first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2020-07-29 18:41:21.413848+00:00,2022-03-10 22:02:10.897374+00:00,"Student journalist pepper sprayed, threatened with arrest amid Columbus protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/student-journalist-pepper-sprayed-threatened-with-arrest-amid-columbus-protests/,2022-03-10 22:02:10.837196+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Maeve Walsh (The Lantern),,2020-06-01,False,Columbus,Ohio (OH),39.96118,-82.99879,"
Three journalists from The Lantern, the Ohio State University student newspaper, were pepper sprayed and threatened with arrest by police officers while covering protests in Columbus, Ohio, on June 1, 2020. The three students clearly and repeatedly identified themselves as members of the media before the assault, according to interviews with the journalists and video footage of the incident.
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 U.S. since the end of May.
On the night of June 1, Lantern editors Maeve Walsh, Sarah Szilagy and Max Garrison were covering peaceful protests that had moved from the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus toward the Ohio State University campus. About 20 minutes after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect, the protesters reached the intersection of North High Street and Lane Avenue on the edge of campus.
Up until this point, the journalists had not noticed a police presence. A few minutes after reaching the intersection, however, police cars suddenly arrived and stopped behind the protesters, Walsh and Garrison told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Police officers got out of their cars, walked swiftly through the crowd, and began using pepper spray to disperse the protesters, they said. The three journalists, who were standing behind a concrete barrier on the sidewalk, somewhat removed from the protesters in the street, remained on the scene as the protesters left, Walsh and Garrison told the Tracker. Szilagy, the Lantern’s campus editor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The journalists were then “approached from multiple directions by police officers telling them to ‘go home’ because of the curfew,” according to an account of the incident Garrison wrote for The Lantern.
Walsh, special projects editor, said that all three journalists were holding their press passes in the air to show them to the officers and repeatedly identified themselves as press. In a video Walsh posted to Twitter, an officer tells her, “Leave or you’re going to jail.” When Walsh responds, “we’re members of the media,” the officer says, “I don’t care.”
Columbus Police began spraying protestors around 10:25 at the corner of High and Lane. @m_p_garrison @sarahszilagy and I were also sprayed despite making them aware we are members of @TheLantern. The press is exempt from the curfew. pic.twitter.com/BcyitLujyQ
— Maeve Walsh (@maevewalsh27) June 2, 2020
Another group of officers approached and “got very close to us,” according to Garrison, forcing them to step back. Garrison said one officer pushed him. Another shot pepper spray at the group from point-blank range, hitting him on the arm and Szilagy in the eyes, Garrison said. Walsh was not directly hit, but said the gas made her cough.
In a video of the incident The Lantern posted to Twitter, the journalists are pepper sprayed after repeatedly identifying as media who are “exempt from curfew.”
Hi everyone: this was me. I was sprayed in the face after we identified ourselves and presented our press passes multiple times. Media are exempt from curfew. Media are exempt from curfew. https://t.co/DAIDudVpud
— Sarah Szilagy (@sarahszilagy) June 2, 2020
Adam Cairns, a staff photographer with the Columbus Dispatch, witnessed the attack. Cairns told the Tracker that he had been standing near the edge of the intersection with the student journalists, but turned to walk away before another officer came around the corner and shot pepper spray at the journalists. “[I] will attest that they were screaming at the cops that they were media,” Cairns posted to Twitter. “Police, despite clearly seeing press credentials, did not care. I crossed Lane at that point and missed the pepper spray.”
Here is a photo of @TheLantern journalists showing their press IDs to police moments before being pepper sprayed pic.twitter.com/Mvr4TLT83F
— Adam Cairns (@atomicphoto) June 2, 2020
The three journalists turned to flee but were followed by an officer who fired pepper spray at their backs before they turned into an alley, according to Garrison. They then sought refuge nearby at the house of their editor, Sam Raudins, where they spent several hours recovering. None of them returned to the protests that night. “They basically just censored us,” Szilagy told The Washington Post, “and made us incapable of covering other things that happened that night.”
In the hours following the attack, Raudins sent an email to the Columbus Division of Police reporting the incident. “This was not our team getting caught in the crossfire; this was a direct interaction between CPD and The Lantern,” she wrote in the letter posted to Twitter.
Our editor-in-chief @sam_raudins emailed @ColumbusPolice, reporting how officers threatened to arrest and then pepper-sprayed our reporters after our reporters identified themselves as members of the news media. #columbusprotest pic.twitter.com/UXaSYC9bVQ
— The Lantern (@TheLantern) June 2, 2020
In a press conference the following day, Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan was asked about the police officers’ treatment of journalists.
