she was never issued a day pass, even when the desks were not in use.
Both the House and the Senate updated their press policies after Belin’s initial inquiries, according to the AP. The House updated its policy in February 2019 to include requirements that credentialed press be “bona fide correspondents of repute” and a “paid correspondent.” Bleeding Heartland is editorially independent and a registered business. Belin, as its owner, is entitled to any proceeds.
Belin applied for press credentials for the 2020 legislative session. She was denied credentials from the House on Jan. 10, 2020. House Clerk Meghan Nelson told her in an email that the House does not credential “outlets that are nontraditional/independent in nature.” This requirement is not included in the Iowa House press policy.
The Senate abolished media credentials and adopted a new reserved work space policy, in place for the 2020 legislative session, which guides access to desks in the Senate chamber reserved for media and Senate staff.
On Jan. 10, Belin received an email from Secretary of the Senate Charlie Smithson notifying her that “it has been determined that you do not meet the criteria to be a ‘member of the media’” under the Senate’s work space policy. Correspondence provided by Belin shows that Smithson did not respond to her multiple requests for further explanation of what criteria she did not meet under the policy.
Belin told the Tracker that press freedom protections are not just for journalists pulling a full-time salary. She suspects she was denied access because her approach differs from the “traditional objectivity stance.”
“I don’t think it’s constitutional for them to exclude me because they don’t like the opinions on my website,” Belin said.
Iowa House and Senate officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Political blogger Laura Belin has been repeatedly denied press access to the Iowa Statehouse. "I don’t think it’s constitutional for them to exclude me because they don’t like the opinions on my website,” Belin said.
",None,None,None,None,False,4:24-cv-00021,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,"['CHANGE_IN_POLICY', 'PRESS_CREDENTIAL']",,,,,State government: Legislature 2019-02-22 15:53:32.071992+00:00,2023-11-06 19:46:43.898679+00:00,Photojournalist pulled into secondary screening at border,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-pulled-secondary-screening-border/,2023-11-06 19:46:43.792481+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalists sue DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage",Border Stop,,,,Mark Abramson (Freelance),,2019-01-05,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"Mark Abramson, a freelance photojournalist, was pulled into secondary screening by U.S. border officials while returning from Mexico on Jan. 5, 2019.
Abramson, a U.S. citizen, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that border agents looked through his belongings, including his notebook, at the El Chaparral port of entry at San Diego, California.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection official then brought Abramson into a separate room, where he was asked to leave his bag and phone behind. The Intercept reported that in there, he was questioned for about 30 minutes about assignments and payments he received as a freelancer. The official also asked a series of questions related to the migrant caravan, including whether Abramson knew “who is stirring up stuff in the camp” or of groups helping the migrants.
Abramson told CPJ he was disturbed by the line of questions. “I’m not an informant, my job is to inform the public,” he said.
CBP did not respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer watches a group of migrants from Central America seeking asylum as they search for a place to cross over the U.S. border wall in Tijuana, Mexico, in December 2018.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,no,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,migrant caravan,United States,, 2019-02-21 19:36:46.461277+00:00,2023-11-06 19:47:03.580768+00:00,"Photojournalist questioned at San Ysidro border, separated from camera",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-questioned-san-ysidro-border-separated-camera/,2023-11-06 19:47:03.442523+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage","Border Stop, Equipment Search or Seizure",,camera: count of 1,,Ariana Drehsler (Freelance),,2019-01-04,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"On Jan. 4, 2019, freelance photojournalist Ariana Drehsler was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border and subjected to secondary screening measures for the third time over the course of several weeks.
Drehsler had been covering the migrant caravan and seekers of asylum status in the United States. When she crossed over from Mexico on Dec. 30, 2018, she was stopped and told that her passport had been “flagged,” and she was again stopped for additional screening on Jan. 2.
“I was sent to secondary screening again,” she said of the Jan. 4 incident. While she was waiting to be questioned at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego, she said border agents chatted with her about her photography gear.
“One asked if I would show him my photos, but I declined, and he said something like, ‘Yeah, I kind of figured.’”
Unlike her two previous border stops, during which she was questioned by officials wearing civilian clothing, this time she was questioned by uniformed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.
She was patted down, and then her belongings were searched in front of her, she said. “I didn’t have my laptop because I felt paranoid doing so at that point,” referring to the two previous border stops.
“They took me into a hall and they told me to leave my bag and phone there, and they took me to another room.”
Drehsler said she felt uncomfortable being separated from her belongings.
During questioning, she said she was asked about background as a journalist and her previous work-related travels to the Middle East as well as details about the migrant caravan.
“The agents that questioned me said, ‘You’re on the ground and we’re not,’ which is why they were asking me those questions. They wanted to know what I was seeing and hearing about the new caravan and organizers.”
Drehsler said that before December 2018 she did not have any problem entering the United States when reporting from Mexico.
CBP did not immediately respond to request for comment.
A man holds an American flag at the Contra Viento y Marea shelter, a private warehouse converted into a shelter for migrants who traveled from Central America to near the US-Mexico border, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Jan. 4, 2019.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,returned in full,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,yes,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,migrant caravan,United States,, 2019-02-21 18:50:06.678337+00:00,2023-11-06 19:47:20.207092+00:00,Photojournalist questioned at U.S.-Mexico border for second time,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-questioned-us-mexico-border-second-time/,2023-11-06 19:47:20.113165+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage",Border Stop,,,,Ariana Drehsler (Freelance),,2019-01-02,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"Freelance photojournalist Ariana Drehsler was stopped for a secondary screening and questioned while entering the United States from Mexico on Jan. 2, 2019.
