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 2022-06-22 20:21:00.210599+00:00,2023-06-29 16:14:55.956811+00:00,Subpoenaed news reporter will not have to testify in MN murder trial,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/subpoenaed-news-reporter-will-not-have-to-testify-in-mn-murder-trial/,2023-06-29 16:14:55.851929+00:00,,"LegalOrder object (180), LegalOrder object (181)",,Subpoena/Legal Order,,,,Lou Raguse (KARE),,2022-05-30,True,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"
A Minnesota District judge quashed a subpoena on June 20, 2022, that sought testimony from KARE 11 News reporter Lou Raguse in an upcoming murder trial in Minneapolis.
According to the Star Tribune, Dan Allard, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney, filed a motion to compel Raguse to testify during the trial of Jamal Smith. Smith is accused of fatally shooting a man after an altercation on a Minneapolis highway.
Raguse did not respond to a request for comment, but his attorney, Leita Walker, confirmed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker by email that the subpoena was initially served on or around May 30, 2022. Walker said that prosecutors filed a motion to compel after being notified that the law required them to first apply to the court before subpoenaing a journalist.
According to the Star Tribune, Raguse recorded a video interview with Smith while he was in jail in April 2022, where Smith denied having fired the fatal shot. Allard argued that Raguse’s testimony could place Smith in the vehicle during the shooting.
During a hearing on the motion, Walker argued that the prosecutor misstated or ignored law protecting journalists, and that reporters could not be compelled to reveal confidential sources or information under Minnesota state law.
Hennepin County Judge Nicole Engisch sided with Raguse in denying the motion to compel, quashing the subpoena. According to the Star Tribune, Engisch’s six-page order stated, “The court does not find that the state’s argument here outweighs Mr. Raguse’s First Amendment interest and legal privilege to avoid being compelled to testify on unpublished information gathered as part of his work as a journalist.”
The City of Minneapolis issued Minnesota Reformer Deputy Editor Max Nesterak a subpoena on March 18, 2022, in connection with a pending lawsuit against the city and multiple law enforcement officials.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Nesterak was one of three journalists ordered to produce a broad range of materials and communications relating to their coverage of protests following the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. The subpoenas were filed in connection with an excessive use of force lawsuit filed by freelance photojournalist Linda Tirado, who was permanently blinded in one eye after police shot her with a crowd-control munition on May 29.
Nesterak, who declined to comment on advice from counsel, confirmed on Twitter that he was one of the journalists served with a subpoena.
In a subsequent post, Nesterak included a photo of the subpoena, which orders him to bring “all videos, photographs, recordings, communications, documents, or other items in your possession (including social media posts) that are related to you being hit in the chest as stated in your tweet from 11:32 p.m. on May 27, 2020.” The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented that incident here.
And I got hit in the chest by a rubber bullet from police. Covered me in dust that’s been making me cough for a half hour. I’m home now. pic.twitter.com/sYShFOjvQO
— Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) May 28, 2020
The subpoena also orders Nesterak to produce any images or documents pertaining to his coverage of the protests from May 26-31, 2020, and any communications he may have had with Tirado or her legal counsel, excepting anything that he has “a good faith basis to assert is protected by a legally recognized journalistic privilege.”
According to MPR News, the city issued similar subpoenas to Andy Mannix of the Star Tribune and Jared Goyette, who was a freelance journalist during the protests and now works for Fox 9.
The City Attorney’s Office shared a statement with the Tracker that said the individuals subpoenaed were identified by Tirado as having relevant information.
“It is incumbent upon the City Attorney’s Office, as it would be any attorney, to obtain information relevant to their client’s case, whether or not the individuals possessing that information happen to be journalists.”
In a statement shared with the Tracker, Reformer Editor-in-Chief J. Patrick Coolican said the outlet intends to fight the subpoena.
“This ham-handed effort to intimidate journalists with a burdensome legal action will not achieve its intended effect,” Coolican said. “Quite the contrary. We will continue to aggressively pursue our reporting, and protect our newsgathering rights from interference by government officials.”
The City of Minneapolis issued Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix a subpoena on March 18, 2022, in connection with a pending lawsuit against the city and multiple law enforcement officials.
The Star Tribune reported that Mannix was one of three journalists ordered to produce a broad range of materials and communications relating to their coverage of protests following the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. The subpoenas were filed in connection with an excessive use of force lawsuit filed by freelance photojournalist Linda Tirado, who was permanently blinded in one eye after police shot her with a crowd-control munition on May 29.
Mannix declined to comment on advice from counsel.
According to the Star Tribune, the subpoenas order the journalists to produce any images or documents pertaining to their coverage of the protests from May 26-31, 2020, and any communications they may have had with Tirado or her legal counsel, excepting anything that he has “a good faith basis to assert is protected by a legally recognized journalistic privilege.” The journalists were also ordered to appear for depositions via Zoom videoconferencing in late March.
Mannix was also asked for materials related to his thigh injury from a projectile that struck him while he was covering protests on May 26, 2020, the day after Floyd’s death. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented that incident here.
I Was just shot with this in the thigh. pic.twitter.com/igcJ3e7iQ4
— Andy Mannix (@AndrewMannix) May 27, 2020
According to MPR News, the city issued similar subpoenas to Max Nesterak of the Minnesota Reformer and Jared Goyette, who was a freelance journalist during the protests and now works for Fox 9.
In a statement shared with the Tracker, the City Attorney’s Office said: “The individuals subpoenaed were identified by Plaintiff Linda Tirado as having information relevant to her claims.
“It is incumbent upon the City Attorney’s Office, as it would be any attorney, to obtain information relevant to their client’s case, whether or not the individuals possessing that information happen to be journalists.”
Suki Dardarian, senior managing editor and vice president of the Star Tribune, said in a statement to the outlet, “We are reviewing the issue, but we expect to challenge the subpoena.”
A portion of the subpoena issued to Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix, who was struck with a crowd-control munition while covering protests in Minnesota in May 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,journalist communications or work product,['DROPPED'],None,None,Journalist,subpoena,Federal,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2022-03-23 14:53:02.849522+00:00,2023-06-29 16:18:20.854484+00:00,Journalist subpoenaed in connection with blinded photojournalist’s lawsuit,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-subpoenaed-in-connection-with-blinded-photojournalists-lawsuit/,2023-06-29 16:18:20.740171+00:00,,LegalOrder object (174),(2022-06-02 10:33:00+00:00) Subpoenas dropped following settlement in blinded photojournalist’s lawsuit,Subpoena/Legal Order,,,,Jared Goyette (Freelance),,2022-03-18,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"The City of Minneapolis issued journalist Jared Goyette a subpoena on March 18, 2022, in connection with a pending lawsuit against the city and multiple law enforcement officials.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that three journalists were ordered to produce a broad range of materials and communications relating to their coverage of protests following the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. The subpoenas were filed in connection with an excessive use of force lawsuit filed by freelance photojournalist Linda Tirado, who was permanently blinded in one eye after police shot her with a crowd-control munition on May 29.
Goyette, who was a freelance journalist at the time and now works for Fox 9, declined to comment further than confirming to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was one of the three journalists subpoenaed. He is also a plaintiff in a separate class-action suit against the city and law enforcement, which recently reached a partial settlement with Minnesota State Patrol.
According to the Star Tribune, the subpoenas order the journalists to produce any images or documents pertaining to their coverage of the protests from May 26-31, 2020, and any communications they may have had with Tirado or her legal counsel, excepting anything that he has “a good faith basis to assert is protected by a legally recognized journalistic privilege.” The journalists were also ordered to appear for depositions via Zoom videoconferencing in late March.
The journalists were each also asked for materials related to their own injuries from projectiles that struck them while covering the protests sparked by Floyd’s death. Goyette was struck in the eye with a crowd-control munition while covering protests on May 27. The Tracker has documented that incident here.
I got hit in the eye and then tear gassed. pic.twitter.com/wXm1P5yPKb
— Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) May 27, 2020
According to MPR News, the city issued similar subpoenas to Andy Mannix of the Star Tribune and Max Nesterak of the Minnesota Reformer.
In a statement shared with the Tracker, the City Attorney’s Office said: “The individuals subpoenaed were identified by Plaintiff Linda Tirado as having information relevant to her claims.
“It is incumbent upon the City Attorney’s Office, as it would be any attorney, to obtain information relevant to their client’s case, whether or not the individuals possessing that information happen to be journalists.”
The City of Minneapolis approved a $100,000 settlement on Jan. 27, 2022, over a public records lawsuit brought by Tony Webster, a local independent journalist.
Webster told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was pleased with the outcome but believes the city missed an opportunity to enact changes to public records law.
"In a public records lawsuit, getting the records is of course a win, and paying the legal costs makes it all that much better," Webster said. "But at the same time, I'm disappointed. I wanted a court's finding that the City broke the law, and I wanted an order requiring them to make improvements to their processes to ensure that it doesn't happen again."
Webster said he started examining the disciplinary process for Minneapolis police officers in 2019. He filed public records requests with the Minneapolis Police Department but sued after waiting more than seven months and not receiving a single file.
The police department eventually produced more than 3,300 disciplinary files through the lawsuit, which Webster used in published investigations on police accountability.
The city council approved the settlement unanimously and it was later signed by the mayor.
"I believe in the Public's right to know what their government is doing on their behalf," Minneapolis City Council President Andrea Jenkins told the Tracker. "Subsequently, I also believe that there are times when FOIA requests encompass large amounts of information that is not always easily accessed and compiled. I think that reasonable concessions could be made on behalf of some requesters to allow time to meet the requests being made."
Webster, who said the settlement amount will go toward paying legal fees, said he is still optimistic it will prompt widespread change.
“I'm hopeful that the settlement will send a signal to records officials that they need to take their obligations under the law more seriously,” he said. “There are consequences to thwarting the public's right to know.”
Kevin Gilman, a journalist for the Minnesota-based social media outlet Watchdog Citizen News, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was shoved by a police officer while reporting on a protest in Minneapolis that started the night of June 3, 2021.
The demonstration in the city’s Uptown neighborhood began after officers with a U.S. Marshals task force shot and killed Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a Black man, on June 3, Minnesota Public Radio reported.
Gilman told the Tracker he was using his phone to record video as a police line was pushing protesters back on West Lake Street at around midnight.
Suddenly, Gilman said, an officer ran forward and, holding a baton with both hands, used it to shove Gilman in his left arm.
“All of a sudden, an officer came running out of the formation at me and cross-checked me with his baton,” Gilman said.
Gilman said he dropped his phone, which he was using to film, when the officer shoved him.
Video Gilman posted on Twitter shows police detaining a woman with a bicycle nearby while more officers in blue uniforms holding long sticks move up the street.
One officer, who Gilman said was with the Minneapolis Police Department, runs toward the camera, and Gilman can be heard shouting “I’m press!”
Then the camera shakes and appears to fall to the ground, pointing up.
Protests erupted today in Minneapolis after another black man was killed in pursuant of a warrant by Minneapolis police. They were making unreasonable arrests with no dispersement orders and attacking press. #BLM #DefundThePolice #JournalismIsNotCrime pic.twitter.com/HXx4PG2eps
— KG (@kevgilman) June 4, 2021
Gilman told the Tracker he had a large bruise on his left arm where the officer’s baton struck him. He said his phone’s screen had minor scratches, though it was still operable and he didn’t need to get it repaired.
In addition to shouting to identify himself as a journalist, Gilman said he was wearing a vest marked “PRESS” and displaying press credentials made by Watchdog Citizen News.
Gilman said he believed he was targeted because he was a journalist. “He went out of his way to go after me,” he said of the officer who shoved him.
A Minneapolis Police Department spokesperson said the journalist could file a complaint if they feel they have been treated improperly by a member of the department. Gilman said he does not plan to file a complaint.
Niko Georgiades, a journalist with the nonprofit media outlet Unicorn Riot, says he was pushed from behind by a police officer as he was livestreaming a protest in Minneapolis on June 3.
Just before midnight, Georgiades was covering protests held in the city’s Uptown area over the fatal shooting of Winston Boogie Smith Jr. Smith, a 32-year-old Black man, was killed that day while members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force were pursuing him because he was wanted on a state felony arrest warrant for firearm possession, according to media reports.
Georgiades told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: “The police were clearing protesters off of Lake St. on the first night of protests for Winston Smith.”
Georgiades said that as he watched police make a few arrests, he felt an officer push him from behind. The officer “then came out of the police line directly towards me and continued for about 50 feet. When he realized he was all alone, he stopped and moved back to the police line,” Georgiades said.
The journalist said that about 15 minutes before he was pushed, another officer had approached him and struck his camera. “He pushed his hand down from the top of the camera telling me to ‘get out of here.’ I was not injured in this incident,” said Georgiades.
Georgiades said he felt the officers were deliberately targeting media. “I had my Unicorn Riot press badge hanging around my neck and I had a large camera with lights on it and a microphone with a Unicorn Riot flag on it,” he told the Tracker.
The Citizen Reporter, a Twitter feed covering protests, streamed video that night and tweeted: “@UR_Ninja’s Niko, who is credentialed press, was shoved from behind by a Minneapolis police officer on Lake St. in Uptown about 20 minutes ago. He was following orders when he was shoved.”
The video shows Georgiades carrying a video camera and being pushed by a police officer. The words ‘I’m media” can be heard. In a video Georgiades made himself and posted on YouTube, there are blurred images of him being pushed by an officer who looks to be running. He can be heard to say: “I’m media. What the fuck? I’m not doing anything, I’m media.”
A Minneapolis Police Department spokesperson said: “If the journalist believes that he was mistreated or that officers violated policy, I would encourage him to reach out to the Internal Affairs Unit or the Office of Police Conduct Review Board and file a complaint.” Georgiades said he had not filed a complaint.
Wilson’s death sparked further protests in a city that has seen many such demonstrations since the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who was pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was convicted of murder in April.
The area also saw protests in nearby Brooklyn Center after the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, by a white police officer on April 11.
Minneapolis Star Tribune photojournalist Mark Vancleave said he was threatened and his camera drone was stolen May 25, 2021, as he covered demonstrations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, marking the first anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd.
The death of Floyd, a Black man, sparked months of demonstrations across the country demanding justice and reform of police departments. On April 20, a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.
Vancleave told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly after 7 a.m. on the 25th he arrived at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the intersection where Floyd was killed and which has been turned into a memorial site, to capture some aerial footage ahead of planned demonstrations in the afternoon.
“I flew [the drone] around for maybe 10 minutes or so,” Vancleave said, noting that very few people were in the area at that point. Then, said Vancleave, he returned to where his car was parked, about half a block away, so that he could land the drone and change its batteries and camera lens.
Immediately after he landed the drone, Vancleave said, a man approached him and began asking about the drone.
“Two other dudes walked up behind him and immediately got in my face, saying ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’” Vancleave said. “They started demanding that I show them the video that I had taken.”
Vancleave said they also asked him to show his press credentials and driver’s license.
“They said they were ‘security.’ And then the first guy who came over just grabbed my drone and started walking away,” Vancleave said.
Had my drone taken by three dudes working “security” about a block from 38th and Chicago this morning. Was threatened and told never to come back to George Floyd Square.
— Mark Vancleave (@MDVancleave) May 25, 2021
Ultimately, Vancleave said, the men took his DJI Inspire 2 drone, threatened him and told him never to return to the area, which has been dubbed George Floyd Square. Vancleave estimated that the equipment, which belongs to the Star Tribune, is valued at approximately $5,000.
“One of the reasons I was there so early is I wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible. As a Minneapolis resident I understand how annoying flying things can be over residential areas, I experienced it over the past year,” Vancleave said. “This was not me being belligerent, ignoring community members. This was guys running up, taking my drone, threatening me and running off.”
Vancleave was struck in the hand with a rubber bullet in nearby Brooklyn Center on April 12, where demonstrators had gathered to demand justice in the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black man, who was fatally shot by a white police officer. Because of the resulting injury to his hand, Vancleave tweeted that using the drone was his only means of covering the demonstrations.
It’s very frustrating. I still can’t bend my finger well enough to grip a camera, so this was my way of making pictures.
— Mark Vancleave (@MDVancleave) May 25, 2021
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.
A Minnesota judge on March 24, 2021, denied media credentials to the British newspaper the Daily Mail to cover the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Hennepin County Chief Judge Toddrick Barnette issued the order five days before the beginning of the trial, in which Chauvin is facing murder and manslaughter charges in the death of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest on May 25, 2020.
The order denied journalists from the Daily Mail access to a media center set up in a building across the street from the courthouse for members of the press covering the trial, The Associated Press reported. Media outlets are sharing two pool seats in the courtroom, according to the AP.
Barnette’s order also barred the publication from directly accessing trial exhibits and “all media updates related to the trial.”
The judge wrote that his decision was based on the Daily Mail’s publication on Aug. 3 of footage from body cameras worn by two other Minneapolis police officers who were present at the time of Floyd’s arrest.
The footage was introduced in court in July 2020 as part of pre-trial litigation. Due to the massive amount of public attention on the case and the need “to minimize the effects of judicial pretrial publicity,” a judge had limited the distribution of the footage, Barnette wrote. Under rules set for the body camera footage, members of the media and the public could view it by appointment at a Hennepin County government building, but could not record it or republish it.
Barnette wrote in his order that an investigation determined the video footage was stolen around the time the public could view it. He said that though it was not clear that the Daily Mail stole the footage, it was the first outlet to publish it.
Though the media plays an important role in the criminal justice system, Barnette wrote, “in situations where a Court Order has been violated and a media outlet knowingly exploits the violation by publishing stolen records of court exhibits, the Court is required to pursue an equitable consequence.”
Barnette noted in the order that the Daily Mail could still access exhibits from other media outlets. He said he assumed that the publication paid for the body camera footage and that he was “confident” it would be able to pay for other material that came out during the trial.
“This is not a hardship for the Daily Mail, it is merely an inconvenience,” Barnette wrote.
The Daily Mail did not respond to requests for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
The Daily Mail appealed the order to the Minnesota Court of Appeals on March 26, arguing that the denial of credentials was a violation of the First Amendment, the AP reported.
Mark Anfinson, local counsel for the Daily Mail, wrote in the petition that the video was “almost certainly not ‘stolen’” and that the newspaper had no role in copying the video, according to the AP. The Daily Mail said it was “leaked a copy of the video from a third party source not associated with the court.”
On April 5, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a letter in support of the Daily Mail’s appeal. The ACLU argued that there is no evidence that the newspaper played a role in copying the video footage, and asserted that the decision in the case will have implications for others who cover court trials in Minnesota.
In an order issued April 6, the appeals court rejected the Daily Mail’s request to throw out Barnette’s order.
The court ruled that a writ of prohibition was not appropriate because the Daily Mail had not pursued all other options. The judges also wrote that the newspaper did not demonstrate injury, given that live video and audio of the proceedings are available online and trial materials are widely available.
Anfinson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker on April 9 that the newspaper had not yet decided whether to take further steps.
He rejected the judges’ assertion that the Daily Mail did not pursue other avenues to resolve the issue before asking the appeals court to overturn Barnette’s order.
“It's ludicrous to suggest that we had other options here,” Anfinson said. “We didn't. He issued a formal court order, restricting public access to documents that are public to one news organization. It's a clear cut violation of the First Amendment.”
Hennepin County Government Center is the trial site of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is facing murder charges in the 2020 death of George Floyd.
",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,False,"['PRESS_CREDENTIAL', 'OTHER']",Daily Mail,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2021, protest",,,Judiciary: District Court 2021-06-10 15:49:47.619480+00:00,2023-10-10 19:14:03.319740+00:00,Dakota Pipeline operator subpoenas Unicorn Riot over coverage of demonstrations,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/dakota-pipeline-operator-subpoenas-unicorn-riot-over-coverage-of-demonstrations/,2023-10-10 19:14:03.175670+00:00,,LegalOrder object (125),"(2022-12-16 14:00:00+00:00) Judge quashes subpoena for Unicorn Riot documents related to 2016-2017 DAPL protests, (2023-09-27 00:00:00+00:00) Dakota Pipeline operator appeals decision quashing subpoena for Unicorn Riot documents",Subpoena/Legal Order,,,,,,2021-03-17,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Unicorn Riot and its reporter Niko Georgiades were subpoenaed on March 17, 2021, by Energy Transfer LP, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, for all documents and communications relating to the nonprofit media organization’s coverage of the pipeline project.
The subpoenas are part of the pipeline company’s legal effort against several environmental groups, including Greenpeace, and activists that protested against the pipeline in 2016 and 2017, according to The Intercept and other outlets.
Energy Transfer demanded all documents including video and audio recordings concerning both actual and planned demonstrations relating to DAPL or Energy Transfer on several specific dates in August through November of 2016, in addition to information about the organization's structure and employees. Georgiades, a Unicorn Riot reporter who covered events at Standing Rock, was separately served a subpoena for similar materials. His subpoena is documented here.
Greenpeace labeled the company’s legal effort a SLAPP suit, which stands for a strategic lawsuit against public participation, designed to silence critics, The Intercept reported. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Energy Transfer to withdraw the subpoenas. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Energy Transfer didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment from the Tracker.
Freddy Martinez, a member of the Unicorn Riot collective, told the Tracker that its media attorney responded to both subpoenas with a letter invoking their shield privilege, saying "the records that may or may not exist are covered by the law and that we [Unicorn Riot] are not a party to their litigation."
"Our counsel met with their counsel and Energy Transfer expressed continued interest in furthering their subpoena," Martinez added. "However, as far as we know, they haven’t filed anything in court and may be running out of time to do so."
On March 24, 2021, Unicorn Riot launched a legal defense fund to help cover its legal bills, saying it takes seriously its obligation to protect its sources and not yield to demands for its footage and records from companies or the government.
Unicorn Riot and its reporter Niko Georgiades were subpoenaed on March 17, 2021, by Energy Transfer LP, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, for all documents and communications relating to the nonprofit media organization’s coverage of the pipeline project.