“There’s no malice involved, there’s no intent, it’s just a very chaotic situation,” Quinlan said. “And in that regard, I’d ask the public to have some patience and please comply, and we’ll work it out afterward. But please don’t stand there and argue; move along and comply and we’ll fix this after the fact so nothing bad happens.”
Quinlan also said, “we are dealing with imperfect human beings in imperfect situations. Mistakes will happen and we will take action to correct them and make sure that we do not allow our mistakes to be repeated.”
When asked specifically about the incident involving the Ohio State student journalists, Quinlan said the reporters were not easily recognizable as news media, but the department had launched an internal affairs investigation of the officers, the Dispatch reported.
“We are aware of the incident in question and it is currently under investigation per our use of force policy,” Sergeant James Fuqua, public information officer, said in response to the Tracker’s request for a status update.
The Columbus Division of Police did not respond to the Tracker’s 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.
Three journalists from The Lantern, the Ohio State University student newspaper, were pepper sprayed and threatened with arrest by police officers while covering protests in Columbus, Ohio, on June 1, 2020. The three students clearly and repeatedly identified themselves as members of the media before the assault, according to interviews with the journalists and video footage of the incident.
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 U.S. since the end of May.
On the night of June 1, Lantern editors Max Garrison, Sarah Szilagy and Maeve Walsh were covering peaceful protests that had moved from the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus toward the Ohio State University campus. About 20 minutes after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect, the protesters reached the intersection of North High Street and Lane Avenue on the edge of campus.
Up until this point, the journalists had not noticed a police presence. A few minutes after reaching the intersection, however, police cars suddenly arrived and stopped behind the protesters, Garrison and Walsh told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Police officers got out of their cars, walked swiftly through the crowd, and began using pepper spray to disperse the protesters, they said. The three journalists, who were standing behind a concrete barrier on the sidewalk, somewhat removed from the protesters in the street, remained on the scene as the protesters left, Garrison and Walsh told the Tracker. Szilagy, the Lantern’s campus editor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The journalists were then “approached from multiple directions by police officers telling them to ‘go home’ because of the curfew,” according to an account of the incident Garrison wrote for The Lantern.
“Our reporters continued to film and identify themselves as members of the news media, who are exempt from the curfew,” wrote Garrison, who is the assistant campus editor. “A group of police officers continued to yell over our reporters, saying they ‘don’t care’ and ‘get inside.’ The officers also threatened our reporters with arrest.”
Columbus Police began spraying protestors around 10:25 at the corner of High and Lane. @m_p_garrison @sarahszilagy and I were also sprayed despite making them aware we are members of @TheLantern. The press is exempt from the curfew. pic.twitter.com/BcyitLujyQ
— Maeve Walsh (@maevewalsh27) June 2, 2020
Another group of officers approached and “got very close to us,” according to Garrison, forcing them to step back. Garrison said one officer pushed him. Another shot pepper spray at the group from point-blank range, hitting him on the arm and Szilagy in the eyes, Garrison said. Walsh was not directly hit, but said the gas made her cough.
In a video of the incident The Lantern posted to Twitter, the journalists are pepper sprayed after repeatedly identifying as media who are “exempt from curfew.”
Hi everyone: this was me. I was sprayed in the face after we identified ourselves and presented our press passes multiple times. Media are exempt from curfew. Media are exempt from curfew. https://t.co/DAIDudVpud
— Sarah Szilagy (@sarahszilagy) June 2, 2020
Adam Cairns, a staff photographer with the Columbus Dispatch, witnessed the attack. Cairns told the Tracker that he had been standing near the edge of the intersection with the student journalists, but turned to walk away before another officer came around the corner and shot pepper spray at the journalists. “[I] will attest that they were screaming at the cops that they were media,” Cairns posted to Twitter. “Police, despite clearly seeing press credentials, did not care. I crossed Lane at that point and missed the pepper spray.”
Here is a photo of @TheLantern journalists showing their press IDs to police moments before being pepper sprayed pic.twitter.com/Mvr4TLT83F
— Adam Cairns (@atomicphoto) June 2, 2020
The three journalists turned to flee but were followed by an officer who fired pepper spray at their backs before they turned into an alley, according to Garrison. They then sought refuge nearby at the house of their editor, Sam Raudins, where they spent several hours recovering. None of them returned to the protests that night. “They basically just censored us,” Szilagy told The Washington Post, “and made us incapable of covering other things that happened that night.”