Drehsler arrived around 11 p.m. on Jan. 2 at San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry from Mexico, where she had been documenting the caravan of Central American immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. for wire service United Press International.
Similar to a border stop at the same port of entry just days before, she was stopped and questioned by three officials wearing civilian clothes.
“They were the same two people from the first time, as well as another,” Drehsler said. “They said, ‘Oh, we brought a new person,’ and they were like, ‘We mentioned you to this other guy.’” She said the officials made a point to say she would not have to wait as long as last time.
“Before they started asking me questions, I said I was not in Tijuana on New Year’s Day, because I had a feeling this would happen,” she said, referring to an incident the day before, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had fired at migrants attempting to climb a wall to enter into the U.S.
Drehsler said that one of the officials replied, “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
In an attempt to shift the conversation away from the journalists covering the migrant caravan, Drehsler said she brought up the presence of activists, such as those present in Tijuana from Seattle.
“[Border officials] mentioned the new caravan, and asked if the people in the new one understand how hard it is for people to seek asylum at the border. I said I had no idea. They asked about the organizers and activists and said their presence has dropped off. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know.”
Just before leaving the secondary screening and entering the U.S., Drehsler said the border agents asked her whether she rented or owned her home.
Drehsler told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was confused about the relevance of the question. “[The agent] said she just wanted to know for yourself,” she said. “I said I rented.”
Like her previous border stop on Dec. 30, 2018, none of her belongings, notes, or devices were searched. A few days after this incident, Drehsler would be stopped a third time.
“I didn’t have anything to hide, but I still felt weird answering their questions,” she said. “I felt like an informant.”
CBP did not immediately respond to request for comment.
In early December 2018, El Barretal shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, housed more than 3,000 migrants from Central America.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,no,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,migrant caravan,United States,, 2019-02-21 18:42:33.285879+00:00,2023-11-06 19:48:14.922474+00:00,Photojournalist questioned at San Ysidro border,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-questioned-san-ysidro-border/,2023-11-06 19:48:14.838453+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage",Border Stop,,,,Ariana Drehsler (Freelance),,2018-12-30,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"While covering the migrant caravan in Mexico, freelance photojournalist Ariana Drehsler has been stopped for secondary screenings each time she has re-entered the United States since December 2018.
At around 12:15 a.m. on Dec. 30, 2018, Drehsler arrived at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego to cross back into the United States. She had been covering the migrant caravan for wire service United Press International. She would be stopped again on Jan. 2 and Jan. 4.
Drehsler said that the U.S. border agent who had her passport asked her a couple of questions before informing her that she would need to go to secondary screening.
“A man and a woman in civilian clothes came up to me and took me into another room. They asked me what I was doing in Tijuana, who I work for, what other outlets I’ve worked for, my editor’s phone number,” Drehsler said. “They also asked about my background as a photographer.”
She said that she was asked about what she knew about the caravan, people crossing the border illegally, and details about the shelters for migrants in Mexico.
“I didn’t hide anything, but I also didn’t give them information like the names of fellow journalists. And they also didn’t ask me for specific names.”
Drehsler told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the border officials informed her that her passport had been “flagged,” but they did not know why, and they indicated that she might want to budget more time for border crossings since she could be stopped again.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents did not search Drehsler’s notes, electronic devices, or baggage, and she was permitted to bring her phone into questioning. She left the port of entry and entered the United States around 1:25 a.m.
CBP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Unlike the U.S. side, where onlookers are supposed to keep a distance, those at Las Playas de Tijuana in Mexico are allowed to get close to the border wall that separates the two countries.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,no,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,migrant caravan,United States,, 2019-02-15 18:10:00.072279+00:00,2022-08-22 20:04:41.151541+00:00,Student photojournalist stopped at US-Mexico border for secondary screening,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/two-photography-students-stopped-us-mexico-border-secondary-screening/,2022-08-22 20:04:41.075237+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalists sue DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage","Border Stop, Equipment Search or Seizure",,camera: count of 1,,Bing Guan (Independent),,2018-12-29,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"Bing Guan and Go Nakamura, American photojournalists, were pulled into secondary screening on Dec. 29, 2018, while driving through the San Ysidro point of entry, a border crossing between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers separated Guan, who was driving his car, and Nakamura and questioned them individually. Guan told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he was questioned by two plainclothes CBP agents, one of whom produced a tear sheet with photographs of people who had been around the caravan. Guan told CPJ that the agents showed him two or three sheets of photo arrays “with between 9 and 12 photos” on each page. These included some photos that appeared like mugshots and others that seemed like surveillance photos.
Guan told The Intercept that he recognized two individuals as anti-migrant activists and thought that a third was associated with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigrant rights group. Guan said that the CPB agents referred to the people in the photos as “instigators.”
Guan was asked to open his camera and show photographs, which he did, reasoning that it would be too dark to identify anyone, according to the account in The Intercept.
Likewise, Nakamura told CPJ that a CBP officer asked him to show his photographs to prove he was a photographer. The officer then showed Nakamura photographs of 20 people and asked whether he had seen them in Mexico. Nakamura said that he was not given an explanation of who the people were.
Two days prior to the secondary screening, Nakamura and Guan were stopped by Mexican municipal police officers who photographed their passports.