The subpoenas are part of the pipeline company’s legal effort against several environmental groups, including Greenpeace, and activists that protested against the pipeline in 2016 and 2017, according to The Intercept and other outlets.
Energy Transfer demanded all documents including video and audio recordings concerning both actual and planned demonstrations relating to DAPL or Energy Transfer on several specific dates in August through November of 2016, in addition to information about the organization's structure and employees. Unicorn Riot’s subpoena is documented here. Georgiades, a Unicorn Riot reporter who covered events at Standing Rock, was separately served a subpoena for similar materials.
Greenpeace labeled the company’s legal effort a SLAPP suit, which stands for a strategic lawsuit against public participation, designed to silence critics, The Intercept reported. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Energy Transfer to withdraw the subpoenas. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Energy Transfer didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment from the Tracker.
Freddy Martinez, a member of the Unicorn Riot collective, told the Tracker that its media attorney responded to both subpoenas with a letter invoking their shield privilege, saying "the records that may or may not exist are covered by the law and that we [Unicorn Riot] are not a party to their litigation."
"Our counsel met with their counsel and Energy Transfer expressed continued interest in furthering their subpoena," Martinez added. "However, as far as we know, they haven’t filed anything in court and may be running out of time to do so."
On March 24, 2021, Unicorn Riot launched a legal defense fund to help cover its legal bills, saying it takes seriously its obligation to protect its sources and not yield to demands for its footage and records from companies or the government.
Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including St. Paul Pioneer Press staff photographer John Autey, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Autey told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
Autey said that he was photographing protesters as they marched onto I-94 in Minneapolis and was then trapped with them on the highway as the Minnesota State Patrol and Minneapolis City Police closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called kettling.
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide-range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
While he was trapped on the highway, Autey said that he approached police officers who were blocking the Riverside ramp to I-94, identified himself as a member of the media and asked to be released. Autey said police refused his request. The photojournalist then approached officers on the opposite side of the highway, which was manned by both state troopers and city police, and asked to leave, again stating he was a member of the media. Autey said his second request was also denied.
“The first half-hour [on the highway] was a little tense and it looked like they were going to start using tear gas on us,” said Autey. “That didn’t happen and then [law enforcement] came on the speaker and said everybody there was under arrest and asked us to sit down,” he said.
The photojournalist told CPJ he then sent an email to his on-duty colleagues at the Pioneer Press and said he was about to get arrested. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Around 11:30p.m., law enforcement announced through a loudspeaker that all members of the media who wanted to exit would be allowed, Autey said.
The photojournalist told CPJ that law enforcement glanced at his Pioneer Press badge before allowing him to exit. Autey said that he noticed about a dozen other reporters exiting, including two Minneapolis Star Tribune photojournalists, Leila Navidi and Rich Tsong-Taatarii, who were allowed to leave. The Tracker documented their detainment here.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including Minneapolis Star Tribune photographers Leila Navidi and Rich Tsong-Taatarii, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Navidi told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Navidi said that they were photographing protesters as they marched onto the eastbound side of the Interstate 94 highway from the Cedar Avenue exit when Minneapolis City Police and Minnesota State Patrol closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called “kettling.”
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
Navidi said that around 7:30 p.m. she texted the on-duty Star Tribune photo editor after realizing that she and Tsong-Taatarii were trapped on the highway and might be arrested by law enforcement.
“The beginning of it was kind of nebulous in that [law enforcement] were just saying ‘Everyone who is on this highway is under arrest for public nuisance,’” Navidi told CPJ. “And then they slowly started detaining people, but they did not detain any press or take away any press.”
Navidi said that when she felt she had completed her reporting, “I went and asked one of the state patrol officers if we could leave.” The officer said he would talk to his supervisor, and, according to Navidi, the supervisor then told her that they were going to make a loudspeaker announcement that all press who wanted to leave would be allowed to exit the highway.
At around 11 p.m., after the announcement was made, Navidi said she and her Star Tribune colleague were allowed by law enforcement to exit the highway via the Cedar Avenue exit. The Tracker has documented Tsong-Taatarii’s detainment here.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
On Nov. 4, 2020, police detained protesters and journalists on Minneapolis’ Interstate 94 highway.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, election, Election 2020, kettle, protest",,, 2020-11-19 18:25:09.887862+00:00,2022-08-04 21:23:39.660549+00:00,Minneapolis police ‘kettle’ three photojournalists on highway during protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minneapolis-police-kettle-three-photojournalists-on-highway-during-protest/,2022-08-04 21:23:39.588103+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Richard Tsong-Taatarii (Minneapolis Star Tribune),,2020-11-04,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Police in Minneapolis cordoned off and detained a crowd of protesters, along with several journalists, including Minneapolis Star Tribune photographers Leila Navidi and Richard Tsong-Taatarii, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Tsong-Taatarii told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
Tsong-Taatarii said that he began photographing protesters on the western edge of the University of Minnesota campus and followed as they marched south on Cedar Avenue to the eastbound side of the Interstate 94 highway. Once on the highway, Tsong-Taatarii said that Minneapolis City Police and Minnesota Street Patrol closed off exits and surrounded the crowd using a technique called “kettling.”
“We were surrounded and there was no way to exit,” Tsong-Taatarii told CPJ, adding that he was with Navidi on the highway. “There was no warning that they were going to arrest people if they didn’t get off the highway, and there was no option [to exit].” CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
According to the Star Tribune, the protesters represented a wide range of interests, including support of the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
After they were trapped, Tsong-Taatarii said that he and Navidi were in touch with their editors who alerted state officials that journalists were in the crowd of protesters.
“They made sure that, if at all possible, we would not be detained, processed, and then released,” Tsong-Taatarii told CPJ. Tsong-Taatarii said that he and Navidi heard from someone in the kettle that a television crew had been allowed to leave the highway and decided to ask law enforcement if they could exit.
In a separate interview with CPJ, Navidi said she approached a state patrol officer and asked him if they could leave. The officer said he would talk to his supervisor, and, according to Navidi, the supervisor then told her that they were going to make a loudspeaker announcement that all press who wanted to leave would be allowed to exit the highway. The Tracker has documented Navidi’s detainment here.
Tsong-Taatarii said that, after the announcement, he and Navidi were allowed by law enforcement to exit the highway via the Cedar Avenue exit at approximately 11:30 p.m.
The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota State Troopers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from CPJ.
On Nov. 4, 2020, journalists and protesters were cordoned off and detained by police on Minneapolis’ Interstate 94 highway.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, election, Election 2020, kettle, protest",,, 2020-11-19 20:24:43.263877+00:00,2022-09-22 21:03:46.966200+00:00,Journalist arrested and charged with breaking curfew in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-arrested-and-charged-breaking-curfew-minneapolis/,2022-09-22 21:03:46.903132+00:00,curfew violation: failure to comply with a lawful order (charges dropped as of 2020-11-19),,(2020-11-19 22:11:00+00:00) Charges dropped against journalist charged with breaking curfew in Minneapolis,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Sam Richards (Freelance),,2020-08-27,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Journalist Sam Richards, a freelancer who writes for Vice News and other outlets, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for breaking curfew while covering civil unrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Aug. 27, 2020.
On the night of the 27th, Richards said he was documenting the effects of the second night of a city-wide curfew, posting reports on Twitter. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had imposed the curfew the day before in the wake of civil unrest.
Richards told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly after the curfew went into effect at 8 p.m., he was on Nicollet Mall, a shopping and dining district in downtown Minneapolis, when he saw a man being arrested. Richards began filming the man, and approached the group of law enforcement officers to ask them about the situation, he told the Tracker. Moments later, he said, several officers surrounded him, constrained him in zip ties, and put him under arrest for violating the curfew.
Oh hey, I know that young man https://t.co/ulOg9VQMrE
— Sam Renegade BLM (@MinneapoliSam) August 28, 2020
Richards said he was not wearing any press credentials, but told the officers several times that “I am a reporter and we are exempt from the curfew.” He said he also gave them the name of the outlets he works for, as well as his Twitter handle, in hopes they would look up his work online. But they did not, according to Richards. The city’s declaration of local emergency states that members of the news media are exempt from curfew.
Richards and the man he’d been filming were taken to the Hennepin County Jail, where they were processed and then released shortly after 9 p.m., he told the Tracker.
Was just arrested for violating curfew, already booked and released. Uploading video in a hot second. #Minneapolis
— Sam Renegade BLM (@MinneapoliSam) August 28, 2020
After being released, Richards said he took “the long route home,” and continued to document what he saw along the way. In a video he posted to Twitter on his walk he said he was told “If I was spotted out here again then I would be arrested, which was confusing because I was under the impression that I was already arrested.”
Video of my curfew arrest didn't save, here is a quick summation. #Minneapolis pic.twitter.com/5EQeo64vHm
— Sam Renegade BLM (@MinneapoliSam) August 28, 2020
According to a citation notice that Richards shared with the Tracker, the journalist was charged with violating an imposed curfew and was called to appear at an arraignment on Dec. 28. Violation of curfew is a misdemeanor offense in Minneapolis and “is punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for not more than 90 days, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, Section 12.45, and MCO Section 1.30,” according to the City of Minneapolis website.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Rebecca Brannon, an independent photojournalist who was on assignment for the conservative website Alpha News, was followed, harassed and assaulted by a group of individuals during a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Aug. 24, 2020.
Protests had roiled Minneapolis regularly since the police killing of George Floyd in the city on May 25. On Aug. 24, protesters were brought to the streets by the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin the day before, an event that reinvigorated racial justice protests nationwide.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting arrests, assaults and other obstructions to journalists covering protests across the country.
In a video shared by Alpha News, which describes itself as a “media outlet focusing on politics and social issues you may not see in traditional media,” a crowd can be seen following and shouting at Brannon at the Government Plaza light rail station in downtown Minneapolis. Members of the crowd yell that Brannon isn’t welcome and she needs to leave.
“We know who you are, get out of here Rebecca. Get out!” yells one woman.
“Why can’t I be here?” Brannon responds.
“You know the fuck why bitch, get the fuck out!” the woman yells back before apparently trying to grab or hit Brannon’s phone.
The crowd continues following and shouting at Brannon, with individuals criticizing the website Brannon works for and calling her a “Trump lover” at points.
Nearly two minutes into the video, a water bottle can be seen flying in the air towards Brannon, who is saying “I want to stick to myself” as the crowd continues yelling at her. After four minutes, the woman who initially appeared to reach for Brannon’s phone can be seen grabbing a plastic traffic-control post as she moves towards Brannon. Somebody can be heard yelling “I’m going to kick your ass” as Brannon tries to tell them she is trying to get to her car. The woman with the traffic post appears to strike Brannon with it as Brannon shouts “get away from me!”
On Twitter, Alpha News wrote that her phone “was stolen & destroyed but this footage was recovered. The video abruptly ends when the phone was ripped from her hands.”
Just after midnight on July 25, Brannon tweeted about the assault earlier that evening and said she had tried to defend herself using pepper spray.
Several protesters from the group currently at the Hennepin County Government Center assaulted me tonight. I tried to defend myself w/ pepper spray.
— Rebecca Brannon (@RebsBrannon) August 25, 2020
I asked for them to leave me alone so I could go back to my car.
I was recording the encounter but my phone was taken.
According to court documents posted online by Alpha News, Brannon told police the incident occurred between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
Earlier that same evening, protesters had yelled at Brannon and told her she needed to leave as she filmed a confrontation with police in front of the Minneapolis Police Department’s 1st Precinct on North Fourth Street. In that incident, protesters appeared upset by her affiliation with Alpha News, calling her “right wing news” and saying she was working for “a fascist news organization.” Alpha News shared footage of the encounter on Facebook.
“My job is to provide video footage and let viewers interpret the footage and make their own assessment. They destroyed some very valuable equipment and have inflicted physical and emotional damage on me that at this time may prevent me from providing future coverage,” she said the day after the assault, according to Alpha News. “No journalist should be subjected to harassment or violence by police, protestors or anyone.”
In September, a woman was charged in Brannon’s assault, but those charges were later dismissed, with prosecutors saying the woman had been wrongly identified. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the woman who was falsely charged was camping 140 miles from Minneapolis when the incident occurred. According to court documents posted online by Alpha News, the Complainant — a woman believed to be Brannon but only identified in court documents by the initials “R.M.B.” — told police she had received a tip naming the wrongly accused woman as a perpetrator of her assault.
Alpha News is controversial in Minnesota.
In 2015, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Alpha News’ launch was first promoted by the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance. According to Minnesota Public Radio, the organization has ties to a prominent Republican donor. In 2019, the alternative Minneapolis newspaper City Pages charged that Alpha News’s crime coverage was racially biased.
A website that appears to be Brannon’s own media production company takes credit for several conservative political ads from the 2020 election cycle; Two of those ads feature footage from protests and riots, with one having a voiceover about how "everything used to be okay before bad people wanted to destroy our country.” According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Brannon was a volunteer coordinator with Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. In the past, one of her Facebook pages described her as a “political consultant.”
Neither Brannon nor Alpha News responded to requests for comment.
The Minneapolis Police Department didn’t provide additional comment when contacted by the Tracker. When the Tracker requested the police report related to the assault, police told the Tracker to file an open records request. As of publication, there has been no response to the open records request.
Law enforcement officers fired a nonlethal round at a car driven by Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Ryan Faircloth, breaking the left passenger window and injuring him with glass shards, while he was covering protests in the city at about 12:15 a.m. on May 31, 2020.
Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 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.
Faircloth told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview that he was driving and arrived at a street blocked by National Guard and Minnesota State Police. He turned away from the police line, and then a marker round shattered the window, sending pieces of glass into the car, which cut him on his left forearm and brow.
He said he could not tell whether police or the National Guard troops fired the round, or whether they had fired other shots as well.
“I was taken aback,” Faircloth told CPJ. “I thought I was leaving the area [of the protests] and so my guard wasn’t up at all. And then everything shattered and all of a sudden I was bleeding.”
The Ford Focus he was driving is owned by the Star Tribune, and did not have any markings identifying it as a press vehicle, Faircloth said.
Faircloth had tweeted earlier in the night that the car had been fired upon by law enforcement on another street, but said no damage was done then.
My colleague, @ChaoStrib, and I were driving near Lake Street and mistakenly turned down a street that was blocked off at the end. Before we had a chance to reverse, the Guard/ State Patrol fired #rubber bullets at our car without warning. https://t.co/8yUVKz7rhA
— Ryan Faircloth (@RyanFaircloth) May 31, 2020
Protesters and law enforcement at a rally in Minneapolis on May 31, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,law enforcement,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",,, 2020-06-22 03:37:54.196463+00:00,2022-03-10 22:04:07.206515+00:00,"NBC journalist pepper-sprayed, detained at Minneapolis protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nbc-journalist-pepper-sprayed-detained-minneapolis-protest/,2022-03-10 22:04:07.132733+00:00,,,,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,Simon Moya-Smith (NBC News),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"NBC News journalist Simon Moya-Smith was pepper-sprayed and detained while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early hours of May 31, 2020.
Multiple days of protests in Minneapolis and across the nation were sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
Moya-Smith told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was following along with a group of about a dozen Native American and black protesters as they walked through the south side of Minneapolis shortly after 1 a.m. An 8 p.m. curfew order was in place that night, though members of the media were explicitly exempt.
Four or five Minneapolis police cruisers suddenly came upon the group and encircled them, Moya-Smith said. An officer in one of the vehicles shouted, “Go home! Go home!” to which one of the protesters responded, “We are! We are going home!”
An officer then jumped out of one of the cruisers and began pepper-spraying the protesters indiscriminately and ordering them to get on the ground.
“As we’re all lying down, she comes around and just begins to spray as if she were in her backyard garden — individually, as if she were just spraying her plants,” Moya-Smith said.
He added that he, too, was sprayed while facedown, much of it hitting his back.
“It was a completely unnecessary use of force on the group. Everyone was complying,” Moya-Smith said.
Officers then came around to each of the protesters and asked for their IDs. When they came around to Moya-Smith, he told them that he had an ID in his wallet and that he was a reporter with NBC News. When they told him to wait as he was, Moya-Smith said he thought, “OK, so this is how this is going to go.”
“I’m sure one, two or maybe all of them knew that if they allowed me to exercise my First Amendment right as a reporter that I would immediately begin documenting the situation, and I think that is what they were trying to prevent,” Moya-Smith said.
Moya-Smith told the Tracker that multiple officers checked his press badge: One referred to him as “Mr. Journalist” when ordering him to roll over; another simply shrugged.
I was pepper-sprayed then arrested last night by Minneapolis PD even after identifying myself as a reporter MULTIPLE times:
— Simon Moya-Smith (@SimonMoyaSmith) May 31, 2020
Cop 1: *checks press badge as I’m on the ground*
Cop 2: “Roll on your side, Mr. journalist.”
Cop 3: *loads me in the car, sees my press badge and shrugs*
Moya-Smith was loaded into one of the cruisers and transported to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct along with the demonstrators. When they arrived at the station, he said, it was chaotic and overwhelmed by the number of arrests that night.
While their arresting officer had decided to issue them citations outside the station and release them, another officer convinced him that there was still space to book them in the jail, Moya-Smith said.
When the officer came around to him to ask for his ID again, Moya-Smith said, “Yupp, and here’s my press badge.”
Moya-Smith said the officer seemed surprised and called over a commanding officer, who immediately said that he needed to be released. Officers dropped him off about half a block from where the National Guard was operating.
“And as they were letting me go [the officer] said, ‘You’re going to tell everybody that we treated you nicely, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’” Moya-Smith told the Tracker.
Moya-Smith said that he was in police custody for a little over an hour and that he suffered no serious effects from the pepper spray other than a few coughing attacks.
He noted that while covering the protests in Minneapolis he found that being a member of the press did not protect him from police tactics.
“They still come directly toward you. They still charge you. It’s not a situation where you can even be a fly on the wall and cover it,” Moya-Smith said. “It feels like more of a target than a badge.”
When asked for comment, a representative from the Minneapolis Police Department’s Records Information Unit told the Tracker that the MPD was not the arresting authority for Moya-Smith. The Minneapolis State Patrol did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred total incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find all of these cases here.
State patrol officers stand guard in Minneapolis on May 31, 2020.
",detained and released without being processed,Minneapolis Police Department,None,None,True,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,no,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, chemical irritant, protest",,, 2020-06-25 20:08:41.330294+00:00,2022-03-10 17:10:31.328929+00:00,Minnesota State Patrol officers threaten reporter for German outlet,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minnesota-state-patrol-officers-threaten-reporter-for-german-outlet/,2022-03-10 17:10:31.268926+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Maximilian Förg (Deutsche Welle),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"A Deutsche Welle news team was threatened and aimed at with a weapon by Minnesota State Patrol troopers while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
At 8:08 p.m., eight minutes after curfew — from which members of the media were specifically exempted — DW cameraman Maximilian Förg and correspondent Stefan Simons were standing near a fence running alongside Interstate 35W in Minneapolis. State police officers stood in a line on the highway, where two hours earlier a truck had plowed into a crowd of protesters.
As Simons began his live shot, several members of the Minnesota State Patrol, clad in tan riot gear, bounded up the hillside towards the journalists.
“Hey, we’re press, guys, from D.C.,” Simons shouted. “We’re all press here.” Despite this, at least one officer in riot gear pointed his gun at him through the fence.
"Come on guys we have permission to be out here! Stop it!” Simons continued, as the officer continued to train his weapon at him. “Sir, the governor of Minnesota exempts press,” he said, referencing the curfew.
Simons and Förg cut their live shot short, got into their car, and drove away. Video of the encounter aired live on DW, and was later posted on the website.
Simons told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that just prior to the live shot, officers had fired off canisters of tear gas in their direction, followed by several rounds of projectiles. “We all took cover behind my car,” he said. Other members of the media were present in the vicinity, Simons said, but he did not know their names or outlets.
State police had already cleared protesters off the highway when they turned their attention to the press, DW's Simons said.
When Simons and Förg drove away, the officers fired some sort of projectile at their vehicle, which pinged the door but did not damage it, Simons said.
A day prior, on May 30, police fired projectiles at Simons and his crew and threatened them with arrest. That incident was captured separately by the Tracker.
The attacks garnered the attention of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who told reporters at a press conference in Berlin on June 2 he would be reaching out to the U.S. government about the matter. Deutsche Welle is an international English-language news station funded by the German government.
"With regard to the incidents involving Deutsche Welle, of which we have also been made aware, we will contact U.S. authorities to find out more about the circumstances," Maas said. "We remain firmly committed: Journalists must be able to carry out their task, which is independent coverage of events, without endangering their safety."
"Democratic states under the rule of law have to meet the highest standards when it comes to protecting freedom of press," Maas said.
A request for comment emailed to the Minnesota State Patrol was not immediately returned.
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.
Minneapolis officers line up across I-35W on May 31, 2020, the sixth day of demonstrations in the city.
",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, shot / shot at",,, 2020-08-21 14:07:42.292929+00:00,2021-11-19 16:08:49.547167+00:00,Australian correspondent detained while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/australian-correspondent-detained-while-covering-minneapolis-protests/,2021-11-19 16:08:49.492536+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Tim Arvier (Nine News Australia),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Minneapolis Police briefly detained a Nine News Australia news crew and security guard in the early hours of May 31, 2020, the outlet reported. U.S. Correspondent Tim Arvier and cameraman Adam Bovino were covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
Arvier reported that police and the Minnesota National Guard deployed throughout Minneapolis on the night of May 30 in an attempt to assert control. The Nine News crew documented protesters marching in defiance of an 8 p.m. curfew as the police pushed back with less-lethal projectiles and tear gas.
The crew was driving to find a backdrop for a live interview when they heard gunfire and encountered a police roadblock, Arvier told the Tracker.
“We didn’t want to approach the roadblock, or drive up to it because obviously we’d seen numerous examples in the past 48 hours of how jumpy the police were,” Arvier said.