In the hours following the attack, Raudins sent an email to the Columbus Division of Police reporting the incident. “This was not our team getting caught in the crossfire; this was a direct interaction between CPD and The Lantern,” she wrote in the letter posted to Twitter.
Our editor-in-chief @sam_raudins emailed @ColumbusPolice, reporting how officers threatened to arrest and then pepper-sprayed our reporters after our reporters identified themselves as members of the news media. #columbusprotest pic.twitter.com/UXaSYC9bVQ
— The Lantern (@TheLantern) June 2, 2020
In a press conference the following day, Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan was asked about the police officers’ treatment of journalists.
“There’s no malice involved, there’s no intent, it’s just a very chaotic situation,” Quinlan said. “And in that regard, I’d ask the public to have some patience and please comply, and we’ll work it out afterward. But please don’t stand there and argue; move along and comply and we’ll fix this after the fact so nothing bad happens.”
Quinlan also said, “we are dealing with imperfect human beings in imperfect situations. Mistakes will happen and we will take action to correct them and make sure that we do not allow our mistakes to be repeated.”
When asked specifically about the incident involving the Ohio State student journalists, Quinlan said the reporters were not easily recognizable as news media, but the department had launched an internal affairs investigation of the officers, the Dispatch reported.
“We are aware of the incident in question and it is currently under investigation per our use of force policy,” Sergeant James Fuqua, public information officer, said in response to the Tracker’s request for a status update.
The Columbus Division of Police did not respond to the Tracker’s 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.
Three journalists from The Lantern, the Ohio State University student newspaper, were pepper sprayed and threatened with arrest by police officers while covering protests in Columbus, Ohio, on June 1, 2020. The three students clearly and repeatedly identified themselves as members of the media before the assault, according to interviews with the journalists and video footage of the incident.
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 U.S. since the end of May.
On the night of June 1, Lantern editors Sarah Szilagy, Max Garrison and Maeve Walsh were covering peaceful protests that had moved from the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus toward the Ohio State University campus. About 20 minutes after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect, the protesters reached the intersection of North High Street and Lane Avenue on the edge of campus.
Up until this point, the journalists had not noticed a police presence. A few minutes after reaching the intersection, however, police cars suddenly arrived and stopped behind the protesters, Walsh and Garrison told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Szilagy, the Lantern’s campus editor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Police officers got out of their cars, walked swiftly through the crowd, and began using pepper spray to disperse the protesters, they said. The three journalists, who were standing behind a concrete barrier on the sidewalk, somewhat removed from the protesters in the street, remained on the scene as the protesters left, Walsh and Garrison told the Tracker.
The journalists were then approached from multiple directions by officers ordering them to “go home” because of the curfew, according to an account of the incident Garrison wrote for The Lantern. They continued to film and identify themselves as press, holding their press passes in the air, Walsh said. The officers responded that they “don’t care” and threatened to arrest the journalists if they didn’t disperse.
Another group of officers approached and “got very close to us,” according to Garrison, forcing them to step back. Garrison said one officer pushed him. Another shot pepper spray at the group from point-blank range, hitting him on the arm and Szilagy in the eyes, Garrison said. Walsh was not directly hit, but said the gas made her cough.
In a video of the incident The Lantern posted to Twitter, the journalists are pepper sprayed after repeatedly identifying as media who are “exempt from curfew.”
Hi everyone: this was me. I was sprayed in the face after we identified ourselves and presented our press passes multiple times. Media are exempt from curfew. Media are exempt from curfew. https://t.co/DAIDudVpud
— Sarah Szilagy (@sarahszilagy) June 2, 2020
Adam Cairns, a staff photographer with the Columbus Dispatch, witnessed the attack. Cairns told the Tracker that he had been standing near the edge of the intersection with the student journalists, but turned to walk away before another officer came around the corner and shot pepper spray at the journalists. “[I] will attest that they were screaming at the cops that they were media,” Cairns posted to Twitter. “Police, despite clearly seeing press credentials, did not care. I crossed Lane at that point and missed the pepper spray.”