A few weeks before he was pulled into secondary screening, Guan had driven through the same San Ysidro port of entry without any issues, he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents look toward the Mexican border at the San Ysidro border in San Diego, California in November 2018.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,no,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"migrant caravan, student journalism",United States,, 2022-01-14 15:59:14.344475+00:00,2022-08-22 20:05:12.469502+00:00,Photojournalist stopped at US-Mexico border for secondary screening,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-stopped-at-us-mexico-border-for-secondary-screening/,2022-08-22 20:05:12.373002+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Photojournalists sue DHS, agencies after questioned about caravan coverage","Border Stop, Equipment Search or Seizure",,camera: count of 1,,Go Nakamura (Freelance),,2018-12-29,False,San Diego,California (CA),32.71571,-117.16472,"Go Nakamura and Bing Guan, American photojournalists, were pulled into secondary screening on Dec. 29, 2018, while driving through the San Ysidro point of entry, a border crossing between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers separated Guan, who was driving his car, and Nakamura and questioned them individually. Guan told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he was questioned by two plainclothes CBP agents, one of whom produced a tear sheet with photographs of people who had been around the caravan. Guan told CPJ that the agents showed him two or three sheets of photo arrays “with between 9 and 12 photos” on each page. These included some photos that appeared like mugshots and others that seemed like surveillance photos.
Guan told The Intercept that he recognized two individuals as anti-migrant activists and thought that a third was associated with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an immigrant rights group. Guan said that the CPB agents referred to the people in the photos as “instigators.”
Guan was asked to open his camera and show photographs, which he did, reasoning that it would be too dark to identify anyone, according to the account in The Intercept.
Likewise, Nakamura told CPJ that a CBP officer asked him to show his photographs to prove he was a photographer. The officer then showed Nakamura photographs of 20 people and asked whether he had seen them in Mexico. Nakamura said that he was not given an explanation of who the people were.
Two days prior to the secondary screening, Nakamura and Guan were stopped by Mexican municipal police officers who photographed their passports.
A few weeks before he was pulled into secondary screening, Guan had driven through the same San Ysidro port of entry without any issues, he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents participate in a readiness exercise in January at the San Ysidro port of entry with Mexico in San Diego, California.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:19-cv-06570,['ONGOING'],Civil,None,False,None,San Ysidro Port of Entry,U.S. citizen,False,False,no,yes,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,migrant caravan,United States,, 2018-10-26 21:32:22.072826+00:00,2023-11-22 20:53:57.641791+00:00,Journalist Karen Savage arrested for second time while covering anti-pipeline protest in Louisiana,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-karen-savage-arrested-second-time-while-covering-anti-pipeline-protest-louisiana/,2023-11-22 20:53:57.520701+00:00,trespassing: unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure project (charges dropped as of 2021-07-13),,(2021-07-13 00:00:00+00:00) Charges dropped against investigative journalist who sued following arrests in Louisiana,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Karen Savage (The Appeal),,2018-09-18,False,St. Martin Parish,Louisiana (LA),None,None,"On Sept. 18, 2018, freelance investigative reporter Karen Savage was arrested and charged with trespassing, while reporting on protests against the construction of the Bayou Bridge oil pipeline in Louisiana.
Savage was embedded with a camp of protesters, known as water protectors, who were aiming to defend a piece of land in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River Basin, a wetlands area co-owned by hundreds of people.
Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, is trying to build its new Bayou Bridge oil pipeline through the area. Although some of the co-owners of the Atchafalaya River Basin property have given the company permission to build the pipeline, hundreds of others have refused to do so. Despite this, the company had already begun making alterations to the land, including removing trees and digging a ditch. It has also asked the state of Louisiana to use eminent domain to seize the land from the co-owners who object to the pipeline.
Savage told Freedom of the Press Foundation that one of the co-owners of the Atchafalaya Basin land who is resisting the pipeline had given her permission to be on the property.
“Some were actively resisting, and I had a letter from a landowner saying we were welcome to be on the property," she said. "For people to visit the property, you only need permission from one landowner.”
Savage had previously been arrested for trespassing while reporting on the pipeline protests on Aug. 18. Once she was released on bail, she returned to the resistance camp at the Atchafalaya River Basin to continue covering the protest movement.
Savage said that on September 3 and 4, she witnessed law enforcement officers treated protesters badly.
“They chased them, tackled them, and allowed pipeline security employees to put their hands on protesters," she said. "It was heavily violence and I got some pictures of law enforcement chasing them.”
She said that a few weeks later, on Sept. 17, she was riding in a vehicle that was pulled over in a different parish in Louisiana. The officers ran the ID's of everyone in the car, but everything came back fine and they were allowed to proceed after receiving a citation.
The next day, sheriff's deputies claimed that Savage had an outstanding warrant dating from Sept. 3.
Savage said that on September 18, she was tipped off by protesters to come to a particular part of the swamp, and when she pulled up in her boat to the ramp, she saw sheriff’s department officers present. As Savage began photographing the scene, the officers came to her and arrested her, allegedly on an outstanding warrant.
“They said they were arresting me for an outstanding warrant,” she said. “But I knew there was nothing out for me.”
Savage said that an individual who witnessed the arrest called the sheriff’s department to inquire why she was arrested and learned that there was no warrant out for her.