So Bovino stopped the car short of the roadblock and waited for the police to notice them, Arvier told the Tracker. As the police officers approached, the crew held their hands out the windows and shouted that they were press.
Two officers seemed calm, Arvier said, but a third yelled at them to get out of the car and drew his firearm.
“That’s when I hit record on my phone and held my phone up in my hand to record all this happening, just to have a record,” Arvier said. The crew tried to remain calm to avoid misunderstandings that could have escalated, he told the Tracker.
The security guard, who the crew hired after observing street violence, informed the police that he had weapons in the car, Arvier said.
In Arvier’s video, a police officer warns other officers to not let the journalists and the security guard drop their hands because there are guns in the car.
Arvier asks an officer in the video if it is okay to keep holding his phone in his raised hands. The officer responds, “You’re good.”
The officer who drew his weapon searched Bovino and escorted him handcuffed to the curb, Arvier said. The security guard was brought by another officer to the curb handcuffed as well.
A third officer searched Arvier, who continued to film. Additional footage shows Arvier holding his credentials in one hand as he’s searched. As he is patted down, Arvier explains to the officer that he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
In the video, an officer explains why the Nine News Australia crew was being treated carefully. “You can hear all the gunshots going off all around us. It’s like a warzone,” the officer said. “And here you guys are in bulletproof vests with a rifle in the car.”
Arvier was escorted to the curb, but he was not handcuffed like his colleagues. After the police checked their press credentials, the crew was released. Arvier said the crew was carrying press passes issued by the Los Angeles Police Department since their bureau is based in Los Angeles.
The police warned the journalists that it was dangerous to be out and advised them to return to their hotel for their safety, Arvier said.
Arvier said they had been treated respectfully and he understood why the police would be anxious. But it was unclear why they had to be detained and handcuffed. They had previously been pulled over to have their credentials checked without issue, Arvier said.
“If it wasn’t for the one police officer there, I get the feeling that the other ones would’ve handled it a lot more calmly and we probably would have been fine like we were the first time we were pulled over,” Arvier said.
Minnesota Police Department spokesperson John Elder told the Tracker he was unable to comment about this and other incidents involving the press. He said, “Every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
The crew’s detention on May 30 was one of several incidents involving the police during the days of protests, Arvier told the Tracker. On the night of May 29 the crew was pinned down in a parking lot in the 5th Precinct as police confronted protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, Arvier said. They were trying to return to their car to send footage back to Australia, but the police line blocked their way. When the crew tried to approach the line while identifying as press, the police yelled at them to get back. Police eventually escorted Bovino to the team’s vehicle to retrieve the equipment they needed. The vehicle had a large dent that the journalists presumed came from a tear gas canister strike.
On May 31, the crew was filming police push back protesters near a highway, Arvier said. The crew positioned off to the side so that they could either fall back on the highway or behind police lines to stay safe, Arvier said. But Nine News footage shows Arvier and his cameraman forced by police to run through tear gas. "That is ugly, ugly scenes," Arvier said in a video posted to Twitter as he struggled with the effects of the tear gas.
Arvier told the Tracker he recognized the risks the police were facing and did not feel bitter toward them. But he noted their attitude toward journalists seemed different than in previous protests he has covered.
In other protests, “the cops just sort of let you work through it and we don’t get in their way and they don’t get in our way and everyone is fine,” Arvier said “But that certainly seemed to be a different state of affairs in terms of the police attitude in Minneapolis.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Minneapolis police briefly detained a Nine News Australia news crew and security guard in the early hours of May 31, 2020, the outlet reported. Cameraman Adam Bovino and U.S. Correspondent Tim Arvier were covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the U.S. since the end of May.
Arvier reported that police and the Minnesota National Guard deployed throughout Minneapolis on the night of May 30 in an attempt to assert control. The Nine News crew documented protesters marching in defiance of an 8 p.m. curfew as the police pushed back with less-lethal projectiles and tear gas.
The crew was driving to find a backdrop for a live interview when they heard gunfire and encountered a police roadblock, Arvier told the Tracker.
“We didn’t want to approach the roadblock, or drive up to it because obviously we’d seen numerous examples in the past 48 hours of how jumpy the police were,” Arvier said.
So Bovino stopped the car short of the roadblock and waited for the police to notice them, Arvier told the Tracker. As the police officers approached, the crew held their hands out the windows and shouted that they were press.
Two officers seemed calm, Arvier said, but a third yelled at them to get out of the car and drew his firearm.
“That’s when I hit record on my phone and held my phone up in my hand to record all this happening, just to have a record,” Arvier said. The crew tried to remain calm to avoid misunderstandings that could have escalated, he told the Tracker.
The security guard, who the crew hired after observing street violence, informed the police that he had weapons in the car, Arvier said.
In Arvier’s video, a police officer warns other officers to not let the journalists and the security guard drop their hands because there are guns in the car.
Arvier asks an officer in the video if it is okay to keep holding his phone in his raised hands. The officer responds, “You’re good.”
Bovino, who declined an interview because Arvier had already spoken with the Tracker, said in an email that the officer who drew a firearm handcuffed him. Officers escorted Bovino and the security guard in handcuffs to the curb.
A third officer searched Arvier, who continued to film. Additional footage shows Arvier holding his credentials in one hand as he’s searched. As he is patted down, Arvier explains to the officer that he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
In the video, an officer explains why the Nine News Australia crew was being treated carefully. “You can hear all the gunshots going off all around us. It’s like a warzone,” the officer said. “And here you guys are in bulletproof vests with a rifle in the car.”
Arvier was escorted to the curb, but he was not handcuffed like his colleagues. After the police checked their press credentials, the crew was released. Arvier said the crew was carrying press passes issued by the Los Angeles Police Department since their bureau is based in Los Angeles.
The police warned the journalists that it was dangerous to be out and advised them to return to their hotel for their safety, Arvier said.
Arvier said they had been treated respectfully and he understood why the police would be anxious. But it was unclear why they had to be detained and handcuffed. They had previously been pulled over to have their credentials checked without issue, Arvier said.
“If it wasn’t for the one police officer there, I get the feeling that the other ones would’ve handled it a lot more calmly and we probably would have been fine like we were the first time we were pulled over,” Arvier said.
Minnesota Police Department spokesperson John Elder told the Tracker he was unable to comment about this and other incidents involving the press. He said, “Every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
The crew’s detention on May 30 was one of several incidents involving the police during the days of protests, Arvier told the Tracker. On the night of May 29 the crew was pinned down in a parking lot in the 5th Precinct as police confronted protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, Arvier said. They were trying to return to their car to send footage back to Australia, but the police line blocked their way. When the crew tried to approach the line while identifying as press, the police yelled at them to get back. Police eventually escorted Bovino to the team’s vehicle to retrieve the equipment they needed. The vehicle had a large dent that the journalists presumed came from a tear gas canister strike.
On May 31, the crew was filming police push back protesters near a highway, Arvier said. The crew positioned off to the side so that they could either fall back on the highway or behind police lines to stay safe, Arvier said. But Nine News footage shows Arvier and Bovino forced by police to run through tear gas. "That is ugly, ugly scenes," Arvier said in a video posted to Twitter as he struggled with the effects of the tear gas.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
A Deutsche Welle news team was threatened and aimed at with weapons by Minnesota State Patrol troopers while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
At 8:08 p.m., eight minutes after curfew — from which members of the media were specifically exempted — DW correspondent Stefan Simons and cameraman Maximilian Förg were standing near a fence running alongside Interstate 35W in Minneapolis. State police officers stood in a line on the highway, where two hours earlier a truck had plowed into a crowd of protesters.
As Simons began his live shot, several members of the Minnesota State Patrol, clad in tan riot gear, bounded up the hillside towards the journalists. “Hey, we’re press, guys, from D.C.,” Simons shouted. “We’re all press here.” Despite this, at least one officer in riot gear pointed his gun at him through the fence.
"Come on guys we have permission to be out here! Stop it!” Simons continued, as the officer continued to train his weapon at him. “Sir, the governor of Minnesota exempts press,” he said, referencing the curfew.
Simons and Förg cut their live shot short, got into their car, and drove away. Video of the encounter aired live on DW, and was later posted on the website.
Simons told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that just prior to the live shot, officers had fired off canisters of tear gas in their direction, followed by several rounds of projectiles. “We all took cover behind my car,” he said. Other members of the media were present in the vicinity, Simons said, but he did not know their names or outlets. When Simons and Förg drove away, the officers fired some sort of projectile at their vehicle, which pinged the door but did not damage it, Simons said.
A day prior, on May 30, police fired projectiles at Simons and his crew and threatened them with arrest. That incident was captured separately by the Tracker.
The attacks garnered the attention of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who told reporters at a press conference in Berlin on June 2 he would be reaching out to the U.S. government about the matter. Deutsche Welle is an international English-language news station funded by the German government.
"With regard to the incidents involving Deutsche Welle, of which we have also been made aware, we will contact U.S. authorities to find out more about the circumstances," Maas said. "We remain firmly committed: Journalists must be able to carry out their task, which is independent coverage of events, without endangering their safety."
"Democratic states under the rule of law have to meet the highest standards when it comes to protecting freedom of press," Maas said.
Simons, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Germany, characterized the treatment of the media in Minneapolis as “shocking.” “I have not actually ever seen the foreign minister of Germany having to take that kind of stance with an ally,” Simons said. “There is nobody who expects this from the United States.”
A request for comment emailed to the Minnesota State Patrol was not immediately returned.
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.
Radio reporter Philippe Leblanc was pushed with a baton by law enforcement officers while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shortly after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
Leblanc, a radio correspondent for Radio-Canada and television correspondent for French CBC, was standing behind the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct in a group of other Canadian journalists and their security details. Several of the reporters had flak jackets labeled “PRESS” and most were holding cameras and or other equipment, Leblanc told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Several Metro Transit buses with “not in service” lights on pulled up alongside the group and Minnesota State Patrol troopers disembarked, weapons drawn, and immediately began shouting at the assembled journalists to “Get back!” and “Move!” according to a video posted by Leblanc on Twitter.
Les policiers débarquent et bousculent les journalistes sur place... pic.twitter.com/8hxmyWjGEP
— Philippe Leblanc (@phil_leblancSRC) May 31, 2020
The journalists complied, moving back, but the officers wielding batons kept coming toward them, Leblanc told the Tracker. “They started shoving us out of the way even though we had clearly retreated,” Leblanc said. “I was pushed three or four times on the chest.”
Leblanc, who was holding a microphone and his press pass in one hand and his iPhone in the other, said it was clear they were members of the media, but the situation unfolded so quickly he said he did not even have the chance to yell that he was press, though others in the group did.
Leblanc said he was not injured and that he did not file a complaint with state police. “Had there been an injury it would have been dealt with differently,” he said.
A request for comment emailed to the Minnesota State Patrol was not immediately returned.
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.
CBS journalist Tim Horstman and his news crew were shot at with crowd-control munitions by law enforcement while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
Shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew, Minnesota State Patrol officers aimed crowd-control weapons at a Deutsche Welle news crew near a fence running alongside Interstate 35W in Minneapolis. The crew cut their live shot short, got into their car, and drove away as the officers opened fire at the vehicle.
Horstman, a camera technician for CBS News, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was part of a news crew filming the protest from a nearby parking garage. He said the news crew was above the DW journalists when they were confronted by officers.
“We could hear them yelling that they were press,” Horstman said in a message on Twitter. “It was at that same time they [the law enforcement officers] were shooting at us in the garage above. We would peek over the ledge and they would shoot.”
When asked if the news crew was specifically targeted, Horstman said the members of the crew were the only ones on that level of the garage when officers opened fire with 40mm rubber bullet rounds. He also shared images of the news crew appearing to crouch behind the external walks and columns of the garage and of one of the rubber rounds.
According to Horstman, none of the CBS journalists were struck by the munitions.
State police had already cleared protesters off the highway when they turned their attention to the press, DW's Simons said.
A request for comment emailed to the Minnesota State Patrol was not immediately returned.
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.
Journalists with CBS News take shelter in a parking garage in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 31, 2020, while covering demonstrations following the death of George Floyd.
",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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-11-18 19:24:27.211129+00:00,2022-03-10 19:22:07.557677+00:00,Minnesota State Patrol officers shoot at CBS sound engineer in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minnesota-state-patrol-officers-shoot-at-cbs-sound-engineer-in-minneapolis/,2022-03-10 19:22:07.501220+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,John Marschitz (CBS News),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"CBS News sound engineer John Marschitz and his news crew were shot at with crowd-control munitions by law enforcement while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
Protesters were marching that day on the Interstate 35W Bridge in downtown Minneapolis, according to local CBS affiliate WCCO. Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he noticed the protesters from the window of the Courtyard hotel where they were staying, and he and his team quickly gathered their equipment to film from the hotel’s parking garage. The team consisted of Marschitz, camera technician Tim Horstman, field director Michael Hopkins and logistics manager Kevin Ward. See the Tracker’s documentation of these incidents here.
“That’s where we started watching everything happen and there were press down below us yelling, ‘Press! Press!’ and [law enforcement] still kept firing at them,” Marschitz said, referring to members of a Deutsche Welle news crew who were shot at as they identified themselves as press, cut their live shot short and drove away. “We were up in the garage and when we went over to the little brick wall they would shoot up at us, even though we had the camera propped up over, if we looked over they would shoot at us.”
When asked if the CBS News crew was specifically targeted, Marschitz said they were the only ones on that level of the garage when officers opened fire with rubber bullets and marker rounds.
Both Marschitz and Horstman said none of the CBS journalists were struck by the munitions.
The Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.
Marschitz was also struck in the arm with a rubber bullet while documenting protests the night before.
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.
Journalists with CBS News take shelter in a parking garage in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 31, 2020, while covering demonstrations following the death of George Floyd.
",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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-11-18 19:29:26.742687+00:00,2022-03-10 19:22:24.441812+00:00,Minnesota State Patrol officers shoot at CBS logistics manager in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minnesota-state-patrol-officers-shoot-at-cbs-logistics-manager-in-minneapolis/,2022-03-10 19:22:24.351322+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Kevin Ward (CBS News),,2020-05-31,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"CBS News logistics manager Kevin Ward and his news crew were shot at with crowd-control munitions by law enforcement while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
Protesters were marching that day on the Interstate 35W Bridge in downtown Minneapolis, according to local CBS affiliate WCCO. Sound engineer John Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he noticed the protesters from the window of the Courtyard hotel where they were staying, and he and his team quickly gathered their equipment to film from the hotel’s parking garage. The team consisted of Ward, Marschitz, camera technician Tim Horstman and field director Michael Hopkins. See the Tracker’s documentation of these incidents here.
“That’s where we started watching everything happen and there were press down below us yelling, ‘Press! Press!’ and [law enforcement] still kept firing at them,” Marschitz said, referring to members of a Deutsche Welle news crew who were shot at as they identified themselves as press, cut their live shot short and drove away. “We were up in the garage and when we went over to the little brick wall they would shoot up at us, even though we had the camera propped up over, if we looked over they would shoot at us.”
When asked if the CBS News crew was specifically targeted, Marschitz said they were the only ones on that level of the garage when officers opened fire with rubber bullets and marker rounds.
Both Marschitz and Horstman said none of the CBS journalists were struck by the munitions.
Neither Ward nor the Minnesota State Patrol responded to requests 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.
CBS News field director Michael Hopkins and his news crew were shot at with crowd-control munitions by law enforcement while documenting protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after curfew went into effect 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 United States since the end of May.
Protesters were marching that day on the Interstate 35W Bridge in downtown Minneapolis, according to local CBS affiliate WCCO. Sound engineer John Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he noticed the protesters from the window of the Courtyard hotel where they were staying, and he and his team quickly gathered their equipment to film from the hotel’s parking garage. The team consisted of Hopkins, Marschitz, camera technician Tim Horstman and logistics manager Kevin Ward. See the Tracker’s documentation of these incidents here.
“That’s where we started watching everything happen and there were press down below us yelling, ‘Press! Press!’ and [law enforcement] still kept firing at them,” Marschitz said, referring to members of a Deutsche Welle news crew who were shot at as they identified themselves as press, cut their live shot short and drove away. “We were up in the garage and when we went over to the little brick wall they would shoot up at us, even though we had the camera propped up over, if we looked over they would shoot at us.”
When asked if the CBS News crew was specifically targeted, Marschitz said they were the only ones on that level of the garage when officers opened fire with rubber bullets and marker rounds.
Both Marschitz and Horstman said none of the CBS journalists were struck by the munitions.
Neither Hopkins nor the Minnesota State Patrol responded to requests 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.
WCCO photojournalist Tom Aviles was shot with a projectile and later arrested while covering the fifth night of 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. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
At approximately 8:45 p.m., Aviles was reporting at the intersection of Nicollet and E. Franklin avenues with WCCO producer Joan Gilbertson. In a video captured by Aviles, he is positioned to the side of their news vehicle when a line of Minnesota State Patrol troopers advanced down the street firing crowd control ammunition.
In the video, a shot is heard firing just before Aviles shouts in pain and the camera shakes. Aviles then moves off the street and into a nearby alley way and parking lot.
As Aviles repositions to film the advancing troopers, one officer breaks out from the line and approaches him, shouting “Get moving! Get gone! Go!”
Aviles can be heard identifying himself as a WCCO photojournalist and asks the trooper where he should move. He also identifies the vehicle that has moved down the road as belonging to the station.
“OK, OK, OK!” Aviles says as two additional officers make their way toward him. He begins to turn around and walk away from the officers and into the parking lot
“Joan! Joan! Get over here!” Aviles shouts to producer Gilbertson, who was presumably still in the car.
An officer then approaches Aviles from behind and tells him he’s under arrest, forcing him to the ground. Aviles complies and multiple times assures the officer that he’s not fighting.
Gilbertson told WCCO that a patrolman told her, “You’ve been warned, or the same thing will happen to you.”
She said she put her hands up and said, “Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me.”
Aviles was released approximately two hours later, WCCO reported.
Photojournalist Tom is free, after being arrested and shot with a rubber bullet. This true blue, AMAZING journalist even managed to share a smile. #wcco pic.twitter.com/XrbnCKo3tb
— Susan-Elizabeth (@susanelizabethL) May 31, 2020
WCCO could not immediately be reached for comment.
At a news conference late that evening, Minnesota Commissioner of Corrections Paul Schnell said Aviles’ arrest was “regrettable,” CBS News reported. He added that it is difficult to identify journalists amidst the challenges of crowds, smoke devices and police tactics.
“We value and know the importance [of journalists],” Schnell said.
The Minnesota State Patrol was not immediately available for comment.
Multiple other reporters were arrested in Minneapolis that day, and a three-man CNN news crew was arrested by state troopers the day before, on May 29.
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 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.
",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",,, 2020-06-03 03:27:40.451788+00:00,2024-02-16 21:38:26.924540+00:00,Photojournalist arrested while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-arrested-while-covering-minneapolis-protests/,2024-02-16 21:38:26.772299+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-07-22),,"(2020-07-30 00:00:00+00:00) Freelance photojournalist joins ACLU suit following arrest while covering Minneapolis protest, (2022-02-08 12:01:00+00:00) Journalists reach settlement agreement with Minnesota State Patrol, rest of suit ongoing, (2020-07-22 16:10:00+00:00) Charges dropped against photojournalist arrested while covering Minneapolis protests, (2024-02-08 00:00:00+00:00) Journalists get nearly $1M settlement over Minneapolis BLM protest attacks",Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Stephen Maturen (Freelance),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Freelance photojournalist Stephen Maturen 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.
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 03:57:05.140721+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",,, 2020-06-09 18:50:37.907873+00:00,2022-03-10 19:26:05.977912+00:00,MSNBC host struck by rubber bullet while covering protests in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/police-target-dozens-journalists-covering-protests-minneapolis-tear-gas-pepper-spray-rubber-bullets/,2022-03-10 19:26:05.912445+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Ali Velshi (MSNBC),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"MSNBC host Ali Velshi was struck by a rubber bullet and caught in tear gas 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. An 8 p.m. curfew was put into effect on May 30.
At about 8:40 p.m., a group of Minnesota state police and National Guard officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at a group of protesters, which also hit several journalists covering the demonstrations.
Velshi was hit by a rubber bullet in his left shin and was affected by the tear gas, he told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — in a phone interview. Velshi said it was not clear whether the tear gas and rubber bullets were fired by state police or National Guard officers.
Velshi said in an MSNBC broadcast that he did not have time to put on his mask when the tear gas was first released. After Velashi and his crew retreated from the police line, the host was then hit by the rubber bullet, he told CPJ.
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.
An unidentified man wearing body armor broke Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson’s camera with a crowbar while he was covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 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.
Jackson described his attacker and posted a photo of his broken camera on Twitter:
Photo of the camera that a man with a crowbar hit when he attacked me while working in Minneapolis today. A man dressed as a “Medic” with body armor, keep your eyes out. pic.twitter.com/H4d6YXtK0K
— Lucas Jackson (@Lucas_Jackson_) May 31, 2020
In a statement given to the Committee to Protect Journalists through Reuters’ press office, Jackson said that the assailant was “a young white man wearing body armor emblazoned with a red medic cross.”
In the statement, Jackson said that the young man screamed “Get out of here!” before smashing Jackson’s camera with the crowbar. The statement did not say that Jackson was injured in the attack.
An unidentified man attacked Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson with a crowbar during protests in Minneapolis on May 30, damaging his camera.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,private individual,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-06-16 04:47:12.253121+00:00,2023-11-03 13:55:11.807195+00:00,French videographer arrested with colleague for curfew violation in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/french-videographer-arrested-colleague-curfew-violation-minneapolis/,2023-11-03 13:55:11.690799+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-07-22),,(2020-08-13 17:55:00+00:00) Update: Charges dismissed against French videographer arrested while covering May protests,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage",,,vehicle: count of 1,Mathieu Derrien (TF1),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"A French videographer was arrested for curfew violations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020, after police fired rubber projectiles at the car he was driving, damaging the windshield and sending small shards of glass inside the vehicle. The correspondent from his team was also arrested.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents all arrests separately.