Here is a photo of @TheLantern journalists showing their press IDs to police moments before being pepper sprayed pic.twitter.com/Mvr4TLT83F
— Adam Cairns (@atomicphoto) June 2, 2020
The three journalists turned to flee but were followed by an officer who fired pepper spray at their backs before they turned into an alley, according to Garrison. They then sought refuge nearby at the house of their editor, Sam Raudins, where they spent several hours recovering. None of them returned to the protests that night. “They basically just censored us,” Szilagy told The Washington Post, “and made us incapable of covering other things that happened that night.”
In the hours following the attack, Raudins sent an email to the Columbus Division of Police reporting the incident. “This was not our team getting caught in the crossfire; this was a direct interaction between CPD and The Lantern,” she wrote in the letter posted to Twitter.
Our editor-in-chief @sam_raudins emailed @ColumbusPolice, reporting how officers threatened to arrest and then pepper-sprayed our reporters after our reporters identified themselves as members of the news media. #columbusprotest pic.twitter.com/UXaSYC9bVQ
— The Lantern (@TheLantern) June 2, 2020
In a press conference the following day, Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan was asked about the police officers’ treatment of journalists.
“There’s no malice involved, there’s no intent, it’s just a very chaotic situation,” Quinlan said. “And in that regard, I’d ask the public to have some patience and please comply, and we’ll work it out afterward. But please don’t stand there and argue; move along and comply and we’ll fix this after the fact so nothing bad happens.”
Quinlan also said, “we are dealing with imperfect human beings in imperfect situations. Mistakes will happen and we will take action to correct them and make sure that we do not allow our mistakes to be repeated.”
When asked specifically about the incident involving the Ohio State student journalists, Quinlan said the reporters were not easily recognizable as news media, but the department had launched an internal affairs investigation of the officers, the Dispatch reported.
“We are aware of the incident in question and it is currently under investigation per our use of force policy,” Sergeant James Fuqua, public information officer, said in response to the Tracker’s request for a status update.
The Columbus Division of Police did not respond to the Tracker’s 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.
Adam Cairns, a staff photographer for the daily Columbus Dispatch, was hit with a projectile while covering protests in Columbus, Ohio, on May 31, 2020.
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 brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
On the night of May 31, Cairns and his colleague Dean Narciso left the Dispatch office and walked half a block to the intersection of Broad and High streets adjacent to the Ohio state capitol building where protesters had gathered. At around 9:45 p.m., shortly before a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect, Cairns observed a large police presence moving into formation in the middle of the intersection, he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. As the officers lined up, he said he saw something that resembled a water bottle thrown at the police. Immediately, and without warning, according to Cairns, police began shooting projectiles and pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Cairns and Narciso were standing at a distance from the group of protesters who had congregated. They turned to leave the scene. At that moment, Cairns told the Tracker, he was struck on the back of his right ear and cheek by what appeared to be a wooden bullet, knocking his safety glasses off his head. Narciso was not hit, according to Cairns. The men returned to the Dispatch office and Cairns said he did not resume photographing the protests until the following night. The projectile left a welt on his cheek for several hours and a scratch on his ear, he said. His equipment was not damaged.
In a photograph taken by Cairns shortly before he turned away and was hit, a police officer can be seen aiming in his direction.
Police open fire with non-lethal rounds to disperse protesters from Broad/High as curfew neared pic.twitter.com/lYxdzwXGDF
— Adam Cairns (@atomicphoto) June 1, 2020
In an editorial for the paper, Dispatch Editor Alan D. Miller wrote of the photograph, “It’s unclear whether it was that officer’s bullet that grazed Cairns’ ear and cheek… It’s unclear whether the officer who fired at Cairns was targeting a journalist. But there was no mistaking Cairns for a protester, given the camera equipment and press credentials he was carrying.”
Cairns told the Tracker “it’s really hard to say” whether he was targeted by law enforcement. “As I look back on it, there was nobody else in the area other than me with cameras pointed at them,” he said.
The Columbus Division of Police did not immediately respond to phone and emailed requests for comment.
In his editorial, Miller wrote that when asked in a press conference two days later about police treatment of journalists covering the protests, Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan responded, “There’s no malice involved, there’s no intent. ... We ask the public to have some patience and please comply, and we’ll work it out afterward. Please don’t stand there and argue; move along and comply and we’ll fix this after.”
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.