Savage was arrested under Louisiana's newly-enacted state law against "unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure project." The Louisiana state law — which only went into effect on Aug. 1 — makes trespassing on a "critical infrastructure project" like an oil pipeline a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
She had previously been arrested under the same law on Aug. 18.
Savage contrasted her treatment by the sheriff’s department to her previous arrest while covering the protest in August. Then, she said, the arrest wasn’t violent. But this time, she said the officers grabbed her roughly and pulled her hands back.
"They really hurt me arms, shoulders, and wrists," she said. "It was really unnecessary."
She said that the officers put her in the back of a police car and then drove her around for about an hour, which she found suspicious.
"It’s a 20 minute drive to the station," she said. "But they kept driving around through sugar cane fields, and I had no idea where he was taking me. I thought maybe it was intimidation because they didn’t actually have a warrant."
The St. Martin’s Sheriff Department did not respond to request for comment.
Savage said that, despite her two arrests, the local district attorney has not brought any criminal charges against her.
“I’m doubtful that they ever will," she said. "It was a very clear intimidation tactic to stop me from covering the story.”
“I will go back,” she added. “I’m not going to let them intimidate me. It’s our job to hold these officials accountable.”
On Aug. 18, 2018, freelance investigative reporter Karen Savage was arrested under a felony trespassing law, while reporting on protests against the construction of the Bayou Bridge oil pipeline in Louisiana. At the time, Savage was on assignment for The Appeal, a progressive news site focused on criminal justice issues.
Savage was embedded with a camp of protesters, known as water protectors, who were aiming to defend a piece of land in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River Basin, a wetlands area co-owned by hundreds of people. Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, is trying to build its new Bayou Bridge oil pipeline through the area. Although some of the co-owners of the Atchafalaya Basin property have given the company permission to build the pipeline, hundreds of others have refused to do so. Despite this, the company had already begun making alterations to the land, including removing trees and digging a ditch. It has also asked the state of Louisiana to use eminent domain to seize the land from the co-owners who object to the pipeline.
Savage told Freedom of the Press Foundation that one of the co-owners of the Atchafalaya Basin land who is resisting the pipeline had given her permission to be on the property.
“Some were actively resisting, and I had a letter from a landowner saying we were welcome to be on the property," she said. "For people to visit the property, you only need permission from one landowner.”
On Aug. 18, Savage was with three water protectors, taking pictures and reporting, when she was arrested by sheriff's deputies from the nearby St. Martin Parish.
“I wasn’t even on the contested part of the land,” she said. “Sheriff’s deputies showed up and said I had to leave. I said I had permission to be there. I didn’t think I, or anyone else, would be arrested.”
She showed the officer a photograph of letter she had from a landowner, granting her permission to remain on the property. She said that she urged the officer to call the landowner, but he declined to do so. Officers then arrested her and the three water protectors who were with her.
Savage was one of the first people to be arrested under a newly-enacted Louisiana state law against "unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure project," which went into effect on Aug. 1. The new Louisiana state law makes trespassing on a "critical infrastructure project" like an oil pipeline a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. (Trespassing on land that is not a "critical infrastructure project" remains a misdemeanor.)
Although Savage was arrested under the law, the local district attorney has not yet brought any criminal charges against her.
After Savage was released on bail, she returned to the area to continue reporting on the protests against the Bayou Bridge pipeline.
“I bonded out, and kept reporting,” she said. “I wasn’t going to be intimidated.”
She later published a piece in The Appeal about her arrest and the way that Energy Transfer Partners employs off-duty law enforcement officers as a private security force, which works closely with uniformed St. Martin Parish sheriff's deputies to arrest pipeline protesters.
The St. Martin’s Sheriff Department did not respond to request for comment.
On June 28, 2018, a man armed with a shotgun entered the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot multiple journalists and other media workers, the Baltimore Sun reported. Five people, including four journalists, were killed in the attack, and two others were injured. Police later identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, who had previously sued the Capital Gazette for defamation.
Editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, who had worked for the Capital Gazette for more than 25 years, was among those killed. Anne Arundel County police said that the other Capital Gazette employees killed in the attack were:
Two other Capital Gazette employees, whose names were not released, were injured in the attack. Find the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s documentation of all the journalists killed in the attack here.
The shooting occurred on June 28 inside the Capital Gazette newsroom, which is located on the ground floor of an office building in Annapolis, Maryland. The newsroom is home to reporters for both The Capital, a daily newspaper covering Annapolis, and The Maryland Gazette, a twice-weekly paper focused on state news. The shooting was the most deadly attack on journalists in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Phil Davis, a crime reporter for The Capital who was inside the newsroom during the shooting, told the Sun that he saw multiple colleagues shot. He said the scene inside the newsroom "was like a war zone." In a series of powerful tweets, he described what he witnessed.
A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Jarrod Ramos, the suspect in the shooting, had threatened and harassed Capital Gazette staffers for years, according to the Sun.
It began in July 2011, when Capital columnist Eric Hartley wrote about how Ramos was charged with harassment after stalking and threatening a high school classmate online. In response to Hartley's column, Ramos waged a one-man war against him and the paper, according to The Virginian-Pilot, where Hartley now works.
In July 2012, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Hartley, Capital Gazette Communications, and The Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt. Ramos represented himself in the suit, which was filed in Prince George's County, Maryland. At a March 2013 court hearing, a judge dismissed Ramos' complaint with prejudice and tried to explain to Ramos why the article was not defamatory:
You know, I understand exactly how you feel. I think people who are the subject of newspaper articles, whoever they may be, feel that there is a requirement that they be placed in the best light, or they have an opportunity to have the story reported to their satisfaction, or have the opportunity to have however much input they believe is appropriate.