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.
Mathieu Derrien, videographer for TF1, a major French television station, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview that he was driving a rental car with his colleague, TF1 correspondent Amandine Atalaya, around Minneapolis just after 11:15 p.m. looking for people to interview when he made a turn off Lake Street.
A few seconds after making the turn, a foam projectile hit his windshield, damaging it and sending small shards of glass flying inside the car, he told the Tracker. The glass did not injure either journalist. Derrien quickly brought the car to a stop, as a few smaller projectiles—perhaps pepper balls—hit the windshield, leaving behind a white powder.
Officers then approached the car shouting for Derrien and Atalaya to get out and put their hands up, and they complied. “We immediately told them we were French journalists,” Derrien said. “They replied that they didn’t care and that there was a curfew in place.” The officers pointed their weapons toward the journalists, who showed them their press credentials issued by the U.S. Senate, but the officers were unmoved.
After securing their hands behind their backs using zip ties, the officers took them to a law enforcement facility across town, Derrien said, where they were fingerprinted and briefly placed in metal handcuffs. He received a citation for misdemeanor curfew violation, which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail.
Derrien said that he was unsure which agency the officers who arrested them were from. Emails sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department inquiring about this matter were not returned as of press time.
Jeremy Zoss, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, wrote in an email to the Tracker that Derrien was cited at the Hennepin County jail but the sheriff’s office was not the arresting agency. Upon review of the citation, Zoss said that the arresting agency was not listed, something he termed “unusual” and was likely a result of this being a mass arrest.
The arrest occurred despite the fact that members of the media were specifically exempt from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s executive order implementing the curfew.
Derrien and Atalaya were released around 2 a.m. and had to find their way back to their car without their cellphones, which were locked inside their vehicle with their gear. A protester who was released at the same time gave them a ride back to the general area where their car was. When they returned to the car, they discovered that one of the tires had been deflated.
In France, Derrien and Atalaya’s colleagues were “worried sick” when they were unavailable for the live shot they were supposed to do at midnight. “They called our phones many times, so when we got to the car, we had 15 or 20 missed calls each,” Derrien said. “They were starting to imagine the worst.”
Derrien later recounted what transpired to French daily newspaper Libération and tweeted out a photo of the car’s damaged windshield, writing that the situation had left them with “more fear than harm.”
A Minneapolis hier soir, à proximité d’un barrage, la police a tiré une balle en caoutchouc sur notre véhicule en marche côté conducteur, puis nous a arrêtés avec @AmandineAtalaya . Relâchés rapidement heureusement, plus de peur que de mal pic.twitter.com/hEZtkxyDDF
— Mathieu Derrien (@MatDerrien) May 31, 2020
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred total incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find these cases here.
While covering protests in Minneapolis for French publication TF1, Mathieu Derrien's rental car was hit with a rubber bullet shot by police. Derrien and a colleague were also arrested and charged with violating curfew.
",arrested and released,None,2020-05-31,None,False,None,[],None,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, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-06-18 13:56:04.355271+00:00,2022-03-10 19:29:56.479220+00:00,French television correspondent arrested for curfew violation in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/french-television-correspondent-arrested-curfew-violation-minneapolis/,2022-03-10 19:29:56.419896+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-07-22),,(2020-07-22 11:39:00+00:00) Charges dropped against French television correspondent arrested during protests in Minneapolis,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,Amandine Atalaya (TF1),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"A French television correspondent was arrested for curfew violations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020, after police fired rubber projectiles at the car she was riding in, damaging the windshield and sending small shards of glass inside the vehicle. The videographer from her team was arrested at the same time.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents all arrests separately.
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.
Amandine Atalaya, a Washington-based correspondent for TF1, a major French television station, was riding in a rental car driven by her colleague, videographer Mathieu Derrien, in Minneapolis just after 11:15 p.m. when an officer fired a foam projectile at the windshield, damaging it and sending small shards of glass flying inside the car, Derrien told the Tracker in an interview.
Atalaya did not return an interview request as of press time.
Derrien quickly brought the car to a stop, as a few smaller projectiles—perhaps pepper balls—hit the car, leaving behind a white powder.
Officers then approached the car shouting for them to get out and put their hands up, and they complied. They immediately told officers they were French journalists, but the officers said they did not care and that they were in violation of the city’s curfew, Derrien said. The officers pointed their weapons toward the journalists, who showed them their press credentials, issued by the U.S. Senate, but the officers were unmoved.
After securing their hands behind their backs using zip ties, the officers took them to a law enforcement facility across town, Derrien said, where they were fingerprinted and briefly placed in metal handcuffs. She received a citation for misdemeanor curfew violation, which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail.
Derrien said that he was unsure which agency the officers who arrested them were from. Emails sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department inquiring about this matter were not returned as of press time.
Jeremy Zoss, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, wrote in an email to the Tracker that Derrien and Atalaya were cited at the Hennepin County jail, but the sheriff’s office was not the arresting agency. Upon review of the citation, Zoss said that the arresting agency was not listed, something he termed “unusual” and was likely a result of this being a mass arrest.
The arrests occurred despite the fact that members of the media were specifically exempt from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s executive order implementing the curfew.
Derrien and Atalaya were released around 2 a.m. and had to find their way back to their car without their cellphones, which were locked inside their vehicle with their gear. A protester who was released at the same time gave them a ride back to the general area where their car was. When they returned to the car, they discovered that one of the tires had been deflated.
In France, Derrien and Atalaya’s colleagues were very concerned when they were unavailable for the live shot they were supposed to do at midnight and called their phones multiple times in search of them, Derrien said.
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.
In the span of two minutes on May 30, 2020, a news crew from NBC-affiliate KARE 11 that was covering protests and unrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was held up at gunpoint by one man, and threatened by another man wielding a crowbar.
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.
Investigative journalist A.J. Lagoe and photojournalist Devin Krinke had just driven into central Minneapolis from St. Paul after hearing that there might be "something going on" under the highway underpass of Interstate 35 West around 9 p.m., Lagoe told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He said there were not many police in the vicinity and several people in the area expressed unhappiness at seeing reporters around.
A man in the crowd approached Lagoe and started asking him about the bulletproof vest he was wearing, Lagoe told the Tracker in an interview. “He kept saying he wanted it,” Lagoe said. Eventually, the man produced a semiautomatic handgun and demanded the vest.
Lagoe was holding his cellphone on the tripod at the time and Krinke was standing a few feet away, holding his camera. “We clearly identified ourselves as press, but that didn’t help the situation at all, it only inflamed it,” Lagoe said.
As Lagoe tried to talk his way out of the situation, a man brandishing a crowbar approached him and Krinke, Lagoe recounted. The man, who was dressed in black body armor decorated with a red medic cross, menanced them with his crowbar while shouting, “Give us all your stuff,” before running off and swinging his crowbar at someone else in the area, Lagoe recounted.
This provided enough of a distraction to enable Lagoe and Krinke to back away from both men, and round the corner and quickly head back to their car, Lagoe said. They drove a few blocks away and set up to do a live shot, and the man with the crowbar drove by them, swearing at them through an open window.
Afterward, Krinke tweeted about the experience:
@AJInvestigates and I were threatened at gun point at 2nd ave S and East Lake St. Young man even swung crow bar at AJ. He then swung at another photojournalist and destroyed his camera. Journalist friends please avoid this area. @kare11 @wcco @fox9 @efrostee @KSTP pic.twitter.com/HcnvevsINg
— devinphoto (@devphotoK11) May 31, 2020
That same evening, the crowbar-wielding man struck the camera of Lucas Jackson, a Reuters photographer, breaking it. Lagoe later retweeted a video of the man striking Jackson’s camera:
This is guy who swung crowbar at me & @devphotokare11 https://t.co/8DcxaRdZ2K
— A.J. Lagoe (@AJInvestigates) May 31, 2020
That instance of equipment damage is catalogued here, in a separate post on the Tracker.
Lagoe told the Tracker that they did not file a police report about either assailant.
The Tracker emailed the Minneapolis Police Department for comment about whether anyone has been arrested in these incidents of alleged assault, or if police reports had been filed regarding these matters. The request was not answered as of press time.
Mike Max, a reporter for WCCO, a CBS affiliate station based in the city, was reporting live a few blocks from the Fifth Precinct police headquarters when he reported that a man wielding a crowbar or cane tried to assault WCCO cameraman Chris Cruz. Max also said the man assaulted another photographer, whom he didn’t identify. Neither Max nor WCCO responded to requests for comment as of press time.
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.
Protesters in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-07-01 17:06:20.223632+00:00,2021-10-14 13:59:26.929354+00:00,Officer in Minneapolis points weapon at public radio reporters,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/officer-minneapolis-points-weapon-public-radio-reporters/,2021-10-14 13:59:26.873895+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Madeleine Baran (American Public Media),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"An officer brandished a weapon at two public radio reporters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, even after they identified themselves as press, just after midnight on May 30, 2020.
Protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.
American Public Media reporters Madeleine Baran and Samara Freemark had spent much of the evening covering the protests outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct when they decided to head back to their car and go home, Freemark told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview.
As they attempted to cross Nicollet Avenue, a formation of law enforcement officers appeared, blocking them from crossing the street.
Freemark described the situation as initially being calm, but suddenly “there was a switch that flipped.” An officer suddenly appeared next to Freemark and Baran and shoved a weapon inches from their faces while shouting, “Get the fuck out of here,” Freemark recounted. She said she was not sure exactly what type of weapon it was, but that it did not resemble a pistol and seemed designed to fire crowd control ammunition.
In a tweet recounting the experience, Baran wrote, “A Minneapolis police officer pointed a weapon at me at @sfreemark’s heads, while we were standing on Nicollet and 32nd covering the protests.”
“I yelled that I’m a journalist. He did not lower his weapon, so we ran. Calling it a night,” she wrote.
A Minneapolis police officer pointed a weapon at me at @sfreemark’s heads, while we were standing on Nicollet and 32nd covering the protests. I yelled that I’m a journalist. He did not lower his weapon, so we ran. Calling it a night.
— Madeleine Baran (@madeleinebaran) May 30, 2020
Freemark and Baran were unable to reach their car and had to walk home, Freemark said. An interview request sent to Baran was not immediately returned.
Minneapolis was under an 8 p.m. curfew that evening, but journalists were expressly exempt from it.
Freemark said that the police line they encountered included officers from multiple agencies, and she was unsure which agency the officer who pointed the weapon was from.
An email sent to the Minneapolis Police Department inquiring about this incident was not returned as of press time. Bruce Gordon, director of communications for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, replied that before he could comment he would need to know if the incident in question involved a State Patrol trooper.
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.
Minnesota State Patrol officers clear an area near the Minneapolis Police Department's Fifth Precinct on May 30, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,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, protest",,, 2020-07-02 17:09:47.553872+00:00,2023-11-03 13:57:44.988257+00:00,Rubber bullets crack windshield on FOX 9 new vehicle,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/rubber-bullets-crack-windshield-fox-9-new-vehicle/,2023-11-03 13:57:44.886282+00:00,,,,Equipment Damage,,,vehicle: count of 1,,,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"A vehicle used by FOX 9, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Fox affiliate, was hit with two rubber bullets, which cracked its windshield, on May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis, according to tweets from two network reporters, Dawn Mitchell and Amy Hockert.
The incident occurred as the crew was reporting about ongoing protests in Minneapolis relating to the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis police custody.
Hockert tweeted around 9:30 p.m. that two rubber bullets hit the car and that everyone was OK.
Please go home, they mean business, our crew just got two rubber bullets to the car. They are OK. And they are allowed to be there. pic.twitter.com/1lAPlp3XWC
— Amy Hockert (@AmyHockert) May 31, 2020
Mitchell tweeted that the Minneapolis Police Department fired the bullets. The two reporters appeared not to be with the crew at the scene.
Hockert could not be reached for comment via email. Christina Palladino, a FOX 9 reporter who was part of the crew in the car, according to Mitchell’s tweet, could not be reached via email. In a tweet about the incident, Palladino wrote “we are all good!”
FOX 9 did not return CPJ’s voicemail requesting comment.
The MPD did not return CPJ’s emailed request for comment.
Just after Minneapolis’ curfew went into effect on May 30, 2020, a correspondent and cameraman for Turkey’s state-run English-language news channel were hit by projectiles fired by police.
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 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 United States since the end of May.
Lionel Donovan, a Washington-based correspondent for TRT World, said he had set up for a live shot outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct just after the city’s 8 p.m. curfew went into effect, near some peaceful protesters staging a sit-in at an intersection. Journalists were specifically exempt from the curfew by Governor Tim Walz’s order.
“The curfew came and it was like a button got hit,” Donovan told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview.
According to Donovan, the police advanced down the street and began to fire off tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd. One of the tear gas canisters hit cameraman Barbaros Sayilgan’s foot during Donovan’s live shot.
Sayilgan could not be reached for comment, but Donovan said he helped the cameraman and a producer off to safety, then went back into the street to film more footage himself. Donovan was filming on his phone, he said, when a blue foam round struck him in the inside of his left thigh, breaking the skin.
“It felt like someone took a baseball bat and set it on fire and hit me in the leg,” he told the Tracker.
Donovan was wearing a helmet and flak jacket, both emblazoned with “PRESS” in white uppercase letters. He said he was not close to the crowd when he was hit.
“It definitely made us very jittery for the rest of the deployment because then we just didn’t trust the police in any way, shape or form to help us with anything,” he said.
Requests for comment sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not immediately returned.
On June 1, Donovan tweeted a video in which he displayed the wound on his leg:
When you hear journalists talk about getting fired on by police, this is one of the things we’re getting hit with. It felt like I got hit with a baseball bat... pic.twitter.com/Xp4ZSYalvE
— Lionel Donovan, III (@LionelDonovan3) June 1, 2020
Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s communications director, brought up the attack on the crew in a June 3 phone call with David Satterfield, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, according to an article published in the Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper.
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.
Minnesota State Patrol officers move toward protesters gathered near the police department’s Fifth Precinct on May 30, 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",,, 2020-07-06 21:52:28.843664+00:00,2022-03-10 19:32:40.012577+00:00,Photojournalist shot at with foam rounds while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/despite-identifying-press-multiple-journalists-shot-projectiles-minneapolis-law-enforcement/,2022-03-10 19:32:39.952605+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Adam Bettcher (Reuters),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Freelance photojournalist Adam Bettcher said State Patrol troopers fired foam rounds at him while he was covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020.
A curfew was in effect following protests sparked by a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest 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 United States since the end of May.
Bettcher, who was on assignment for Reuters, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that State Patrol troopers fired at him at around 11 p.m. near the Fifth Precinct.
Bettcher said he was holding up his press credentials and shining a flashlight at himself as he approached a police line, yelling out, “I’m press! I’m press.” Bettcher said he was wearing body armor and a denim shirt that had an embroidered patch that said “PRESS” on his chest. He said he told the troopers he was trying to reach his car and they yelled at him to “go home!”
Bettcher replied that he was trying to get home and asked them how he could reach his car, and they shouted at him to use Google Maps, he recounted. Seconds later, one of the officers fired a projectile that whizzed by his head, he said. “I heard it hit the wall behind me,” he said. At this, he left the area. “I didn’t go back to see what they shot at me, but it was a foam baton round from the sound of it.”
A request for comment about this incident sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not returned.
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.
A Minneapolis police officer clears a cameraman from near the department’s Fifth Precinct on May 30, 2020. Photojournalist Adam Bettcher, who captured this image, was shot at with a projectile after he identified 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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-08-18 17:57:05.972781+00:00,2021-11-18 20:06:02.916752+00:00,VICE Media reporter arrested while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/vice-media-reporter-arrested-while-covering-minneapolis-protests/,2021-11-18 20:06:02.841716+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-08-11),,(2020-08-11 22:02:00+00:00) Charges dropped against VICE Media reporter arrested while covering Minneapolis protests,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Alzo Slade (VICE News),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Alzo Slade, a reporter for VICE Media, and three colleagues were detained and fingerprinted by police on May 30 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for being out after curfew while covering ongoing protests, according to Slade.
The protests were held in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25. During an arrest, a white Minneapolis Police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck and ignored Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Slade told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he was reporting on protests in downtown Minneapolis with three other VICE journalists when they encountered a long line of police in riot gear forming a wall to block the street. Slade said that the police began spraying tear gas and pepper spray. He realized that the crew — producers and camera operators Jika Gonzalez, Elis Rua, and Dave Mayer — needed to turn away to put on the gas masks they were carrying.
“We didn’t go into a peaceful protest wearing gas masks and flak jackets because visually that just says that you’re expecting trouble and that you’re looking for trouble,” Slade said.
The journalist said that he and his colleagues ducked into an alleyway and turned around to see that riot police had followed them.
“We immediately announced that we’re press, but they told us to get down on the ground,” Slade said. “We comply 100 percent. We get down on the ground and as a police officer walks toward us, I hold my credentials up and I say ‘I’m press, we’re press, sir!’,” Slade said.
A police officer then proceeded to use zip ties to secure Slade’s hands behind his back while his gas mask was still on, he said. The other crew members also had their hands zip tied behind their back.
“It is important to note that in this crew, there are four people and three of us are Black men,” Slade said.
Slade said that the officer, a Minnesota State Trooper, then asked to see his credentials. He managed to show the officer, despite having his hands tied behind his back. The journalist said he was then passed to another officer who placed Slade and his crew into a wagon in the middle of the street that was still thick with teargas and pepper spray. Police removed his gas mask while Gonzalez was sent to another part of the police wagon with other women.
“One of the crew asks for masks; they tell us we’re going to get masks when we get down to the station,” Slade said. Instead, he said, they sat in the van for about 25 minutes.
At the station, Slade said they waited for officers to figure out their case number before each crew member was fingerprinted.
“They gave us [each] a citation and VICE’s attorney immediately contacted the state of Minnesota and filed grievances,” Slade said. “The state of Minnesota assured us that [the citations] would not go on our record and that [they] would be dropped.”
About a week later, Slade and the other VICE crew members received a notification in the mail with a court date, Slade said. The notice said failure to appear would result in a bench warrant.
The Commissioner for the Department of Corrections has since confirmed to VICE that the dismissals are forthcoming, according to a VICE spokesperson, who corresponded with CPJ via email.
According to news reports, the media was exempt from curfew the night the VICE crew was arrested.
“What added insult to injury is that we lost a night of coverage,” Slade said. “We were not able to cover the protests that night. We were not able to cover the aggression by law enforcement that night, so that’s really what kind of stung just as much.”
The Minneapolis Police and Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Minneapolis law enforcement officers and protesters are seen amid tear gas on May 30, 2020.
",arrested and released,Minnesota State Patrol,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-08-21 13:57:45.751152+00:00,2024-02-15 16:33:36.648346+00:00,"Police push, fire projectiles at journalists on assignment for New York Times",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalists-say-police-pushed-one-over-wall-fired-projectiles-them-minneapolis/,2024-02-15 16:33:36.558845+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Mike Shum (The New York Times),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"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 Mike Shum and Katie G. Nelson 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 and the other journalists fled from the advancing police. Several journalists attempted to turn west off Nicollet Avenue on West 31st Street, but found themselves trapped in an alcove on the corner of a building with no exit. They could either go back into the tear-gas clouded street or try to climb over a wall, Nelson said.
NBC journalist and producer Ed Ou filmed inside the alcove, his head bleeding from an unknown weapon or projectile and his vision blurred by tear gas and pepper spray, he told the Tracker.
Ou’s video shows several journalists climbing over the wall as Shum rounds the corner, several officers right behind him. The officers appear to be wearing green and tan DNR uniforms. As Shum attempts to scale the wall with his large camera, an officer pushes him from behind.
Shum said he heard the officer order him to “get the fuck out of here,” before shoving him. “I was pushed hard enough where I sort of lost control and fell on my shoulder and arm,” he said.
He added he rolled through the fall and suffered superficial injuries as he tried to protect his camera and body.
L.A. Times photographer Carolyn Cole wrote in an account of the incident that an officer also “lifted me up onto the wall and I fell to the other side.” Cole, who said she suffered cornea damage from the State Patrol pepper spraying her at close range, was helped to the hospital by local residents.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
Freelance journalist Mike Shum looks back as a police line advances in Minneapolis’ Fifth Precinct shortly before police push him over a wall on May 30, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,['DISMISSED'],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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-08-28 17:54:36.958055+00:00,2021-10-06 16:22:05.523115+00:00,Tires Slashed: Officers pierce journalists’ car tires in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/tires-slashed-officers-pierce-journalists-car-tires-in-minneapolis/,2021-10-06 16:22:05.466730+00:00,,,,Other Incident,,,,,,2020-05-30,True,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Law-enforcement officers punctured the tires of news crews and journalists as they reported on multiple days of protests in Minneapolis, according to news reports and an interview with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
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.
According to Mother Jones, officers punctured the tires of all vehicles in a Kmart parking lot on May 30 and again on a highway overpass on May 31 after those areas briefly turned into police staging grounds.
At least three journalists and one news team — Andrew Kimmel of AuraNexus; freelance photojournalist Philip Montgomery; Lucas Jackson, a staff photographer for Reuters at the time; and a Radio-Canada news crew that included reporter Philippe Leblanc — reported returning to their respective vehicles after covering protests near the Fifth Precinct to find the tires slashed. Kimmel reported that four CNN vehicles also had their tires slashed.
This tow truck driver has been here all day. He later told me four @CNN vehicles had their tires slashed here as well. There was an entire row of press vehicles that all had to be towed. pic.twitter.com/LG40yxlrde
— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) May 31, 2020
Jackson told the Tracker that while he and Montgomery were walking away from their parked cars that evening, police officers from the nearby Fifth Precinct shone flashlights on the photographers. Both put their hands in the air and identified themselves as members of the media, Jackson said. When they returned to their cars in the early hours of May 30, their tires had been punctured. They drove to a nearby parking lot, where they changed Montgomery’s tire (Montgomery did not respond to emailed requests for comment as of press time). Jackson, who didn’t have a spare tire, drove his vehicle to his hotel and called a tow truck the next day.