Soon after taking this photograph for Ohio's Columbus Dispatch, staff photographer Adam Cairns was hit with a projectile on May 31, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-06-01 02:02:18.097177+00:00,2022-03-10 22:05:23.398364+00:00,"Student journalist chased, pepper sprayed during protests in Columbus",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/student-journalist-chased-pepper-sprayed-during-protests-columbus/,2022-03-10 22:05:23.337036+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Julia Lerner,,2020-05-30,False,Columbus,Ohio (OH),39.96118,-82.99879,"A student journalist at the University of Maryland was chased by police and maced three times while covering protests in Columbus, Ohio, in the early hours of 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 on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Student journalist Julia Lerner told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that at about 1 a.m. she was making her way toward her car after documenting protests near the courthouse in Columbus. Three or four people were on the sidewalk near her, but most protesters had dispersed, at least from that area.
Lerner told the Tracker that she had stopped on the sidewalk to put her camera away when she noticed a line of police officers up the block, including two on bicycles. The officers began shouting at those still present to leave the area.
“[The officers] started screaming. The woman next to me took off running in the other direction and I put my hands up — with my camera in my hand — and yelled, “I’m a journalist, I’m just trying to go to my car,” Lerner said.
She said that one of the bicycle officers responded, “It’s too fucking late to leave.”
The officer then came at her, Lerner said, and pepper sprayed her, primarily hitting her arms and camera as she held her hands in front of her face.
Lerner said the officer pepper sprayed her at least two more times as she attempted to run away, only letting up once Lerner rounded another street corner into an alleyway. She told the Tracker she hid in the alley for approximately 20 minutes before finally making her way to her car.
Lerner said that her camera appears to still be in working order.
“As journalists, we have the responsibility to expose violence and corruption within our systems. We have the responsibility to stand steadfast when threatened,” Lerner tweeted after the incident. “We can’t let cops chase us away.”
The Columbus Police Department did not immediately respond to requests 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.
A Columbus, Ohio, police officer on a bike chased student journalist Julia Lerner and pepper sprayed her multiple times after she identified herself as press.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,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, chemical irritant, protest, student journalism",,, 2018-08-27 17:32:21.243059+00:00,2023-11-27 22:44:41.347859+00:00,Ohio newspapers receive threatening letters containing unknown substances,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ohio-newspapers-receive-threatening-letters-containing-unknown-substances/,2023-11-27 22:44:41.238739+00:00,,,,Other Incident,,,,,,2018-07-06,True,Columbus,Ohio (OH),39.96118,-82.99879,"Two newspapers in Ohio — the Circleville Herald and the Columbus Dispatch — received threatening letters containing unknown substances in early July 2018.
On July 5, the Circleville Herald newspaper received a threatening letter. The letter contained an unknown substance, which the letter claimed was the powerful opioid drug Fentanyl.
The next day, Herald managing editor wrote about the incident:
On Thursday afternoon, a Herald employee opened a nondescript business envelope addressed to “Circleville Herald.” The letter threatened to physically harm the staff and said that the envelope contained the narcotic Fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid often found in powder form that can penetrate the skin and cause death in high doses. The staff member stopped reading and dropped the letter when they noticed an unknown substance in the envelope.
The staff member immediately washed their hands while another staff member called Circleville Police. On arrival, CPD officers donned protective gear and collected the letter, as well as any residual substance that came out of the envelope.
Police investigating threatening letter sent to Herald (Circleville Herald)
In a statement published on Facebook, the Circleville Police Department said that a hazmat team had been called in to bring the unknown substance to the Pickaway County Emergency Medical Authority for testing. The police have not yet publicly identified the substance.
In a July 6 tweet, Bahney said that the paper’s response to the threatening letter was to “put out a damn paper” — a reference to what had happened a week earlier at the Capital Gazette, when staff rallied to publish a newspaper following a deadly mass shooting at the newspaper’s offices.
You know what we did after we received a "Fentanyl-laced" death threat in the mail Thursday? "We put out a damn paper," just like our brothers and sisters @capitalgazette #FirstAmendment
— Jennifer Bahney (@JBBahney) July 6, 2018
On July 11, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper received a letter containing an unknown white powder. The letter was stamped as inmate mail from the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
After the Dispatch’s security manager opened the letter and noticed the white powder, a hazmat team from the Columbus fire department and the FBI’s joint terrorism task force went to the Dispatch’s offices to test the unknown powder.
Fairfield County sheriff Dave Phalen later told the Lancaster Eagle that the powder “was harmless and caused no injuries.”
According to the Eagle, local police and federal authorities are investigating whether the cases are connected.
The Circleville Herald and the Columbus Dispatch received threatening letters containing unknown substances in early July 2018.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],"Circleville Herald, Columbus Dispatch",,,,