But that's simply not true. There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit.
Transcript of March 29, 2013 motion hearing
Ramos appealed the judge's decision. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's dismissal of the case and ordered Ramos to pay Capital Gazette's legal fees. In an unpublished opinion, one of the appellate court judges wrote that "a discussion of defamation law would be an exercise in futility, because the appellant [Ramos] fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation," and sharply criticized Ramos for bringing the lawsuit:
The appellant is pro se. A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case. It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not. The appellant is aggrieved because the newspaper story about his guilty plea assumed that he was guilty and that the guilty plea was, therefore, properly accepted. He is aggrieved because the story was sympathetic toward the harassment victim and was not equally understanding of the harassment perpetrator. The appellant wanted equal coverage of his side of the story. He wanted a chance to put the victim in a bad light, in order to justify and explain why he did what he did. That, however, is not the function of defamation law.
The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim and may not blithely dismiss her as a "bipolar drunkard." He does not appear to have learned his lesson.
Unpublished appellate opinion
Ramos then tried to appeal to the state's highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, which declined to hear his case.
Ramos also harassed The Capital and its reporters outside of the courtroom.
According to the Sun, a Twitter account in Ramos' name (which has since been suspended), tweeted threats against The Capital. The account, which has since been suspended, included photographs of Hartley and Marquardt, and alluded to the mass shooting of journalists.
Marquardt, who served as The Capital's editor and publisher until 2012, told the Sun that he had been concerned about Ramos' obsessive hatred of the paper and whether it could escalate into violence.
"I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” he told the Sun. “I even told my wife, 'We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.' ... I remember telling our attorneys, 'This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us.'"
Marquardt told the Los Angeles Times that when he notified the Anne Arundel County police about Ramos' harassment back in 2013, the police said they could not arrest him for his behavior toward the newspaper. Marquardt said that the paper considered getting a restraining order against Ramos but worried about how Ramos would react.
"The theory back then was, 'Let’s not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it’s gonna get,'" he told the Los Angeles Times.
William Shirley, an attorney who helped defend Capital Gazette against Ramos' defamation suit, told the New York Daily News that Ramos threatened during a court hearing to assault Capital journalists.
"I remember at one point he was talking in a motion and somehow worked in how he wanted to smash Hartley’s face into the concrete," Shirley said. "We were concerned at the time. He was not stable."
On June 29, the day after the shooting, Ramos was charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
In the aftermath of the attack, Capital Gazette journalists worked with colleagues at the Sun to ensure that the next day's paper would still be published.
Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow. https://t.co/ScNvIK1A4R
— Capital Gazette (@capgaznews) June 29, 2018
The June 29 edition of The Capital includes a front-page story about the shooting, bylined by 10 Capital reporters, and obituaries for all five of the people killed in the shooting. The opinion page of the paper is empty, except for a single message: "Today, we are speechless ... Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinion about the world around them, that they might be better citizens."
Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh holds a copy of The Capital newspaper as he is interviewed the day after a gunman killed five people and injured several others at the newspaper's offices in Annapolis, Maryland.
",None,None,None,None,False,C-02-CV-21-000820,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"killed, shot / shot at",,, 2021-10-21 20:45:58.827623+00:00,2024-02-29 19:57:24.356472+00:00,Sports reporter killed in Capital Gazette newsroom shooting by man upset with newspaper coverage,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/sports-reporter-killed-in-capital-gazette-newsroom-shooting-by-man-upset-with-newspaper-coverage/,2024-02-29 19:57:24.207850+00:00,,,"(2021-07-15 00:00:00+00:00) Maryland man found criminally responsible for deaths of five in newsroom shooting, (2023-01-03 15:12:00+00:00) Survivors, families of slain journalists settle lawsuit against Capital Gazette’s parent company, (2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Gunman who killed Capital Gazette journalists and staffer sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences, (2019-10-28 00:00:00+00:00) The Maryland man accused of massacring five staff members at the Capital Gazette newsroom last year enters guilty plea",Assault,,,,John McNamara (Capital Gazette),,2018-06-28,False,Annapolis,Maryland (MD),38.97859,-76.49184,"On June 28, 2018, a man armed with a shotgun entered the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot multiple journalists and other media workers, the Baltimore Sun reported. Five people, including four journalists, were killed in the attack, and two others were injured. Police later identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, who had previously sued the Capital Gazette for defamation.
Community news and sports reporter John McNamara, who had worked for the Capital Gazette for 24 years, was among those killed. Anne Arundel County police said that other Capital Gazette employees killed in the attack were:
Two other Capital Gazette employees, whose names were not released, were injured in the attack. Find the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s documentation of all the journalists killed in the attack here.
The shooting occurred on June 28 inside the Capital Gazette newsroom, which is located on the ground floor of an office building in Annapolis, Maryland. The newsroom is home to reporters for both The Capital, a daily newspaper covering Annapolis, and The Maryland Gazette, a twice-weekly paper focused on state news. The shooting was the most deadly attack on journalists in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Phil Davis, a crime reporter for The Capital who was inside the newsroom during the shooting, told the Sun that he saw multiple colleagues shot. He said the scene inside the newsroom "was like a war zone." In a series of powerful tweets, he described what he witnessed.