While he didn’t witness the incident, Jackson told the Tracker he believed officers were responsible because they had been the only people in the area when the photographers had parked their vehicles. Additionally, he said, on several occasions over the following days he had seen officers engaging in similar acts. When police officers “left their precincts to expand their security perimeters, they would puncture vehicle tires” along the way, he said. Spokespeople for both the Minneapolis Police Department and the City of Minneapolis declined to comment, telling the Tracker that the “incident is part of ongoing litigation.”
WCCO reporter Jeff Wagner tweeted about the tire slashings that night, noting in a follow up tweet that he couldn’t confirm whether law enforcement was responsible for the damage.
“If I tried walking up to the officers to ask, I would have been shot at w/ tear gas or a rubber bullet,” he wrote. “They were yelling at us to leave the premises.”
The Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, or having their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. More than 30 press freedom aggressions in Minneapolis and St. Paul affecting 60 journalists have been documented since May 26. You can read them here.
Luke Mogelson, who was on assignment for the New Yorker magazine, told the Tracker that he parked his car on the shoulder of the South Washington Avenue overpass spanning I-35W in downtown Minneapolis on his way to cover protests at the nearby U.S. Bank Stadium on May 31. Other cars were parked in the same fashion, he said.
Many protesters dispersed at the arrival of an 8 p.m. curfew, but others marched to I-35W in the direction of Mogelson’s car, he said. Protesters “found themselves suddenly trapped: in both directions, a few hundred feet away, a wall of police obstructed the highway,” Mogelson wrote in an account in the New Yorker.
Video published by Canada’s Global News shows officers from at least three agencies deploying on the far end of the South Washington Avenue overpass as a crowd runs away. After officers form a perimeter on the block, several puncture the tires of a red car and then Mogelson’s silver rental car. The other cars that were parked near Mogelson’s car had apparently left before the video was filmed after curfew, he said.
Lt. Andy Knotz, a spokesperson for the Anoka County Sheriff, told the Star Tribune that Anoka County deputies punctured the tires on May 31 under orders of the state-led Multi-Agency Command Center, which was coordinating the law enforcement response to the protests.
Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon told the Star Tribune that piercing tires was “not a typical tactic,” but “vehicles were being used as dangerous weapons and inhibited our ability to clear areas and keep areas safe where violent protesters were occurring.”
In a June 9 press release, the sheriff’s office said the order was given to deflate the tires of the “illegally abandoned vehicles” for the safety of law enforcement and protesters in the area, adding they “could have been used as deadly mobile weapons as seen on previous days.”
“That argument doesn’t really hold water,” Mogelson told the Tracker, explaining that his vehicle couldn’t have been a threat because it was surrounded by so many law enforcement officers in every direction.
Earlier that afternoon, a tanker truck drove through thousands of protesters marching on I-35W less than half a mile from where Mogelson parked his car, according to news reports. The driver was arrested and released pending investigation.
In the Global News video, Anoka County deputies wearing dark brown pants with a stripe puncture the tires with the assistance of another wearing a full camouflage uniform.
Lt. Knotz of the sheriff’s office told the Tracker he was uncertain which law enforcement agency’s officer was clad in the camouflage uniform. Gordon of the Department of Public Safety didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Capt. Melanie Nelson, a spokesperson for the Minnesota National Guard, told the Tracker it wasn’t involved in the incident. A couple of days before the tire slashing, the Minnesota National Guard tweeted that “not everyone you see in camouflage” is a guardsman.
Mogelson told the Tracker he approached law enforcement officers from several local and state agencies, identified his car to them, and asked them not to tow it. He said he believed in retrospect that his tires were already punctured, but he didn’t realize it at the time. When he returned later to retrieve his car, he said a couple of officers laughed when he learned all four of his tires were punctured.
Mogelson left his vehicle and found a ride to continue reporting at a memorial for George Floyd, he said. The protesters he had followed were corralled at a gas station near the highway, he said. Police across the country have been using a maneuver called kettling to hem in crowds at demonstrations. About 150 protesters in Minneapolis that day were arrested, according to Mogelson’s New Yorker article and other news reports.
Mogelson later filed a report with Minneapolis police to make an insurance claim, he said.
Mogelson said he didn’t want to focus too much attention on the car. “It seems pretty clear they did not know it was my car when they slashed the tires,” he said. “A lot of journalists that were there in Minneapolis were physically abused, harassed and attacked.”
Information in this roundup was gathered from published social media and news reports as well as interviews where noted.
Minneapolis police slash a car’s tires on Washington Avenue by the I-35W highway on-ramp during demonstrations on May 31, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,Media,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-09-28 21:10:36.724890+00:00,2022-11-09 17:13:29.412611+00:00,VICE Media producer arrested while covering Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/vice-media-producer-arrested-while-covering-minneapolis-protests/,2022-11-09 17:13:29.330967+00:00,curfew violation: breaking curfew order (charges dropped as of 2020-08-11),,(2020-08-11 22:21:00+00:00) Charges dropped against VICE Media producer arrested while covering Minneapolis protests,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Jika González (VICE News),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Jika González, a producer for VICE Media, and three colleagues were arrested on May 30 in Minneapolis, for being out after curfew while covering ongoing protests.
The protests were held in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25. During an arrest, a white Minneapolis Police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck and ignored Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
González told the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that she was reporting on protests in downtown Minneapolis with VICE film crew members Alzo Slade, Ellis Rua, and Dave Mayers. The crew was following protesters when police began forming a line to block the protest’s progression, González said.
“We stayed to get a few shots of police forming the line, and then the first thing of [an irritant] was launched,” said González, who referred to police when she meant Minnesota State Troopers. The crew ducked into a side alley off of the main avenue, the journalist said.
“We were thinking that police had established that line and were going to stay there because this march was very peaceful,” González said. Law enforcement then came around the corner and started yelling at the journalists to get on the ground, and they complied, she said.
González said she could see Slade and Mayer but Rua was behind her. Her colleagues were lying on the ground. González said she was kneeling on the ground with her hands up. Her mask was on halfway.
González said that an officer approached Slade, who said they were press. The state trooper glanced at his press badge before taking him away.
Troopers took Mayer and then González to a holding vehicle that was partitioned by gender. González was held with a woman who was not a journalist, she said. Rua was then brought to the other side of the vehicle to join Mayer and Slade.
The detention took place near Nicollet and Franklin Avenues in downtown Minneapolis, according to the citation that was later issued. The Tracker documents all arrests separately.
González said her hands were ziptied. A trooper removed her gas mask and ignored her request for a medical mask, she said.
Troopers put the journalists' equipment — including several cameras and microphones — into bags and took them along with the journalists to the precinct. Troopers also confiscated the crew’s cellphones, González said.
“There was no way protesters would be carrying all of those cameras,” González said.
When they got to the precinct, law enforcement deliberated over what citation they should use to process the journalists, according to González. At no point was the team read their Miranda rights, the journalist noted.
González said she again requested a surgical mask and was given one by police.
Eventually, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office charged the journalists with violating curfew, according to the citation viewed by CPJ.
As the police were walking González out of the precinct, she said one of the officers mentioned thinking that they weren’t supposed to arrest “you guys,” meaning journalists. González said another officer responded, “Well, now you can put it on your resume.”
The crew’s equipment, including their cellphones, was returned during their release and no footage was deleted, González said.
According to news reports, the media was exempt from curfew the night the VICE crew was arrested.
About a week after the arrest, González received via mail a court summons from the Hennepin County District Court for October 26, according to a copy of the summons that was seen by CPJ.
A VICE spokesperson told CPJ that the Commissioner for the Department of Corrections has said the charges will be dropped.
But as of late September, González told CPJ that she had not yet received any notification of dropped charges.
Ellis Rua, a camera operator for VICE Media, and three colleagues were arrested on May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis for being out after curfew while covering ongoing protests, Rua told the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The protests were held in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25. During an arrest, a white Minneapolis Police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck and ignored Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Rua said that he and the VICE crew — Alzo Slade, Jika González, and Dave Mayers — were spending time with protesters at a food distribution center when they decided to follow a protest that was starting up so they could get B-roll.
Police appeared in front of the group of protesters and the journalists, obstructing their way forward, and began firing tear gas, Rua said. Law enforcement emerged from vehicles labeled as belonging to Minnesota State Troopers. They were wearing riot gear that also identified them as state troopers, according to Mayers.
When law enforcement started firing tear gas, Rua suggested the crew find a corner to put on their gas masks. Rua didn’t think the state troopers would arrest journalists with press passes. But the troopers approached the journalists and told them to get on the ground, Rua said. The group complied.
One of the officers said he would need to speak to his commander. The officer spoke with someone by phone, and then told the journalists that they were under arrest, Rua said.
“I was quite surprised,” Rua said. “We did identify ourselves as press, but they still proceeded to arrest us.”
The detention took place near Nicollet and Franklin Avenues in downtown Minneapolis, according to the citation that was later issued.
Rua was carrying a gas mask with canisters, a helmet, and a camera. The rest of the crew had other equipment including two Sony Fs7 cameras and multiple lenses, according to Rua.
Initially law enforcement used plastic ties to secure the wrists of all four crew members, Rua said. First Slade, then Mayers, and then González were walked to a police vehicle, while Rua was left waiting in the side street for what he said felt like 15 to 30 minutes before he was also brought to the vehicle.
The journalists were then taken to a police building where the plastic zip ties were replaced with metal handcuffs and they were fingerprinted, Rua said. The journalists were not allowed to make a phone call or read their Miranda rights at any point during their detention, Rua said.
Each of the journalists was given a citation for breaking curfew from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, the journalist said. They were expected to appear in court in late October.
Eventually, Rua and Mayers were notified that the charges against them have been dropped. As of late September, Slade and González were still waiting for a similar notification.
Dave Mayers, a producer for VICE Media, and three colleagues were arrested on May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis for being out after curfew while covering ongoing protests.
The protests were held in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25. During an arrest, a white Minneapolis Police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck and ignored Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Mayers told the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that he was reporting on protesters in downtown Minneapolis with three VICE journalists — Alzo Slade, Jika González, and Ellis Rua — prior to their arrests.
The journalists were following a protest at about 8:10 p.m. when several state troopers pulled up in front of them, Mayers said. “They pop out of their cars and they have state trooper body armor on and tear gas launchers and stuff. They cut the protest off from being able to head downtown.”
Mayers said that he and González, a VICE producer, were filming the line of officers when the troopers started firing tear gas toward the crowd.
“It was unprovoked,” Mayers said. “It was a very peaceful protest and didn’t seem like it was going to be confrontational in any way and it turned confrontational very, very quickly. It was the police that ratcheted it up.”
Mayers said he heard a state trooper tell a colleague to get one of the protesters just before the troopers shot tear gas.
Mayers said he saw a yellow tear gas canister hit a person who was standing in front of a correspondent from another network. Once the crew decided that the state troopers were shooting tear gas indiscriminately, they ran down a narrow side street and put on their masks. Yellow and white gas swirled in the air. Mayers said he saw the troopers advancing from the main street.
“One of the police looks down [the side street] at us and points a gun at us and says, ‘Get down, get down, get down,’” said Mayers, who used police interchangeably with state troopers and other law enforcement. Slade’s microphone was still on. Mayers was wearing an earpiece that connected to the microphone and was able to hear Slade clearly.
“At this moment, I was terrified,” Mayers said, noting that the crew included three Black men and González, who’s Latina.
As the state troopers approached, the crew yelled that they were members of the press. The state troopers looked at Slade’s VICE-issued press pass, handcuffed him with zip ties and took him to a police van, Mayers said.
“They looked at my ID and I asked, ‘What are we being arrested for?’” Mayers said. “They didn’t really answer, and did the same thing.” The state troopers handcuffed Mayers with zip ties too.
“We shouldn’t have looked like anything other than press,” Mayers said. “We had tens of thousands of dollars of camera equipment on us.”
The detention took place near Nicollet and Franklin Avenues in downtown Minneapolis, according to the citation that was later issued.
Police took Mayers’ camera, put it in a plastic bag, removed his gas mask, and led him into the police van next to Slade, Mayers said. The van, he said, was in the middle of a street where tear gas had just been released. Mayers and Slade were both coughing from the gas that hung in the air.
They waited in the van for about an hour before moving, Mayers said. The van was partitioned with Rua, a VICE camera operator, later joining Slade and Mayers. González was on the other side of the van with a woman who was not a journalist, Mayers said.
The journalists were transported to the Hennepin County Jail. Their gear was brought there in plastic bags, Mayers said. They waited in the police vehicle while the police determined their charges. Law enforcement included officers from Hennepin and a second county, the journalist said.
Police then took the journalists out of the vehicle and into the jail where each crew member was fingerprinted and photographed, Mayers said. While they were fingerprinted, their plastic zip ties were replaced with metal cuffs, Mayers said.
The journalist said he didn’t see any other people being processed aside from the VICE crew and the woman who was arrested with them though there were about 50 police in the facility, Mayers said.
Each member of the VICE crew was charged with violating curfew, according to the journalists.
After about four hours, the journalists were released and their equipment was returned without damage, Mayers said. The crew walked back to their hotel because their vehicle was in the opposite direction, he said.
Mayers said that a VICE lawyer told the crew their charges would be dismissed. Weeks later, the crew members received a court summons in the mail.
The journalist received a letter dated August 4, 2020, from the Deputy City Attorney for the City of Minneapolis stating that the charges were dismissed, a copy of which was seen by CPJ.
Lucas Jackson, a staff photographer for Reuters at the time, was hit by law enforcement with a pepper ball while covering protests against police violence in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020.
Jackson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and other photojournalists had been documenting people throwing firecrackers at the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct and breaking into nearby local businesses on the night of May 29 and into the morning of May 30. At roughly 1 a.m. on May 30, he said, officers began to fire tear gas at protesters who had gathered in the street outside a Wells Fargo bank on Nicollet Avenue.
As the photographers were taking pictures of the crowd dispersing, Jackson said, officers started to fire less lethal weapons at their group. Jackson was hit with a large-caliber rubber bullet on the rear end, leaving a “massive” bruise, he said. Photographer Philip Montgomery was hit in the chest, Jackson said, as were other journalists in their group. Montgomery did not respond to emails seeking comment on the incident.
Jackson and the group left the scene and walked back to their cars, only to find that their tires had been punctured, an incident the Tracker has documented here.
Spokespeople for both the Minneapolis Police Department and the City of Minneapolis declined to comment, telling the Tracker in separate emails that the “incident is part of ongoing litigation.”
Jackson told the Tracker that he and his fellow photographers had been standing on the sidewalk, off to the side from the protesters, when the police started to fire the less lethal weapons. “We were all carrying cameras and wearing helmets, so it was fairly obvious we were not generic protesters,” he said.
In addition to his photographic equipment and helmet, Jackson said he was wearing his press credential and a gas mask, and that other journalists in the group were wearing vests that said “press” in big letters. “I don’t know if we were specifically targeted, but they knew that we weren’t protesters and they still shot at us,” Jackson said. “It’s the only place I’ve been where I’ve had the police specifically aim at me with their less lethal stuff.”
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. They were sparked by 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.
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 these protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Brad Svenson, a Minnesota-based journalist who runs the social media outlet Watchdog Citizen News, said he was hit with a crowd-control round fired by a Minnesota State Patrol trooper while covering a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 30, 2020.
Months of protests in Minneapolis and across the nation were sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody. Svenson, who videos and live-streams protests, told the Tracker he was covering a protest near the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis.
He said he was in a parking lot near an apartment complex and saw other journalists who had apparently been hit by crowd-control munitions. As a line of law enforcement officers was coming up the street, Svenson said he and another member of the press went over to see if the other journalists were OK.
Svenson said he was holding up his press badge, a card he made that had his photograph and the word “PRESS” in large letters, to the officers as they advanced. He said he saw that the officers were holding weapons, so he shouted out “press” to identify himself and turned around and started walking away.
As he was walking, he said, a Minnesota State Patrol trooper shot him with a bean-bag round, a crowd-control projectile consisting of a fabric bag filled with lead shot. The round hit him in the back just below his left armpit.
Svenson said the impact was painful and it hurt to breathe after he was hit, but he didn’t think it broke a rib. He said he was able to continue to cover protests for the next several weeks. Svenson said he has been in treatment for PTSD after covering protests in 2020, and believes that being shot with the munition was “the catalyst.”
Svenson believes he was targeted for being a journalist.
MSP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mikko Marttinen, a reporter for Finnish outlet Ilta-Sanomat, was struck in the face with a crowd-control munition while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 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. On the fourth night of protests, the National Guard was called in to disperse crowds and enforce the 8 p.m. curfew in place that evening.
At approximately 11:30 p.m., Minneapolis Police officers near the department’s Fifth Precinct began indiscriminately firing projectiles and tear gas to disperse the crowd, Marttinen told the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
One of the rubber bullets ricocheted off the ground and struck him in the face. Marttinen said his glasses, which were broken by the projectiles, saved his eye.
“I only got a few scratches on my eyelid and around my eye,” Marttinen said. “So I was pretty OK.”
Marttinen eventually met up with other foreign correspondents in an alley, including an Australian news team sheltering with its security team.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to multiple phone and emailed requests 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.
Jenn Schreiter, a reporter for the nonprofit media collective Unicorn Riot, was threatened and shoved by a state patrol officer while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early hours of May 30, 2020.
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.
Schreiter told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker over text that she and her colleague Niko Georgiades were interviewing a local businessman just after 3 a.m. on the 30th when Minnesota State Patrol officers in riot gear and carrying assault rifles approached them and shouted, “Get inside or go to jail!”
“We hurried into the restaurant and one officer shoved me with his baton then slammed the door,” Schreiter said.
Clip from our stream earlier shows when Minnesota state police in riot gear & SWAT w assault rifles pushed UR off an empty street, threatening our reporters w arrest. At the time were were interviewing Louis Hunter about his restaurant, Trio Plant Based, which he's been guarding. pic.twitter.com/bSnnks4Vxg
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) May 30, 2020
Schrieter told the Tracker that both she and Georgiades have been reporting each night with their press badges visible and helmets branded with Unicorn Riot.
The journalists remained inside the restaurant until the state patrol officers had left the intersection of Lake Street and Lyndale Avenue. The Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to an emailed 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.
Andrew Buncombe, the chief U.S. correspondent for the British Independent newspaper, was struck by crowd-control munitions and caught in tear gas 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. An 8 p.m. curfew was put into effect on May 30.
At about 8:40 p.m., a group of Minnesota state police and National Guard officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at a group of protesters, which also hit several journalists covering the demonstrations.
Buncombe told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that he and several other reporters were trying to retreat from the area where police were advancing on protesters when police fired a non-lethal round that hit his backpack, leaving a white powder behind. He posted a photo of the backpack to Twitter.
Independent’s backpack also hit despite holding press credential high in air pic.twitter.com/f64VnT4eUs
— Andrew Buncombe (@AndrewBuncombe) May 31, 2020
After journalists separated themselves from the crowd, police released more tear gas in their direction, despite journalists repeatedly showing their press credentials and saying they were press, Buncombe said.
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 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.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Chris Serres was struck by a rubber bullet and caught in tear gas 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.
Serres wrote on Twitter that Minneapolis police tear gassed him and shot him in the groin with a rubber bullet while he was covering the protests, despite waving his press badge.
“I was twice ordered at gunpoint by Minneapolis police to hit the ground, warned that if I moved ‘an inch’ I’d be shot,” Serres wrote.
Regarding police behavior last night, I was twice ordered at gunpoint by Minneapolis police to hit the ground, warned that if I moved "an inch" I'd be shot. This after being teargassed and hit in groin area by rubber bullet. Waiving a Star Tribune press badge made no difference. pic.twitter.com/pfBm7ubzOg
— Chris Serres (@ChrisSerres) May 31, 2020
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.
A member of a CBS news crew was struck with a rubber bullet 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.
Shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew began, police fired a rubber bullet that hit John Marschitz, a CBS sound engineer, in the arm, according to tweets from CBS correspondent Michael George.
“We were not standing within 500 feet of any protesters at the time, and we had credentials displayed and cameras out,” George wrote.
This is the moment Minneapolis Police fired on our CBS News crew with rubber bullets. As you can see, no protesters anywhere near us- we all were wearing credentials and had cameras out. Our sound engineer was hit in the arm. #cbsnews pic.twitter.com/UAy7HYhGnL
— Michael George (@MikeGeorgeCBS) May 31, 2020
Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the news crew had retreated down the street and into the parking lot where the team's car was parked after police began deploying tear gas into the crowd. The protesters kept moving in the opposite direction, and were several hundred feet away when officers began shooting crowd-control munitions at the news crew.
"My colleagues and I were fired upon without warning and [were] clearly identifiable as journalists," Marschitz said. "We were no threat to law enforcement and in no way impeding them from doing their job. Then they just began firing rubber bullets at us."
One of the rounds struck Marschitz in the arm; a second round struck a light on one of the team's cameras, but did not damage the equipment.
When asked whether he felt police targeted the crew, Marschitz said, "I don't think they cared, they just shot at us."
Marschitz told the Tracker in November 2021 that his arm still hurts where he was struck more than 17 months later.
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.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect comment from John Marschitz received via email on June 15, 2020, and via call on Nov. 8, 2021.
Reuters producer Julio-César Chávez was struck with multiple crowd-control munitions 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.
Shortly after an 8 p.m. curfew began on the 30th, police fired rubber bullets that hit Chávez in his neck and left arm, according to an account of the event published by Reuters and a tweet from Chávez.
Tonight I was shot in the arm and the back of my neck with rubber bullets in the middle of covering the Minneapolis protests. My security advisor was shot in the face; his gas mask protected him.
— Julio-César Chávez (@JulioCesrChavez) May 31, 2020
Here’s what happened: https://t.co/fwwVLAxFIY
Here’s what it looks like: pic.twitter.com/UwSBqpHv5N
“A police officer that I’m filming turns around points his rubber-bullet rifle straight at me,” Chávez told Reuters. According to the Reuters report, minutes later Chávez and Reuters security advisor Rodney Seward were both struck with crowd-control munitions as they took shelter at a nearby gas station.
Seward yelled that he had been hit in the face by a rubber bullet, and was later treated by a medic for a deep gash under his left eye, according to Reuters.
Chávez was holding cameras and had a press pass around his neck; Seward was wearing a bulletproof vest labeled “press,” according to their employer.
“We strongly object to police firing rubber bullets at our crew in Minneapolis and are addressing the situation with the authorities,” a Reuters spokesperson told the wire service. “It was clear that both our reporter and security advisor were members of the press and not a threat to public order. Journalists must be allowed to report the news without fear of harassment or harm.”
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.
A photographer runs amid tear gas during demonstrations in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020.
",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, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-10-07 16:43:00.942438+00:00,2022-03-10 22:09:46.312713+00:00,"Vice News reporter pushed to the ground, pepper sprayed amid Minneapolis protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/vice-news-reporter-pushed-to-the-ground-pepper-sprayed-amid-minneapolis-protests/,2022-03-10 22:09:46.254612+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Michael Anthony Adams (VICE News),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Police attacked dozens of journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on May 30, 2020, during protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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.
At about 11 p.m., police pushed Vice News reporter Michael Anthony Adams to the ground and pepper-sprayed him while he was identifying himself as press and displaying his credentials, as seen in a series of videos shot by Adams. Vice News producer Roberto Daza witnessed the incident and confirmed events to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Police just raided the gas station we were sheltering at. After shouting press multiple times and raising my press card in the air, I was thrown to the ground. Then another cop came up and peppered sprayed me in the face while I was being held down. pic.twitter.com/23EkZIMAFC
— Michael Anthony Adams (@MichaelAdams317) May 31, 2020
The Vice News team, including Adams, Daza, co-producer Amel Guettatfi and cameraperson Daniel Vergara, were filming a report about police and state troopers storming a local business as its owners were trying to protect the property from looters, Daza told CPJ.
Daza said that, several hours earlier in the evening, state troopers fired a non-lethal round that struck him in the back.
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.
Mikhail Turgiev, a correspondent with the Russian news agency RIA, was targeted with 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.
Turgiev told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that police pepper-sprayed at about 11 p.m. after he had taken refuge in a Vice News crew’s vehicle.
Turgiev said he told the officer he was a member of the press and showed his State Department-issued press credentials, and then an officer pepper-sprayed him, according to a video from the Russian government-funded channel Sputnik. The journalist was able to turn his head and the spray only got into his right eye, he said in that video.
“There’s no explanation of why they used this kind of force,” Turgiev told Sputnik.
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.
Vice News producer Roberto Daza was struck with a crowd-control munition 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.
Daza told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that in the early evening state troopers fired a less-lethal round that struck him in the back.
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 attacked dozens of journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on May 30, 2020, during protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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 an 8 p.m. curfew began on the 30th, Minnesota State Patrol Officers fired pepper spray and rubber bullets at a group of at least 20 journalists including KSTP-TV investigative television reporter Ryan Raiche, according to social media posts by the journalists.
“Myself, photographer, and producer just made it back to the car. We were with a group of media and thought we were in a safe spot,” Raiche wrote on Twitter. “We kept saying we’re media. Police tear gassed and pepper sprayed the entire group. Everyone ran. It was insane. It happened so fast.”
Myself, photographer, and producer just made it back to the car. We were with a group of media and thought we were in a safe spot. We kept saying we’re media. Police tear gassed and pepper sprayed the entire group. Everyone ran. It was insane. It happened so fast. pic.twitter.com/Wl3Fzzlsnw
— Ryan Raiche (@ryanraiche) May 31, 2020
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 attacked dozens of journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on May 30, 2020, during protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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 an 8 p.m. curfew began on the 30th, Minnesota state patrol officers fired pepper spray and rubber bullets at a group of at least 20 journalists including independent photographer Sait Serkan Gurbuz.
Gurbuz told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that he was covering the protests as a contributor to Zuma Press.
Gurbuz said police pepper sprayed him while he was holding his credentials and saying “journalist” as loudly as he could. Gurbuz said that he was wearing a respirator when police used pepper spray, but his hands and right ear burned for a day after the event.
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 attacked dozens of journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on May 30, 2020, during protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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.
Minneapolis police fired projectiles at Deutsche Welle reporter Stefan Simons and his camera operator, according to a tweet from the news agency.
A DW reporter and his camera operator have been shot at with projectiles by Minneapolis police and threatened with arrest while covering the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/SFKMv5SFW6
— DW News (@dwnews) May 31, 2020
“A DW reporter and his camera operator have been shot at with projectiles by Minneapolis police and threatened with arrest while covering the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd,” the network tweeted.
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 attacked dozens of journalists with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on May 30, 2020, during protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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.
On May 30, police fired a rubber bullet that hit Canadian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Susan Ormiston in her shoulder, and fired an unidentified canister that hit her in the buttocks, she said in a report for the broadcaster.
#GeorgeFloyd Protests: CBC in Minneapolis#BREAKING The curfew is in effect but protesters are still out so police started tear gas and rubber bullets at them.
— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) May 31, 2020
People have been hit including our colleague, CBC Senior Correspondent Susan Ormiston. pic.twitter.com/N8XcXaAyHH
“For the last 10 minutes we have seen a very robust police response,” Ormiston said in her report. “Police came out, they pushed the crowd back, they were firing canister after canister of tear gas and we were right in the middle of it. They were firing rubber bullets: a bullet hit me in the shoulder.”
Ormiston said that police opened fire on her and her CBC team while they were in a parking lot filming officers’ actions.
“The thing is we were in that parking lot all by ourselves with two other people behind us, everybody else was cleared out and they fired at us,” Ormiston said. “We clearly had our television camera visible, so they were definitely taking an aggressive action to move everybody out including us.”
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",,, 2021-10-14 15:10:58.986068+00:00,2022-11-09 17:14:11.590017+00:00,"Minneapolis news crew held at gunpoint, menaced with crowbar",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minneapolis-news-crew-held-at-gunpoint-menaced-with-crowbar/,2022-11-09 17:14:11.524982+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Devin Krinke (KARE),,2020-05-30,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"In the span of two minutes on May 30, 2020, a news crew from NBC-affiliate KARE 11 that was covering protests and unrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was held up at gunpoint by one man, and threatened by another man wielding a crowbar.
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.
Photojournalist Devin Krinke and investigative journalist A.J. Lagoe had just driven into central Minneapolis from St. Paul after hearing that there might be "something going on" under the highway underpass of Interstate 35 West around 9 p.m., Lagoe told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He said there were not many police in the vicinity and several people in the area expressed unhappiness at seeing reporters around.
A man in the crowd approached Lagoe and started asking him about the bulletproof vest he was wearing, Lagoe told the Tracker in an interview. “He kept saying he wanted it,” Lagoe said. Eventually, the man produced a semiautomatic handgun and demanded the vest.
Lagoe was holding his cellphone on the tripod at the time and Krinke was standing a few feet away, holding his camera. “We clearly identified ourselves as press, but that didn’t help the situation at all, it only inflamed it,” Lagoe said.
As Lagoe tried to talk his way out of the situation, a man brandishing a crowbar approached him and Krinke, Lagoe recounted. The man, who was dressed in black body armor decorated with a red medic cross, menanced them with his crowbar while shouting, “Give us all your stuff,” before running off and swinging his crowbar at someone else in the area, Lagoe recounted.
This provided enough of a distraction to enable Lagoe and Krinke to back away from both men, and round the corner and quickly head back to their car, Lagoe said. They drove a few blocks away and set up to do a live shot, and the man with the crowbar drove by them, swearing at them through an open window.
Afterward, Krinke tweeted about the experience:
@AJInvestigates and I were threatened at gun point at 2nd ave S and East Lake St. Young man even swung crow bar at AJ. He then swung at another photojournalist and destroyed his camera. Journalist friends please avoid this area. @kare11 @wcco @fox9 @efrostee @KSTP pic.twitter.com/HcnvevsINg
— devinphoto (@devphotoK11) May 31, 2020
That same evening, the crowbar-wielding man struck the camera of Lucas Jackson, a Reuters photographer, breaking it. Lagoe later retweeted a video of the man striking Jackson’s camera:
This is guy who swung crowbar at me & @devphotokare11 https://t.co/8DcxaRdZ2K
— A.J. Lagoe (@AJInvestigates) May 31, 2020
That instance of equipment damage is catalogued here, in a separate post on the Tracker.
Lagoe told the Tracker that they did not file a police report about either assailant.
The Tracker emailed the Minneapolis Police Department for comment about whether anyone has been arrested in these incidents of alleged assault, or if police reports had been filed regarding these matters. The request was not answered as of press time.
Mike Max, a reporter for WCCO, a CBS affiliate station based in the city, was reporting live a few blocks from the Fifth Precinct police headquarters when he reported that a man wielding a crowbar or cane tried to assault WCCO cameraman Chris Cruz. Max also said the man assaulted another photographer, whom he didn’t identify. Neither Max nor WCCO responded to requests for comment as of press time.
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.
Just after Minneapolis’ curfew went into effect on May 30, 2020, a correspondent and cameraman for Turkey’s state-run English-language news channel were hit by projectiles fired by police.
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 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 United States since the end of May.
Lionel Donovan, a Washington-based correspondent for TRT World, said he had set up for a live shot outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct just after the city’s 8 p.m. curfew went into effect, near some peaceful protesters staging a sit-in at an intersection. Journalists were specifically exempt from the curfew by Governor Tim Walz’s order.
“The curfew came and it was like a button got hit,” Donovan told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview.
According to Donovan, the police advanced down the street and began to fire off tear gas and flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowd. One of the tear gas canisters hit cameraman Barbaros Sayilgan’s foot during Donovan’s live shot.
Sayilgan could not be reached for comment, but Donovan said he helped the cameraman and a producer off to safety, then went back into the street to film more footage himself. Donovan was filming on his phone, he said, when a blue foam round struck him in the inside of his left thigh, breaking the skin.
Requests for comment sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not immediately returned.
Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s communications director, brought up the attack on the crew in a June 3 phone call with David Satterfield, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, according to an article published in the Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper.
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.
While covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three Swiss journalists were shot at with crowd-control munitions shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect on May 30, 2020.
Journalists were specifically exempt from the curfew by Gov. Tim Walz’s order. The curfew followed protests in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest 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 United States since the end of May.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m. in Minneapolis, officers fired foam rounds at the journalists after they held up their press passes and yelled that they were members of the media.
Massimiliano Herber, the Washington-based television correspondent for RSI (Radiotelevisione svizzera), an Italian-language channel of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, told the Tracker in an interview that he and videographer Jean-Pascal Azaïs had been reporting on protests downtown with Gaspard Kühn, a Washington-based correspondent for RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse), the public broadcaster’s French-language channel. Neither Azaïs nor Kühn could be reached for comment.
Police had begun to throw tear gas and shoot foam rounds at protesters, according to Herber. Some of the tear gas wafted toward the Swiss journalists, stinging their eyes.
As the journalists attempted to reach their car, he said, they found police lines on either end of the block, preventing them from moving.
Standing in the middle of the road, the journalists held up their press passes issued by the U.S. Congress and shouted, “Media! Media! Press!” toward the police and asked if they could pass by to reach their car. Azaïs was holding a small video camera. They had taken a couple steps forward, Herber said, when the officers told them to “back up”. The officers then began to shoot at the journalists, firing off four or five foam rounds, all of which missed the journalists, Herber said.
They were able to flee to the safety of a nearby parking lot, but when they tried to move, the officers again opened fire, firing two to three foam rounds, Herber said. Eventually, with the help of a local resident, they found a safe route back to their car.
The officers in the area were from the Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Patrol, Herber said, but he was not sure who fired the rounds.
The broadcaster filed a complaint about the matter with the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland on June 1, Herber said.
Requests for comment on these incidents sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not returned.
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.
While covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three Swiss journalists were shot at with crowd-control munitions shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect on May 30, 2020.
Journalists were specifically exempt from the curfew by Gov. Tim Walz’s order. The curfew followed protests in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest 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 United States since the end of May.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m. in Minneapolis, officers fired foam rounds at the journalists after they held up their press passes and yelled that they were members of the media.
Massimiliano Herber, the Washington-based television correspondent for RSI (Radiotelevisione svizzera), an Italian-language channel of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, told the Tracker in an interview that he and videographer Jean-Pascal Azaïs had been reporting on protests downtown with Gaspard Kühn, a Washington-based correspondent for RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse), the public broadcaster’s French-language channel. Neither Azaïs nor Kühn could be reached for comment.
Police had begun to throw tear gas and shoot foam rounds at protesters, according to Herber. Some of the tear gas wafted toward the Swiss journalists, stinging their eyes.
As the journalists attempted to reach their car, he said, they found police lines on either end of the block, preventing them from moving.
Standing in the middle of the road, the journalists held up their press passes issued by the U.S. Congress and shouted, “Media! Media! Press!” toward the police and asked if they could pass by to reach their car. Azaïs was holding a small video camera. They had taken a couple steps forward, Herber said, when the officers told them to “back up”. The officers then began to shoot at the journalists, firing off four or five foam rounds, all of which missed the journalists, Herber said.
They were able to flee to the safety of a nearby parking lot, but when they tried to move, the officers again opened fire, firing two to three foam rounds, Herber said. Eventually, with the help of a local resident, they found a safe route back to their car.
The officers in the area were from the Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Patrol, Herber said, but he was not sure who fired the rounds.
The broadcaster filed a complaint about the matter with the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland on June 1, Herber said.
Requests for comment on these incidents sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not returned.
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.
While covering the fifth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three Swiss journalists were shot at with crowd-control munitions shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect on May 30, 2020.
Journalists were specifically exempt from the curfew by Gov. Tim Walz’s order. The curfew followed protests in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest 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 United States since the end of May.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m. in Minneapolis, officers fired foam rounds at the journalists after they held up their press passes and yelled that they were members of the media.
Massimiliano Herber, the Washington-based television correspondent for RSI (Radiotelevisione svizzera), an Italian-language channel of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, told the Tracker in an interview that he and videographer Jean-Pascal Azaïs had been reporting on protests downtown with Gaspard Kühn, a Washington-based correspondent for RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse), the public broadcaster’s French-language channel. Neither Azaïs nor Kühn could be reached for comment.
Police had begun to throw tear gas and shoot foam rounds at protesters, according to Herber. Some of the tear gas wafted toward the Swiss journalists, stinging their eyes.
As the journalists attempted to reach their car, he said, they found police lines on either end of the block, preventing them from moving.
Standing in the middle of the road, the journalists held up their press passes issued by the U.S. Congress and shouted, “Media! Media! Press!” toward the police and asked if they could pass by to reach their car. Azaïs was holding a small video camera. They had taken a couple steps forward, Herber said, when the officers told them to “back up”. The officers then began to shoot at the journalists, firing off four or five foam rounds, all of which missed the journalists, Herber said.
They were able to flee to the safety of a nearby parking lot, but when they tried to move, the officers again opened fire, firing two to three foam rounds, Herber said. Eventually, with the help of a local resident, they found a safe route back to their car.
The officers in the area were from the Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Patrol, Herber said, but he was not sure who fired the rounds.
The broadcaster filed a complaint about the matter with the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland on June 1, Herber said.
Requests for comment on these incidents sent to the Minnesota State Patrol and the Minneapolis Police Department were not returned.
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.
Peter Norton, photojournalist and founder of the production company RumJungle, was shot at with crowd-control munitions 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.
According to CBS News sound engineer John Marschitz, Norton had been hired to assist a CBS crew that was covering the demonstrations. Shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew began, police began shooting rubber bullets and other crowd-control munitions at the crew.
Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the news crew had retreated down the street and into the parking lot where the team's car was parked after police began deploying tear gas into the crowd. The protesters kept moving in the opposite direction, and were several hundred feet away when officers began shooting crowd-control munitions at the news crew.
"My colleagues and I were fired upon without warning and [were] clearly identifiable as journalists," Marschitz said. "We were no threat to law enforcement and in no way impeding them from doing their job. Then they just began firing rubber bullets at us."
One of the rounds struck Marschitz in the arm; a second round struck a light on Norton’s camera, but did not damage the equipment. Norton could not be reached for comment as of press time.
When asked whether he felt police targeted the crew, Marschitz said, "I don't think they cared, they just shot at us."
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.
CBS News correspondent Michael George and his news crew were shot at with crowd-control munitions 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.
Shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew began, police began shooting rubber bullets and other crowd-control munitions at the crew, according to tweets posted by George.
Sound engineer John Marschitz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the news crew had retreated down the street and into the parking lot where the team's car was parked after police began deploying tear gas into the crowd. The protesters kept moving in the opposite direction, and were several hundred feet away when officers began shooting crowd-control munitions at the news crew.
“We were not standing within 500 feet of any protesters at the time, and we had credentials displayed and cameras out,” George wrote.
This is the moment Minneapolis Police fired on our CBS News crew with rubber bullets. As you can see, no protesters anywhere near us- we all were wearing credentials and had cameras out. Our sound engineer was hit in the arm. #cbsnews pic.twitter.com/UAy7HYhGnL
— Michael George (@MikeGeorgeCBS) May 31, 2020
George did not respond to a message requesting comment.
One of the rounds struck Marschitz in the arm; a second round struck a light on RumJungle photojournalist Peter Norton’s camera, but did not damage the equipment.
When asked whether he felt police targeted the crew, Marschitz said, "I don't think they cared, they just shot at us."
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.
CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez was arrested with two other members of his CNN news crew while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early morning of May 29, 2020.
Protests in Minneapolis and across the nation were sparked by a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
At least five journalists were hit with crowd control ammunition while covering the Minneapolis protests on May 26 and May 27 as police officers launched tear gas, stun grenades and less lethal ammunition into the crowd. 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 these protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Just after 5 a.m. on May 29, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez was reporting live a few blocks from the Third Precinct, which had been set on fire by protesters the night before, CNN reported.
In the live footage, Minnesota State Patrol troopers can be seen approaching the news crew and asking them to move.
Jimenez calmly shows the officers his CNN identification and is heard telling the troopers, “We can move back to where you’d like. We are live on the air at the moment.”
Soon after, two officers in riot gear approached Jimenez and told him he was under arrest. The officers did not appear to respond to the reporter’s questions about why he was being taken into custody.
CNN’s camera continued to film as Jimenez was cuffed and led away from his crew. Shortly after, other officers detained photojournalist Leonel Mendez and producer Bill Kirkos as well. The crew’s camera — which was still rolling — was also seized by the troopers.
Soon after the arrests, CNN posted a statement on Twitter condemning the arrests as a violation of the journalists’ First Amendment Rights and demanding that the news crew be released.
A CNN reporter & his production team were arrested this morning in Minneapolis for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves - a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The authorities in Minnesota, incl. the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) May 29, 2020
The three journalists were released from the Hennepin County Public Safety facility in downtown Minneapolis at around 6:40 a.m., CNN reported.
In an on-air recounting of events after his release, Jimenez said, “As far as the people who were leading me away — there was no animosity there, they weren’t violent with me. We were having a conversation about how crazy this week has been for every part of the city.”
The local chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists released a joint statement condemning the arrests.
The statement reads, in part: “Police, State Patrol and other law enforcement officers should be well aware of the importance of the media whose job it is to document and report on breaking news for the benefit of the general public. We implore the responding parties to alert their officers on the rights of the press and the necessity of their presence as they continue to report on the current unrest.”
Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other press advocacy groups also released statements condemning the arrests.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz apologized for the arrests during a press conference a few hours after the journalists were released, stating that it should not have happened.
“This one is on me and I own it,” Walz said. “I am a teacher by trade and I have spent my time as governor highlighting the need to be as transparent as possible and to have the media here: I failed you last night in that.”
Walz added that ensuring that there is a safe place for journalists to report during such incidents is vital, and that the arrest of journalists can increase fear in affected communities.
“We will continue to strive to make sure that that accessibility is maintained,” Walz added. “The protection and security and safety of the journalists covering this is a top priority, not because it’s a nice thing to do, because it’s a key component of how we fix this.”
Neither CNN nor the Minnesota State Patrol responded to multiple emailed requests for comment about the incident.
This incident was updated on July 22, 2020, to separate each crew member's arrest into its own accounting. Find all arrests here.
CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez is arrested while reporting live from protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mayor later apologized for the arrest of Jimenez and two other members of the CNN crew.
",detained and released without being processed,Minnesota State Patrol,2020-05-29,2020-05-29,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-05-31 19:50:26.203685+00:00,2023-11-03 17:26:36.658832+00:00,Freelance photojournalist permanently blinded during Minneapolis protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/freelance-photojournalist-permanently-blinded-others-assaulted-during-minneapolis-protests/,2023-11-03 17:26:36.537683+00:00,,,"(2020-06-10 12:33:00+00:00) Photojournalist Linda Tirado sues City of Minneapolis, police for excessive force, (2022-05-26 15:57:00+00:00) City of Minneapolis settles lawsuit with journalist blinded in one eye amid 2020 protests, (2022-03-18 10:57:00+00:00) Journalists subpoenaed in connection with ongoing excessive use of force lawsuit","Assault, Equipment Damage",,,camera: count of 1,Linda Tirado (Freelance),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Freelance writer and photographer Linda Tirado was struck with multiple crowd-control munitions while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.
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.
Tirado told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was reporting near the Third Precinct around midnight on the 29th when she was struck by a tracker round, judging from the green residue on her backpack.
A second round that she believes was a rubber bullet then struck the side of her head and her left eye.