A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Jarrod Ramos, the suspect in the shooting, had threatened and harassed Capital Gazette staffers for years, according to the Sun.
It began in July 2011, when Capital columnist Eric Hartley wrote about how Ramos was charged with harassment after stalking and threatening a high school classmate online. In response to Hartley's column, Ramos waged a one-man war against him and the paper, according to The Virginian-Pilot, where Hartley now works.
In July 2012, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Hartley, Capital Gazette Communications, and The Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt. Ramos represented himself in the suit, which was filed in Prince George's County, Maryland. At a March 2013 court hearing, a judge dismissed Ramos' complaint with prejudice and tried to explain to Ramos why the article was not defamatory:
You know, I understand exactly how you feel. I think people who are the subject of newspaper articles, whoever they may be, feel that there is a requirement that they be placed in the best light, or they have an opportunity to have the story reported to their satisfaction, or have the opportunity to have however much input they believe is appropriate.
But that's simply not true. There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit.
Transcript of March 29, 2013 motion hearing
Ramos appealed the judge's decision. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's dismissal of the case and ordered Ramos to pay Capital Gazette's legal fees. In an unpublished opinion, one of the appellate court judges wrote that "a discussion of defamation law would be an exercise in futility, because the appellant [Ramos] fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation," and sharply criticized Ramos for bringing the lawsuit:
The appellant is pro se. A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case. It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not. The appellant is aggrieved because the newspaper story about his guilty plea assumed that he was guilty and that the guilty plea was, therefore, properly accepted. He is aggrieved because the story was sympathetic toward the harassment victim and was not equally understanding of the harassment perpetrator. The appellant wanted equal coverage of his side of the story. He wanted a chance to put the victim in a bad light, in order to justify and explain why he did what he did. That, however, is not the function of defamation law.
The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim and may not blithely dismiss her as a "bipolar drunkard." He does not appear to have learned his lesson.
Unpublished appellate opinion
Ramos then tried to appeal to the state's highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, which declined to hear his case.
Ramos also harassed The Capital and its reporters outside of the courtroom.
According to the Sun, a Twitter account in Ramos' name tweeted threats against The Capital. The account, which has since been suspended, included photographs of Hartley and Marquardt, and alluded to the mass shooting of journalists.
Marquardt, who served as The Capital's editor and publisher until 2012, told the Sun that he had been concerned about Ramos' obsessive hatred of the paper and whether it could escalate into violence.
"I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” he told the Sun. “I even told my wife, 'We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.' … I remember telling our attorneys, 'This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us.'"
Marquardt told the Los Angeles Times that when he notified the Anne Arundel County police about Ramos' harassment back in 2013, the police said they could not arrest him for his behavior toward the newspaper. Marquardt said that the paper considered getting a restraining order against Ramos but worried about how Ramos would react.
"The theory back then was, 'Let’s not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it’s gonna get,'" he told the Los Angeles Times.
William Shirley, an attorney who helped defend Capital Gazette against Ramos' defamation suit, told the New York Daily News that Ramos threatened during a court hearing to assault Capital journalists.
"I remember at one point he was talking in a motion and somehow worked in how he wanted to smash Hartley’s face into the concrete," Shirley said. "We were concerned at the time. He was not stable."
On June 29, the day after the shooting, Ramos was charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
In the aftermath of the attack, Capital Gazette journalists worked with colleagues at the Sun to ensure that the next day's paper would still be published.
Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow. https://t.co/ScNvIK1A4R
— Capital Gazette (@capgaznews) June 29, 2018
The June 29 edition of The Capital includes a front-page story about the shooting, bylined by 10 Capital reporters, and obituaries for all five of the people killed in the shooting. The opinion page of the paper is empty, except for a single message: "Today, we are speechless … Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinions about the world around them, that they might be better citizens."
Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh holds a copy of The Capital newspaper during an interview the day after a gunman killed five people and injured several others at the newspaper's offices in Annapolis, Maryland.
",None,None,None,None,False,C-02-CV-21-000820,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"killed, shot / shot at",,, 2021-10-21 20:54:52.734284+00:00,2024-02-29 19:57:42.858351+00:00,Columnist killed in Capital Gazette newsroom shooting by man upset with newspaper coverage,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/columnist-killed-in-capital-gazette-newsroom-shooting-by-man-upset-with-newspaper-coverage/,2024-02-29 19:57:42.731547+00:00,,,"(2021-07-15 00:00:00+00:00) Maryland man found criminally responsible for deaths of five in newsroom shooting, (2023-01-03 15:14:00+00:00) Survivors, families of slain journalists settle lawsuit against Capital Gazette’s parent company, (2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Gunman who killed Capital Gazette journalists and staffer sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences, (2019-10-28 00:00:00+00:00) The Maryland man accused of massacring five staff members at the Capital Gazette newsroom last year enters guilty plea",Assault,,,,Rob Hiaasen (Capital Gazette),,2018-06-28,False,Annapolis,Maryland (MD),38.97859,-76.49184,"On June 28, 2018, a man armed with a shotgun entered the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot multiple journalists and other media workers, the Baltimore Sun reported. Five people, including four journalists, were killed in the attack, and two others were injured. Police later identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, who had previously sued the Capital Gazette for defamation.
Columnist and assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, who had worked for the Capital Gazette since 2010, was among those killed. Anne Arundel County police said that other Capital Gazette employees killed in the attack were:
Two other Capital Gazette employees, whose names were not released, were injured in the attack. Find the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s documentation of all the journalists killed in the attack here.