“I got hit. My goggles broke, and I felt the blood and there was gas so I just closed my eyes, held up my hands and started yelling, ‘I’m press, I’m press!’” Tirado said.
Tirado said that a group of protesters took her to a nearby van and transported her to the hospital.
Hey folks, took a tracer found to the face (I think, given my backpack) and am headed into surgery to see if we can save my left eye
— Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) May 30, 2020
Am wisely not gonna be on Twitter while I’m on morphine
Stay safe folks pic.twitter.com/apZOyGrcBO
Tirado later tweeted that she is permanently blind in her left eye.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to an email requesting 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.
A Minneapolis Police Department officer fires a less-lethal round during continued demonstrations on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01338,['SETTLED'],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, shot / shot at",,, 2020-06-22 14:00:32.627732+00:00,2022-03-10 19:49:14.053055+00:00,"CNN reporter hit with a projectile, tear-gassed during live coverage of Minneapolis protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/cnn-reporter-hit-projectile-tear-gassed-during-live-coverage-minneapolis-protest/,2022-03-10 19:49:13.991655+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Miguel Marquez (CNN),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Miguel Marquez, a national correspondent for CNN, was hit with a projectile and tear-gassed on live TV while reporting from protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Cuomo Prime Time on May 29, 2020.
The protests were part of several days of demonstrations that began in response to a video of a white police officer in Minneapolis kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest. Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Marquez was covering protests near the Fifth Precinct headquarters where demonstrators refused to comply with warnings from law enforcement and the National Guard that they were breaking curfew and would be removed, Marquez reported. “That’s when things got very, very intense here,” he said in a video of the incident.
Marquez went on to say that protesters were firing bottle rockets and fireworks at the precinct, while law enforcement was responding with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. At one point in the video, the CNN reporter lets out an exclamation after being struck with a canister or a rock, and host Chris Cuomo advises him and his crew to retreat from the action.
While describing the action in front of him — which included protesters “using the fireworks as weapons” — Marquez wound up in the line of tear gas, telling his cameraperson to “watch yourself” as they moved away. In the video, he can be heard coughing.
“That’s a healthy dose,” he said, before continuing to report. ““They fired a hell of a volley of tear gas into the crowd to get them out,” he said.
A CNN spokesperson declined to make Marquez available for an interview, noting that he had not specifically been targeted by tear gas but was merely “in the area where the tear gas was being shot.”
A Minneapolis police department spokesperson did not respond immediately to a question about why tear gas was deployed or the type of projectile that struck Marquez.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred total incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find these incidents here.
Demonstrators chant outside the Fifth Precinct on May 29, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,unknown,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",,, 2020-07-22 16:12:55.313880+00:00,2021-10-14 15:38:14.102595+00:00,"CNN photojournalist, crew arrested on-air while documenting Minneapolis protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/cnn-photojournalist-crew-arrested-air-while-documenting-minneapolis-protests/,2021-10-14 15:38:14.025304+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Leonel Mendez (CNN),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"CNN photojournalist Leonel Mendez was arrested with two other members of a CNN news crew while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early morning of May 29, 2020.
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 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
At least five journalists were hit with crowd control ammunition while covering the Minneapolis protests on May 26 and May 27 as police officers launched tear gas, stun grenades and less lethal ammunition into the crowd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Just after 5 a.m. on May 29, the CNN news crew — comprised of Mendez, correspondent Omar Jimenez and producer Bill Kirkos — was reporting live a few blocks from the Third Precinct, which had been set on fire by protesters the night before, CNN reported.
In the live footage, Minnesota State Patrol troopers can be seen approaching the news crew and asking them to move.
Jimenez calmly shows the officers his CNN identification and is heard telling the troopers, “We can move back to where you’d like. We are live on the air at the moment.”
Within minutes, officers in riot gear approach and arrest each member of the news crew in turn while the camera continues to broadcast live.
Soon after the arrests, CNN posted a statement on Twitter condemning the arrests as a violation of the journalists’ First Amendment Rights and demanding that the news crew be released.
A CNN reporter & his production team were arrested this morning in Minneapolis for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves - a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The authorities in Minnesota, incl. the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) May 29, 2020
The three journalists were released from the Hennepin County Public Safety facility in downtown Minneapolis at around 6:40 a.m., CNN reported.
The local chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists released a joint statement condemning the arrests.
The statement reads, in part: “Police, State Patrol and other law enforcement officers should be well aware of the importance of the media whose job it is to document and report on breaking news for the benefit of the general public. We implore the responding parties to alert their officers on the rights of the press and the necessity of their presence as they continue to report on the current unrest.”
Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other press advocacy groups also released statements condemning the arrests.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz apologized for the arrests during a press conference a few hours after the journalists were released, stating that it should not have happened.
“This one is on me and I own it,” Walz said. “I am a teacher by trade and I have spent my time as governor highlighting the need to be as transparent as possible and to have the media here: I failed you last night in that.”
Walz added that ensuring that there is a safe place for journalists to report during such incidents is vital, and that the arrest of journalists can increase fear in affected communities.
“We will continue to strive to make sure that that accessibility is maintained,” Walz added. “The protection and security and safety of the journalists covering this is a top priority, not because it’s a nice thing to do, because it’s a key component of how we fix this.”
Neither CNN nor the Minnesota State Patrol responded to multiple emailed requests for comment about the incident.
The camera operated by CNN photojournalist Leonel Mendez continues to broadcast from Minneapolis, Minnesota as Mendez and two other members of the CNN news crew are arrested live on-air on May 29, 2020.
",detained and released without being processed,Minnesota State Patrol,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-07-22 16:16:58.135257+00:00,2021-10-14 15:38:29.463734+00:00,"CNN producer, crew arrested on-air while documenting Minneapolis protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/cnn-producer-crew-arrested-air-while-documenting-minneapolis-protests/,2021-10-14 15:38:29.399159+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Bill Kirkos (CNN),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"CNN Producer Bill Kirkos was arrested with two other members of his CNN news crew while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early morning of May 29, 2020.
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 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Thousands gathered around the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and at the police department’s Third Precinct building in the days that followed.
At least five journalists were hit with crowd control ammunition while covering the Minneapolis protests on May 26 and May 27 as police officers launched tear gas, stun grenades and less lethal ammunition into the crowd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Just after 5 a.m. on May 29, the CNN news crew — comprised of Kirkos, correspondent Omar Jimenez and photographer Leonel Mendez — was reporting live a few blocks from the Third Precinct, which had been set on fire by protesters the night before, CNN reported.
In the live footage, Minnesota State Patrol troopers can be seen approaching the news crew and asking them to move.
Jimenez calmly shows the officers his CNN identification and is heard telling the troopers, “We can move back to where you’d like. We are live on the air at the moment.”
Within minutes, officers in riot gear approach and arrest each member of the news crew in turn while the camera continues to broadcast live.
Soon after the arrests, CNN posted a statement on Twitter condemning the arrests as a violation of the journalists’ First Amendment Rights and demanding that the news crew be released.
A CNN reporter & his production team were arrested this morning in Minneapolis for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves - a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The authorities in Minnesota, incl. the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) May 29, 2020
The three journalists were released from the Hennepin County Public Safety facility in downtown Minneapolis at around 6:40 a.m., CNN reported.
The local chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists released a joint statement condemning the arrests.
The statement reads, in part: “Police, State Patrol and other law enforcement officers should be well aware of the importance of the media whose job it is to document and report on breaking news for the benefit of the general public. We implore the responding parties to alert their officers on the rights of the press and the necessity of their presence as they continue to report on the current unrest.”
Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other press advocacy groups also released statements condemning the arrests.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz apologized for the arrests during a press conference a few hours after the journalists were released, stating that it should not have happened.
“This one is on me and I own it,” Walz said. “I am a teacher by trade and I have spent my time as governor highlighting the need to be as transparent as possible and to have the media here: I failed you last night in that.”
Walz added that ensuring that there is a safe place for journalists to report during such incidents is vital, and that the arrest of journalists can increase fear in affected communities.
“We will continue to strive to make sure that that accessibility is maintained,” Walz added. “The protection and security and safety of the journalists covering this is a top priority, not because it’s a nice thing to do, because it’s a key component of how we fix this.”
Neither CNN nor the Minnesota State Patrol responded to multiple emailed requests for comment about the incident.
CNN producer Bill Kirkos is arrested with two other members of the news crew during a live broadcast from protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 29, 2020.
",detained and released without being processed,Minnesota State Patrol,None,None,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-07-27 19:54:17.894924+00:00,2022-03-10 19:50:06.027477+00:00,Reporter for Swedish outlet struck with projectile during Minneapolis protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalists-european-outlets-hit-projectiles-during-minneapolis-protest/,2022-03-10 19:50:05.968206+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Nina Svanberg (Expressen),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Nina Svanberg, a reporter for the Swedish outlet Expressen, was struck with a crowd-control munition while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 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.
Svanberg told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that she and Thomas Nilsson, a photojournalist for Norwegian outlet Verdens Gang, had walked with protesters up from the Third Precinct to the Fifth Precinct on the 29th. National Guard troops and police arrived to the area to disperse the crowd and enforce the 8 p.m. curfew.
At about 11:30 p.m., Minneapolis Police Department officers began indiscriminately firing projectiles and tear gas to disperse the crowd, Svanberg said. One hit her on the hip.
“All of a sudden, I feel a sudden pain in the leg, and I’m losing my balance and falling down,” Svanberg told CPJ.
She said that she crawled behind a car to avoid being hit again, but was caught in the tear gas. Nilsson was affected by the chemical irritant as well. The Tracker documented his assault here.
The journalists eventually met up in an alley where an Australian news team was sheltering with its security team.
Svanberg told CPJ that both she and Nilsson were wearing press passes.
“The thing is, I think it was obvious that we were there working,” Svanberg said. “We were behaving like journalists and not demonstrators.”
The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to multiple phone and emailed requests for comment.
“We stood there for a while,” Svanberg said. “And then we just went from the corner and continued working.”
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.
Reporter Julio Rosas told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was struck by a projectile shot by law enforcement while reporting on a protest in Minneapolis on May 29, 2020.
The protest was 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.
Rosas said he was hit near Minneapolis' Third Precinct while reporting for Townhall, which describes itself as a conservative news and commentary site.
In the early afternoon, Rosas filmed State Patrol troopers and National Guardsmen stationed near stores that had been burgled. At about the same time, officials announced the arrest of fired police officer Derek Chauvin on third-degree murder and manslaughter charges. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison later added a second-degree murder charge in addition to charging three other former officers with aiding and abetting murder.
The situation grew tense as an 8 p.m. curfew drew closer, Rosas said. He filmed protesters emotionally confronting a mixed deployment of National Guard and police, including State Patrol.
Some officers can also be seen wearing riot gear with “Police” or “Sheriff” written on it. It isn’t precisely clear to which law enforcement agencies they belonged.
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.
Officials by loudspeaker ordered protesters to disperse 10 minutes before curfew, as officers donned gas masks, Rosas told the Tracker. Rocks and bottles flung from the protesters’ side of a barricade were met with projectiles and tear gas from law enforcement, Rosas said.
But instead of advancing to enforce the curfew, police and National Guard troops began to withdraw from the area, Rosas said.
In a video of the incident Rosas filmed from the sidewalk, law enforcement are seen backing past a burned-out building. He told the Tracker he had informed the National Guardsman closest to him that he was a journalist. He was wearing press credentials around his neck. Rosas pans to the left as police fire projectiles toward a line of protesters down the street.
Then the sound of another shot rings out and the video cuts off. Rosas was hit in the torso. He would later tweet a photo of a welt of about 40 millimeters in diameter, the same as some of the projectiles he saw being used.
Rosas, who was hit by what he believed was a pepper ball the previous day, said the pain of getting hit by a 40mm projectile was on a different level.
“When I first got hit, on a scale of one to 10 pain-wise, it was a 10 for the first minute,” Rosas said. “And then I thought ‘Oh shoot I need to get out of here.’”
Rosas said he jumped over a small fence on the side of the road and landed on his back. Other people in the area helped him up and asked if he needed to go to the hospital. He wasn’t coughing up blood and didn’t feel pain breathing, so he went back to reporting, assuming he didn’t suffer serious internal damage. Later that night, he went to the hospital and received an official all-clear.
Capt. Melanie Nelson, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota National Guard, told the Tracker it “did not employ non-lethal rounds during the civil unrest in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and surrounding communities.”
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Patrol, didn’t respond to questions sent by the Tracker.
Rosas said he would be “very surprised” if he was hit by accident because there was no one around him. But he said he didn’t know whether he was targeted specifically as a journalist.
Citing his experience assessing threats in the Marines, Rosas said it didn’t make sense to focus on him, as he posed no danger whether he was recognized as a journalist or not.
At least 12 people across the country were partially blinded by police projectiles between May 28 and June 2, according to a Washington Post investigation. One of those 12, freelance writer and photographer Linda Tirado, was hit in the left eye on the same night and precinct as Rosas.
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.
Townhall reporter Julio Rosas shows the welt left behind from a projectile that hit him while covering protests on May 29, 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",,, 2020-08-08 11:11:19.119271+00:00,2024-02-15 16:30:34.986303+00:00,Videographer hit by police projectiles in Minneapolis’ Fifth Precinct,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/videographer-hit-by-police-projectiles-in-minneapolis-fifth-precinct/,2024-02-15 16:30:34.901795+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Mike Shum (Freelance),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Police officers struck freelance filmmaker and journalist Mike Shum with two projectiles while he was reporting on protests in Minneapolis on May 29, 2020 for the New York Times.
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.
Shum and Katie G. Nelson, a freelance journalist also reporting for the New York Times, were covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis on May 29. The night before, protesters overran and set fire to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The focus on the 29th had shifted to the Fifth Precinct, Shum told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Video shot by Shum and Nelson shows hundreds of protesters gathered outside the station as police stand on the rooftop, ordering them to disperse. Police deploy tear gas and protesters aim laser pointers and shoot fireworks at police. The video ends with a line of police emerging through a thick cloud of either tear gas or smoke on Nicollet Avenue next to the station.
Shum said he and several other photojournalists filmed the officers as they began to fire projectiles. Protesters scattered by the tear gas were nearby, but the journalists stood together “obviously trying to get our shots,” Shum said.
Shum heard projectiles whizzing by his head before he was hit in the foot and side.
“I was trying to hold my shot realizing I could hear the whizzing by and I was like, OK, they are obviously shooting at us. And that’s when I got hit in the foot,” Shum said. “We should probably start running now.”
He said he wasn’t sure what kind of projectile hit him, though he suspected the one on his side was a ricochet given the force and angle of the impact.
The projectile that hit his foot “had more of an impact than I gave it credit for,” Shum said. His foot bruised with minor swelling. Walking was harder than normal but the injury didn’t require a doctor’s visit, he said.
Shum told the Tracker he believed the police didn’t specifically target him but were shooting indiscriminately in a general direction that included many journalists. He said he wasn’t sure which law-enforcement agency was responsible, or whether other journalists in the group were hit.
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.
In a livestream filmed by Jeff Wagner, a reporter with CBS affiliate WCCO, the Minnesota State Patrol can be heard over loudspeaker just before 11:30 p.m. ordering people to disperse immediately. Within the next twenty minutes, several journalists were hit by police projectiles and tear gas fired by either State Patrol or Minneapolis Police, all within a block radius of where Shum was hit. Nine minutes after Wagner filmed the loudspeaker warning, he, too, was hit by a police projectile.
Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder told the Tracker he couldn’t comment on Shum getting hit. He added that “every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Patrol, didn’t respond to the Tracker’s emailed list of questions.
Capt. Melanie Nelson, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota National Guard, told the Tracker that “the Minnesota National Guard did not employ non-lethal rounds during the civil unrest in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and surrounding communities.”
Despite the injury, Shum continued to report on the protests with Nelson. The following day, law-enforcement officers pushed him over a wall and fired on Nelson’s car in separate incidents, the journalists said.
Nelson and Shum have joined a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Minnesota against Minneapolis and Minnesota officials concerning the treatment of journalists covering the Floyd protests.
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 Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Editor’s Note: Shum withdrew from the lawsuit in September 2021. The metadata for this incident has been updated to reflect that. The journalists documented in the Tracker and remaining in the suit can be found here.
Police line up outside of Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct on May 29, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,0:20-cv-01302,['DISMISSED'],Class Action,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,no,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2020-09-15 21:07:11.102856+00:00,2022-03-10 19:51:16.364081+00:00,WCCO journalist hit by projectile while covering protests in Minneapolis,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/wcco-journalist-hit-projectile-while-covering-protests-minneapolis/,2022-03-10 19:51:16.307913+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Jeff Wagner (WCCO-TV),,2020-05-29,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Jeff Wagner, a reporter and anchor for WCCO, a CBS affiliate station based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was livestreaming protest coverage as he was hit by a police projectile on May 29, 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 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.
Wagner was covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis on May 29. The night before, protesters overran and set fire to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. But the focus on the 29th had shifted to the Fifth Precinct.
In a livestream video filmed by Wagner, the Minnesota State Patrol can be heard over loudspeaker just before 11:30 p.m. ordering people to disperse immediately. About 10 minutes after Wagner filmed the loudspeaker warning, he was hit by a police projectile.
Wagner did not respond to requests for comment, and a message left on the WCCO general line was not answered.
In the livestream, Wagner reports that State Patrol troopers were advancing north on Nicollet Avenue, shooting projectiles at protesters who’d been throwing objects and launching fireworks at the police. He stands separate from the action in a mostly empty parking lot on the side of the street.
A lone officer can be seen stepping into the parking lot and appears to hit one individual trying to retrieve a bike. Wagner asks if the person is all right, just as he, too, is hit. Wagner grunts as his phone tumbles to the ground.
Wagner says in the livestream that he is all right despite the projectile feeling like the “the hardest punch to my forearm I’ve ever had.” But he says he recognized the risk of reporting close to the action.
“I had my hand up. I got my news badge,” Wagner says as he flashes the badge on the video. “It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in that moment. I looked like anybody else.”
The livestream video does not clearly show the officer who shot the projectile at Wagner. Protesters, journalists and even law enforcement officials have had difficulty at times identifying specific officers during the protests. More than a dozen agencies joined the law enforcement effort in Minnesota in late May, often wearing similar-looking uniforms.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which oversees the State Patrol, didn’t respond to the Tracker’s emailed list of questions.
Several other journalists were hit by police projectiles and tear gas fired by either State Patrol or Minneapolis Police that evening, as documented by the Tracker.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Thomas Nilsson, a photojournalist for Norwegian outlet Verdens Gang, was targeted by law enforcement while covering protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 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.
Nina Svanberg, a reporter for the Swedish outlet Expressen, told the Committee to Protect Journalists — a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — that she and Nilsson had walked with protesters up from the Third Precinct to the Fifth Precinct on the 29th. National Guard troops and police arrived to the area to disperse the crowd and enforce the 8 p.m. curfew in place.
At about 11:30 p.m., Minneapolis Police Department officers began indiscriminately firing projectiles and tear gas to disperse the crowd, Svanberg said. One hit her on the hip. She added that she crawled behind a car to avoid being hit again, but was caught in the tear gas. The Tracker documented Svanberg’s assault here.
Nilsson, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in an account for Verdens Gang that he was affected by the chemical irritant as well.
The journalists eventually met up in an alley where an Australian news team was sheltering with its security team.
It was there that Nilsson discovered that he had a red laser sight on his stomach, he wrote.
According to his account, he moved farther into the alley and waited for about 10 minutes. When he looked out to check whether it was safe, he found himself once again targeted with a laser sight, he wrote.
Svanberg told CPJ that both she and Nilsson were wearing press passes. Nilsson noted in his account that he also was carrying two cameras and was wearing a helmet and a gas mask. In the account he said that he is certain the police knew they were journalists.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to multiple phone and emailed requests 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.
NBC and MSNBC reporter Micah Grimes wrote that he was struck by multiple munitions fired by law enforcement while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.
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.
In the early evening, Grimes tweeted that a law enforcement officer deliberately fired a canister of green powder at him, hitting his torso.
State patrol or national guard aimed and intentionally shot me in side with canister with green powder. I turned back to him, he taunted me like would shoot me again, twice. Clear cheap shot. Video at the end. I’m fine. Had my media badge clearly on chest. https://t.co/Zn4csqC7tD https://t.co/n5076fRbP7
— Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) May 30, 2020
“I turned back to him, he taunted me like would shoot me again, twice. Clear cheap shot,” Grimes posted. Grimes could not be reached for comment.
Neither the Minneapolis Police Department nor Minnesota State Patrol responded to requests 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.
Des Moines Register reporter Tyler Davis wrote that he was pepper sprayed by a police officer while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.
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.
In an account published by USA Today, Davis wrote that at approximately 8:30 p.m. on the 29th he was documenting protesters confronting police who had set up barricades at the intersection of S. 4th Street and Hennepin Avenue. Once protesters began touching the barricades, officers in the parking lot began to retreat while spraying the crowd with what Davis identified as light-pressure water hoses.
Shortly after multiple squad cars and bicycle officers arrived at the scene, flash-bang grenades and “chemical irritants” were deployed, Davis tweeted.
Flash-bangs and chemical irritants deployed near S 4th Street and Hennpin. Multiple MPD vehicles drive down Hennepin to clear one side of road and disperse crowds. #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/hpmvhZbfKc
— Tyler Davis (@TDavisFreep) May 29, 2020
Davis wrote that as he attempted to document police pepper spraying two young women near him, the officer redirected the chemical spray toward him.
“He laid on the trigger for a few seconds as I told him I was a member of the media,” Davis wrote.
He said that as he walked north away from the scene, his eyes and face began intensely burning.
“I could hardly see,” Davis wrote. “Ten hours later, my right arm still feels as if a sunburn is subsiding.”