The shooting occurred on June 28 inside the Capital Gazette newsroom, which is located on the ground floor of an office building in Annapolis, Maryland. The newsroom is home to reporters for both The Capital, a daily newspaper covering Annapolis, and The Maryland Gazette, a twice-weekly paper focused on state news. The shooting was the most deadly attack on journalists in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Phil Davis, a crime reporter for The Capital who was inside the newsroom during the shooting, told the Sun that he saw multiple colleagues shot. He said the scene inside the newsroom "was like a war zone." In a series of powerful tweets, he described what he witnessed.
A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Jarrod Ramos, the suspect in the shooting, had threatened and harassed Capital Gazette staffers for years, according to the Sun.
It began in July 2011, when Capital columnist Eric Hartley wrote about how Ramos was charged with harassment after stalking and threatening a high school classmate online. In response to Hartley's column, Ramos waged a one-man war against him and the paper, according to The Virginian-Pilot, where Hartley now works.
In July 2012, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Hartley, Capital Gazette Communications, and The Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt. Ramos represented himself in the suit, which was filed in Prince George's County, Maryland. At a March 2013 court hearing, a judge dismissed Ramos' complaint with prejudice and tried to explain to Ramos why the article was not defamatory:
You know, I understand exactly how you feel. I think people who are the subject of newspaper articles, whoever they may be, feel that there is a requirement that they be placed in the best light, or they have an opportunity to have the story reported to their satisfaction, or have the opportunity to have however much input they believe is appropriate.
But that's simply not true. There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit.
Transcript of March 29, 2013 motion hearing
Ramos appealed the judge's decision. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's dismissal of the case and ordered Ramos to pay Capital Gazette's legal fees. In an unpublished opinion, one of the appellate court judges wrote that "a discussion of defamation law would be an exercise in futility, because the appellant [Ramos] fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation," and sharply criticized Ramos for bringing the lawsuit:
The appellant is pro se. A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case. It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not. The appellant is aggrieved because the newspaper story about his guilty plea assumed that he was guilty and that the guilty plea was, therefore, properly accepted. He is aggrieved because the story was sympathetic toward the harassment victim and was not equally understanding of the harassment perpetrator. The appellant wanted equal coverage of his side of the story. He wanted a chance to put the victim in a bad light, in order to justify and explain why he did what he did. That, however, is not the function of defamation law.
The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim and may not blithely dismiss her as a "bipolar drunkard." He does not appear to have learned his lesson.
Unpublished appellate opinion
Ramos then tried to appeal to the state's highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, which declined to hear his case.
Ramos also harassed The Capital and its reporters outside of the courtroom.
According to the Sun, a Twitter account in Ramos' name tweeted threats against The Capital. The account, which has since been suspended, included photographs of Hartley and Marquardt, and alluded to the mass shooting of journalists.
Marquardt, who served as The Capital's editor and publisher until 2012, told the Sun that he had been concerned about Ramos' obsessive hatred of the paper and whether it could escalate into violence.
"I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” he told the Sun. “I even told my wife, 'We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.' … I remember telling our attorneys, 'This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us.'"
Marquardt told the Los Angeles Times that when he notified the Anne Arundel County police about Ramos' harassment back in 2013, the police said they could not arrest him for his behavior toward the newspaper. Marquardt said that the paper considered getting a restraining order against Ramos but worried about how Ramos would react.
"The theory back then was, 'Let’s not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it’s gonna get,'" he told the Los Angeles Times.
William Shirley, an attorney who helped defend Capital Gazette against Ramos' defamation suit, told the New York Daily News that Ramos threatened during a court hearing to assault Capital journalists.
"I remember at one point he was talking in a motion and somehow worked in how he wanted to smash Hartley’s face into the concrete," Shirley said. "We were concerned at the time. He was not stable."
On June 29, the day after the shooting, Ramos was charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
In the aftermath of the attack, Capital Gazette journalists worked with colleagues at the Sun to ensure that the next day's paper would still be published.
Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow. https://t.co/ScNvIK1A4R
— Capital Gazette (@capgaznews) June 29, 2018
The June 29 edition of The Capital includes a front-page story about the shooting, bylined by 10 Capital reporters, and obituaries for all five of the people killed in the shooting. The opinion page of the paper is empty, except for a single message: "Today, we are speechless … Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinions about the world around them, that they might be better citizens."
Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh holds a copy of The Capital newspaper during an interview the day after a gunman killed five people and injured several others at the newspaper's offices in Annapolis, Maryland.
",None,None,None,None,False,C-02-CV-21-000820,"['ONGOING', 'SETTLED']",Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"killed, shot / shot at",,, 2021-10-21 21:01:43.524055+00:00,2024-02-29 19:58:11.015043+00:00,Community news reporter killed in Capital Gazette newsroom shooting by man upset with newspaper coverage,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/community-news-reporter-killed-in-capital-gazette-newsroom-shooting-by-man-upset-with-newspaper-coverage/,2024-02-29 19:58:10.856961+00:00,,,"(2019-10-28 00:00:00+00:00) The Maryland man accused of massacring five staff members at the Capital Gazette newsroom last year enters guilty plea, (2021-07-15 00:00:00+00:00) Maryland man found criminally responsible for deaths of five in newsroom shooting, (2023-01-03 15:14:00+00:00) Survivors, families of slain journalists settle lawsuit against Capital Gazette’s parent company, (2021-09-28 00:00:00+00:00) Gunman who killed Capital Gazette journalists and staffer sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences",Assault,,,,Wendi Winters (Capital Gazette),,2018-06-28,False,Annapolis,Maryland (MD),38.97859,-76.49184,"On June 28, 2018, a man armed with a shotgun entered the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot multiple journalists and other media workers, the Baltimore Sun reported. Five people, including four journalists, were killed in the attack, and two others were injured. Police later identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, who had previously sued the Capital Gazette for defamation.
Community news reporter and columnist Wendi Winters, who had written for the Capital Gazette for 20 years, was among those killed. Anne Arundel County police said that other Capital Gazette employees killed in the attack were:
Two other Capital Gazette employees, whose names were not released, were injured in the attack. Find the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s documentation of all the journalists killed in the attack here.
The shooting occurred on June 28 inside the Capital Gazette newsroom, which is located on the ground floor of an office building in Annapolis, Maryland. The newsroom is home to reporters for both The Capital, a daily newspaper covering Annapolis, and The Maryland Gazette, a twice-weekly paper focused on state news. The shooting was the most deadly attack on journalists in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Phil Davis, a crime reporter for The Capital who was inside the newsroom during the shooting, told the Sun that he saw multiple colleagues shot. He said the scene inside the newsroom "was like a war zone." In a series of powerful tweets, he described what he witnessed.
A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad.
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload
— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018
Jarrod Ramos, the suspect in the shooting, had threatened and harassed Capital Gazette staffers for years, according to the Sun.
It began in July 2011, when Capital columnist Eric Hartley wrote about how Ramos was charged with harassment after stalking and threatening a high school classmate online. In response to Hartley's column, Ramos waged a one-man war against him and the paper, according to The Virginian-Pilot, where Hartley now works.
In July 2012, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Hartley, Capital Gazette Communications, and The Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt. Ramos represented himself in the suit, which was filed in Prince George's County, Maryland. At a March 2013 court hearing, a judge dismissed Ramos' complaint with prejudice and tried to explain to Ramos why the article was not defamatory:
You know, I understand exactly how you feel. I think people who are the subject of newspaper articles, whoever they may be, feel that there is a requirement that they be placed in the best light, or they have an opportunity to have the story reported to their satisfaction, or have the opportunity to have however much input they believe is appropriate.
But that's simply not true. There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit.
Transcript of March 29, 2013 motion hearing
Ramos appealed the judge's decision. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's dismissal of the case and ordered Ramos to pay Capital Gazette's legal fees. In an unpublished opinion, one of the appellate court judges wrote that "a discussion of defamation law would be an exercise in futility, because the appellant [Ramos] fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation," and sharply criticized Ramos for bringing the lawsuit:
The appellant is pro se. A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case. It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not. The appellant is aggrieved because the newspaper story about his guilty plea assumed that he was guilty and that the guilty plea was, therefore, properly accepted. He is aggrieved because the story was sympathetic toward the harassment victim and was not equally understanding of the harassment perpetrator. The appellant wanted equal coverage of his side of the story. He wanted a chance to put the victim in a bad light, in order to justify and explain why he did what he did. That, however, is not the function of defamation law.
The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim and may not blithely dismiss her as a "bipolar drunkard." He does not appear to have learned his lesson.
Unpublished appellate opinion
Ramos then tried to appeal to the state's highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, which declined to hear his case.
Ramos also harassed The Capital and its reporters outside of the courtroom.
According to the Sun, a Twitter account in Ramos' name tweeted threats against The Capital. The account, which has since been suspended, included photographs of Hartley and Marquardt, and alluded to the mass shooting of journalists.
Marquardt, who served as The Capital's editor and publisher until 2012, told the Sun that he had been concerned about Ramos' obsessive hatred of the paper and whether it could escalate into violence.
"I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” he told the Sun. “I even told my wife, 'We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.' … I remember telling our attorneys, 'This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us.'"
Marquardt told the Los Angeles Times that when he notified the Anne Arundel County police about Ramos' harassment back in 2013, the police said they could not arrest him for his behavior toward the newspaper. Marquardt said that the paper considered getting a restraining order against Ramos but worried about how Ramos would react.
"The theory back then was, 'Let’s not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it’s gonna get,'" he told the Los Angeles Times.
William Shirley, an attorney who helped defend Capital Gazette against Ramos' defamation suit, told the New York Daily News that Ramos threatened during a court hearing to assault Capital journalists.
"I remember at one point he was talking in a motion and somehow worked in how he wanted to smash Hartley’s face into the concrete," Shirley said. "We were concerned at the time. He was not stable."
On June 29, the day after the shooting, Ramos was charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
In the aftermath of the attack, Capital Gazette journalists worked with colleagues at the Sun to ensure that the next day's paper would still be published.
Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow. https://t.co/ScNvIK1A4R
— Capital Gazette (@capgaznews) June 29, 2018
The June 29 edition of The Capital includes a front-page story about the shooting, bylined by 10 Capital reporters, and obituaries for all five of the people killed in the shooting. The opinion page of the paper is empty, except for a single message: "Today, we are speechless … Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinions about the world around them, that they might be better citizens."
Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh holds a copy of The Capital newspaper during an interview the day after a gunman killed five people and injured several others at the newspaper's offices in Annapolis, Maryland.
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