I was one of those hit by the eye irritant during the #GeorgeFloyd demonstration downtown. No fun at all. I’m done for the night after 10-plus hours. Follow @TrevorHughes and @Boydenphoto for more. See you all tomorrow, with a dry shirt and clean mask. https://t.co/Dsy4QzlSIh pic.twitter.com/lpNSiasXFb
— Tyler Davis (@TDavisDMR) May 29, 2020
The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to an email requesting 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 Zach Roberts was pepper sprayed and struck by multiple crowd-control munitions while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.
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.
Roberts told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was reporting freelance from Lake Street near the Midtown Light Rail Station at around 8:30 p.m. on the 29th when he was pepper sprayed by Minneapolis police.
“I got nailed [with pepper spray] right in the face, and one eye was just gone, there was so much pain,” Roberts said. “A lot of protesters swarmed me and offered me water and milk.”
He said that police then started firing rubber bullets “the size of a child’s fist” into the crowd, and one barely missed his head. About 15 minutes later, another ricocheted off a pillar and struck him in the leg, he told the Tracker.
“They were not aiming the way that you’re supposed to,” Roberts said, noting that police typically fire rubber rounds to ricochet off the ground into legs or at people’s chests. “They were aiming at head-level.”
About an hour later, Roberts was caught in a cloud of tear gas fired by Minnesota State Patrol troopers. He told the Tracker that he also felt targeted when the troopers began firing rubber bullets.
I just got tear gassed and ricochet hit by a rubber bullet on my leg. These cops are fucking monsters. #JusticeForGeorge #Minneapolisprotests #policeriot. pic.twitter.com/RFglSEwSma
— Zach D Roberts (@zdroberts) May 30, 2020
“I was hiding behind a bench trying to take photos and I had rubber bullets [coming at me]: I don’t know who they were aiming at other than me, because there was no one around me,” Roberts said.
Neither the Minneapolis Police Department nor Minnesota State Patrol responded to requests 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.
Associated Press photojournalist John Minchillo posted on social media that he was struck with a crowd-control munition while covering the fourth night of protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.
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.
Two days after the incident, Minchillo posted on Twitter that he was also struck by a less-lethal projectile while reporting that day, and said that police had fired indiscriminately.
“No distinctions were made... when I and my colleagues were hit by officers,” Minchillo wrote. “This is a protocol that I’ve not seen elsewhere.”
No distinctions were made two nights back when I and my colleagues were hit by officers. Last night was full force in a wide spread. This is a protocol than I’ve not seen elsewhere. Lone officers do sometimes act so, not entire units. No discretion, just total area denial.
— john minchillo (@johnminchillo) May 31, 2020
Minchillo could not be reached 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.
An officer brandished a weapon at two public radio reporters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, even after they identified themselves as press, just after midnight on May 30, 2020.
American Public Media reporters Samara Freemark and Madeleine Baran had spent much of the evening covering the protests outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct when they decided to head back to their car and go home, Freemark told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview.
As they attempted to cross Nicollet Avenue, a formation of law enforcement officers appeared, blocking them from crossing the street.
Freemark described the situation as initially being calm. “But all of the sudden, there was a switch that flipped,” she said. An officer suddenly appeared next to Freemark and Baran and shoved a weapon inches from their faces while shouting, “Get the fuck out of here,” Freemark recounted. She said she was not sure exactly what type of weapon it was, but that it did not resemble a pistol and seemed designed to fire crowd control ammunition.
“We were yelling, ‘We’re press, we’re press,’ but he kept shoving it in our face, yelling at us to ‘get the fuck out of here,’” she said. “It was dark, so shocking, and so unexpected.”
The officer did nothing to acknowledge that they were press, Freemark said, and, eventually, they ran away. “Every time we stopped, there were cops yelling at us,” she said. Freemark and Baran were unable to reach their car and had to walk home.
Minneapolis was under an 8 p.m. curfew that evening, but journalists were expressly exempt from it.
Freemark said that the police line they encountered included officers from multiple agencies, and she was unsure which agency the officer who pointed the weapon was from.
An email sent to the Minneapolis Police Department inquiring about this incident was not returned as of press time. Bruce Gordon, director of communications for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, replied that before he could comment he would need to know if the incident in question involved a State Patrol trooper.
After the encounter, Baran tweeted about the experience:
A Minneapolis police officer pointed a weapon at me at @sfreemark’s heads, while we were standing on Nicollet and 32nd covering the protests. I yelled that I’m a journalist. He did not lower his weapon, so we ran. Calling it a night.
— Madeleine Baran (@madeleinebaran) May 30, 2020
An interview request sent to Baran was not immediately returned.
The protests were held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.
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.
Reporter Julio Rosas was hit by a pepper ball fired from a Minneapolis police vehicle as he reported on a protest in the city on May 28, 2020, Rosas told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
The protest was held in response to a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.
Rosas had arrived at the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct and begun filming in the early afternoon for Townhall, which describes itself as a conservative and commentary news site. He shared videos of protesters outside the police station and people walking through the ransacked aisles of a nearby Target.
As evening drew close, hundreds had gathered near the police station in preparation for a third night of protests, according to news reports. The police had maintained a minimal presence throughout the afternoon, Rosas said, until a convoy of police vehicles drove in next to the Target parking lot.
A video filmed by Rosas shows officers escorting one person apparently under arrest and patting down another. More police officers arrive in an unmarked white van. The officers are seen throwing flash bang grenades and shooting less-lethal ammunition to disperse the crowd. The video shows a water bottle thrown at the officers, who had formed a line in the middle of the street.
Rosas said he followed the police after they began to retreat from the scene. He realized he needed to find a safer place to film after he was almost hit by a tear gas canister that had been thrown back at police, he said.
Rosas laid down on a berm on the side of the road to lower his profile for safety. “I was trying to make myself as small as possible to try and get out of the way while still trying to do my job,” he said.
Rosas stopped filming during a lull in the action, he told the Tracker. Then an officer pointed his pepper ball gun from inside a Minneapolis Police vehicle directly at Rosas.
“I started shaking my head and said, ‘No, no, no, don’t do it, don’t do it,’” Rosas told the Tracker. “And then he shot me in the upper left thigh.”
Rosas said he was wearing a press badge “clearly in front” around his neck and had his phone in his hand when he was shot. He said he wasn’t sure if he was targeted specifically as a journalist. There were some protesters nearby, but he remained apart from them on the berm to avoid getting hit by thrown objects. He did nothing to indicate a threat to the police officer, he said.
Rosas said he believed he was hit by a pepper ball, a projectile similar to a paintball filled with an irritant instead of paint. The projectile left a white powder on his clothing that burned and caused him to cough.
Minnesota Police Department spokesperson John Elder told the Tracker he was unable to comment about this and other incidents involving the press. However, he said that the police department had not used pepper balls in years, instead using “40 mm less lethal foam marking rounds.” He also said, “Every use of force by the MPD is under investigation internally.”
It is not clear if other law enforcement agencies were present on the scene. Video footage appears to show only Minneapolis police officers.
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 obscured in the chaos of tear gas-soaked streets.
Rosas continued to report despite being hit. Later that night, Mayor Jacob Frey ordered the police to evacuate the Third Precinct, which protesters then set on fire.
The following day, Rosas was also hit by a projectile as he filmed Minnesota State Patrol troopers and National Guardsmen confront protesters, he told the Tracker. Getting hit by a likely pepper ball “wasn’t great,” Rosas said, “but it was a whole lot better” than the 40 mm projectile he was shot with the next day.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Richard Tsong-Taatarii, a photographer for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, was taking photos of looters inside an Arby’s fast food restaurant when they took his camera and threw it into a fire, he told the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Tsong-Taatarii was photographing protests following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. Protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement are continuing to take place across the country.
Tsong-Tataarii was covering protests in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 28 when he was sent to the Third Precinct in Minneapolis. In the days prior, the Third Precinct and the surrounding area had been the site of major protests and multiple incidents of violence perpetrated against the press by police and members of the public.
When Tsong-Tataarii arrived, he said he covered the main scene of protests before he spotted a group of people plotting to loot and burn the Arby’s restaurant across the street from the Third Precinct police station. He described this group as “violent anarchists” in a phone interview with CPJ.
“One of the efforts I tried to make was to cover the diversity of violence,” Tsong-Taatarii said. “There’s a stereotypical perception of, ‘why are these people ‘burning down their own community?’ I saw that the group was diverse; majority white, but a couple of black gentlemen, a couple of people of mixed backgrounds. I photographed them outside the Arby’s and followed them into the Arby’s hoping to mix in there and document it.”
He later uploaded his images to Facebook.
Tsong-Taatarii was taking photos of a man tagging a wall with “BLM,” short for Black Lives Matter, when the man turned and asked Tsong-Taatarii, “Why are you photographing a crime?”
Tsong-Taatarii said he started negotiating with the man and offered to give him one of his two cameras — the camera he did not use to photograph him. Instead, the man wanted his small Leica, the camera Tsong-Taatarii used to take his photo. While they were talking, Tsong-Taatarii slipped the Leica lens and card into his pocket, preserving his photos.
Tsong-Taatarii said that he was wearing his press badge but refrained from identifying himself as press.
“I just said, ‘I love photography and I love documenting history and this is history,’ which is all true,” he said. “I knew that if I said I was a member of the press, that would be the end of the negotiating. I felt like I had the right not to tell him.”
“At some point the negotiating stopped and one of the fellas said, ‘It’s not worth losing your life over your gear,’” Tsong-Taatarii continued. “I understood what they meant, because they were going to burn this place down and if they knocked me unconscious, I’d be laying down there. People might never find me.”
Tsong-Taatarii gave the man his Leica, which the man threw into a fire next to a street barricade. Shortly after, Tsong-Taatarii ran into the fire and retrieved his camera. While the camera was damaged, the leather case it was stored in took most of the heat, he said.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Onlookers watch as an Arby's fast food restaurant burns near the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct on May 28, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,private individual,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",,, 2020-05-29 18:51:47.330541+00:00,2023-07-17 20:25:58.684647+00:00,Minnesota Reformer reporter struck by projectile during second day of protests for George Floyd,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalists-hit-less-lethal-rounds-during-second-day-minnesota-protests/,2023-07-17 20:25:58.529957+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Max Nesterak (Minnesota Reformer),,2020-05-27,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Minnesota Reformer reporter Max Nesterak was shot with crowd-control ammunition while covering 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.
Shortly after 11 p.m., Minnesota Reformer reporter Max Nesterak tweeted that he was struck in the chest by a rubber bullet shot by Minneapolis police.
And I got hit in the chest by a rubber bullet from police. Covered me in dust that’s been making me cough for a half hour. I’m home now. pic.twitter.com/sYShFOjvQO
— Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) May 28, 2020
“[The rubber bullet] covered me in dust that’s been making me cough for a half hour. I’m home now,” Nesterak wrote. Nesterak did not respond to messages requesting further comment.
At around the same time, a second Reformer reporter, Ricardo Lopez, tweeted that he was “physically yanked away” by a police officer who wanted the media to move away from the advancing police line. Lopez could not be reached for comment to further clarify his tweet.
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.
Minnesota police aim pepper spray at protesters on May 28, 2020, as demonstrations continued for a second day following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody.
",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",,, 2021-02-12 18:41:16.058638+00:00,2021-02-12 18:41:16.058638+00:00,Independent filmmaker hit with a flash-bang grenade while covering Minneapolis protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/independent-filmmaker-hit-with-a-flash-bang-grenade-while-covering-minneapolis-protest/,2021-02-12 18:41:16.022062+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Chris Phillips (Freelance),,2020-05-27,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Chris Phillips, an independent filmmaker, was hit in the leg with a flash-bang canister while covering a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 27, 2020.
Protests began in the city in response to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, during his arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd’s death sparked weeks of protests across the country.
Phillips is a Ferguson, Missouri-based filmmaker who made a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement following the 2014 shooting of Black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson. He has covered protests across the country, posting live videos on Facebook. In May, he drove to Minneapolis to report on the response to Floyd’s killing, he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Phillips said that when he arrived near the city’s Third Police Precinct, tear gas was being used by police to try to disperse a protest there. About 45 minutes later, he said, protesters and police were in a standoff. Minneapolis police, Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies, Minnesota State Patrol officers and St. Paul police were present at the protest, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
Phillips said he squatted down in order to film a shot looking up from behind a protester toward the police. He said they were about 100 feet from a line of police officers when a flash-bang canister was fired in their direction. Phillips said the grenade exploded and the canister struck him on his right leg.
“It was kind of like the war movies where your ears just ring,” he said. “You know, you get that high pitch, white noise in your ears.”
The object that hit him was about two inches long and one inch wide, he said. He said that he did not require any medical attention.
Phillips said he was not displaying press credentials or wearing anything that would identify him as a journalist beyond his professional-grade camera. He noted that he was surrounded by hundreds of people, and he did not believe that press identification would have made a difference.
“They look at, there's 50 people around you that are not press, and if they just want to do what they want to do or they just want to get people to move back, they don't care who's in the mix,” Phillips said.
A spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation related to police use of force.
Multiple other journalists were struck by police crowd control munitions while covering protests in Minneapolis on May 27.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting hundreds of incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
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",,, 2020-05-29 17:27:36.691845+00:00,2023-07-17 20:26:29.666132+00:00,Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter struck by projectile while covering George Floyd protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalists-struck-projectiles-while-covering-minneapolis-protest/,2023-07-17 20:26:29.535428+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Andy Mannix (Minneapolis Star Tribune),,2020-05-26,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Andy Mannix, the federal courts reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was struck with a crowd-control projectile while covering a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 26, 2020.
Demonstrations began in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man, the day before, after an officer pinned down his neck with his knee for several minutes, ignoring Floyd's repeated exclamations that he could not breathe. A 17-year-old bystander caught this encounter on video and shared it on Facebook, sparking widespread outrage.
On May 26, thousands of protesters gathered outside the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and marched almost three miles to the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct. There, some in the crowd turned violent, lobbing rocks and water bottles at police. Others attacked parked police cruisers and the precinct itself, breaking a glass door, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Police clad in riot gear answered by setting off tear gas canisters, detonating flash bang grenades and firing rubber or foam bullets into the crowd.
One of these projectiles — tipped with blue foam — hit Mannix in the thigh.
I Was just shot with this in the thigh. pic.twitter.com/igcJ3e7iQ4
— Andy Mannix (@AndrewMannix) May 27, 2020
Mannix, who had walked with the protesters to the precinct, told the Committee to Protect Journalists he was leaning against a tree a block away from the precinct attempting to post a video to Twitter when he was hit. Mannix was wearing a press pass, but it was not visible under his raincoat. He said that the police seemed to be firing these projectiles "indiscriminately" and that he did not feel as if he was targeted. CPJ is a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
The next day Mannix posted a photo to Twitter of an enormous, colorful bruise that had spread across the inner part of his upper left thigh.
The tear gas police fired was so thick that "you couldn't see your hands in front of your face for a couple square blocks," Mannix told CPJ.
Most protesters in the crowd were wearing face masks to prevent the spread and transmission of coronavirus. "If you can imagine like 2,000 people in a pretty condensed crowd, and then all of them coughing because they're just getting annihilated by this tear gas, you probably couldn't have a worse situation in terms of the pandemic," Mannix said.
A request for comment sent to Minneapolis Police Department Public Information Officer John Elder was not answered as of press time.
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.
Protesters gather near the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct on May 27, 2020, after George Floyd, a Black man, died while in police custody. The death touched off multiple nights of protests in the city and across the nation.
",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, chemical irritant, protest, shot / shot at",,, 2021-09-24 19:48:03.926945+00:00,2022-09-09 15:08:07.954685+00:00,Reporter struck by projectile in Minneapolis while covering George Floyd protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-struck-by-projectile-in-minneapolis-while-covering-george-floyd-protest/,2022-09-09 15:08:07.892656+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Niko Georgiades (Unicorn Riot),,2020-05-26,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Niko Georgiades, a reporter with the media collective Unicorn Riot, was struck with a crowd-control projectile while covering a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 26, 2020.
Demonstrations began in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man, the day before, after an officer pinned down his neck with his knee for several minutes, ignoring Floyd's repeated exclamations that he could not breathe. A 17-year-old bystander caught this encounter on video and shared it on Facebook, sparking widespread outrage.
On May 26, thousands of protesters gathered outside the convenience store where Floyd had been detained and marched almost three miles to the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct. There, some in the crowd turned violent, lobbing rocks and water bottles at police. Others attacked parked police cruisers and the precinct itself, breaking a glass door, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Police clad in riot gear answered by setting off tear gas canisters, detonating flash bang grenades and firing rubber or foam bullets into the crowd.
The media collective Unicorn Riot posted on Twitter that a projectile hit Georgiades in his left tricep, breaking the skin.
Our reporter Niko was just injured by a projectile shot at him by @MinneapolisPD while he was documenting their interactions with protesters upset by last night’s police murder of George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/JVIUH8BidD
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) May 27, 2020
In an email, Georgiades told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was standing inside a bus shelter filming protesters facing off with police when he was hit.
"Many were throwing rocks at the precinct and hiding behind the carts and shelter. One person threw and ducked, and instantly a marker round was shot and shrapnel from the broken glass hit him in the eye. I moved in to see what happened and was shot instantly in the arm," he wrote.
He added that he did not think he had been specifically targeted "because of the sheer amount of people throwing things from where I was."
A request for comment sent to Minneapolis Police Department Public Information Officer John Elder was not answered.
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.
The judge presiding over the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor ruled on March 29, 2019, that media and members of the public will be restricted from viewing “graphic evidence”—including body cam footage and photographs from the crime scene and medical examiner’s office—in the case that will be displayed for the jury.
At a final pretrial hearing, Hennepin County District Judge Kathryn L. Quaintance said she was blocking this evidence from being seen by anyone aside from the jury and attorneys in the case because “there’s privacy interest involved,” according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. She called airing this evidence publicly “inflammatory, potentially” as it “shows the deceased in extremely compromising situations.”
Noor is accused of fatally shooting Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian woman who had called police to alert them to a possible assault taking place in the alleyway behind her home. Noor allegedly shot and killed her when she approached his police cruiser. Jury selection in the case began on April 1.
A coalition of media representatives including the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio filed a motion on April 2 objecting to Quaintance’s ruling barring media from viewing evidence, arguing it amounts to a unconstitutional “de facto closure of the courtroom.”
“Excluding the press and public from viewing evidence presented to the jury and other trial participants violates the Constitutional and common law rights of press and public access to criminal proceedings,” wrote Leita Walker, an attorney for the media coalition, in a memorandum supporting the motion.
As of publication, the motion had not been scheduled for a hearing. Jury selection in the case is ongoing.
Courts have upheld the notion that media outlets and the public have a right to “contemporaneous access” to evidence during a trial, Walker argued, citing the Second Circuit case ABC v. Stewart, where the court found “[t]he ability to see and to hear a proceeding as it unfolds is a vital component of the First Amendment right of access—not . . . an incremental benefit.” Additionally, Quaintance’s argument is invalid, Walker wrote, as the state of Minnesota “does not recognize a posthumous right to privacy.”
The judge’s decision to limit access to evidence “clearly crossed a constitutional boundary,” Mark Anfinson, an attorney for the Minnesota Newspaper Association, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
In an order issued on March 27, Quaintance wrote that to preserve “order and decorum” in the courtroom, space devoted to the media will be limited to eight seats, of which four will be available to local media outlets and four to national and international outlets. Four seats each will be reserved for the family members of the victim and defendant, one for a sketch artists, which leaves only 11 seats for the public, according to Joe Spear, the president of the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune noted that other courtrooms in the building contain double the amount of seating.
The judge’s initial order stated that overflow seating will be available in another courtroom, where an audio feed of the proceedings will be played. But after media outcry, Quaintance issued an amended order the next day stating that a video feed would be available in that overflow courtroom as well.
Walker, the attorney for the media coalition, in a March 29 letter to Judge Ivy Bernhardson, the Chief Judge of Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District, asked that the trial be moved to a larger courtroom, or a second overflow room be reserved for media. “The Coalition is dismayed that, on the eve of trial, uncertainties remain about whether the press and public will be able to adequately monitor one of the highest profile trials the State of Minnesota has ever seen,” Walker wrote. In response, Judges Bernhardson and Quaintance on April 1 added seven more media seats to the existing courtroom, according to the Star Tribune.
Quaintance’s order also banned all electronic or recording devices, including cellphones, tablets, and laptops, from the entire floor of the courthouse where the trial was taking place.
Mohamed Noor, far right, enters the courthouse with his attorneys ahead of the murder trial against the former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer, charged in the 2017 fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond.
",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,False,"['CHANGE_IN_POLICY', 'OTHER']","Media, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio",,,,Judiciary: District Court 2018-04-06 21:07:49.386601+00:00,2022-10-18 16:19:46.698915+00:00,Former FBI agent Terry Albury accused of leaking documents to The Intercept,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/former-fbi-agent-terry-albury-accused-leaking-documents-intercept/,2022-10-18 16:19:46.593627+00:00,,,"(2018-04-17 16:36:00+00:00) Albury pleads guilty, (2018-10-18 14:35:00+00:00) Albury sentenced to 4 years in prison, (2020-11-18 12:19:00+00:00) Albury released from prison after two years",Leak Case,"Department of Justice charges FBI whistleblower under Espionage Act (https://theintercept.com/2018/03/28/minnesota-fbi-agent-whistleblower-leak/) via The Intercept, Espionage Act charges against Albury (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4426747-Felony-Information-in-US-v-Terry-Albury.html), Minneapolis FBI agent charged with leaking classified information to reporter (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/03/28/minneapolis-fbi-agent-charged-with-leaking-classified-information) via Minnesota Public Radio, Federal documents outline steps FBI took to investigate one of its own (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/03/29/document-search-warrant-application-for-minneapolis-fbi-agent-records) via Minnesota Public Radio, Justice Dept. charges Minnesota FBI agent for leaking secret document to news outlet (http://www.startribune.com/justice-dept-charges-minnesota-fbi-agent-for-leaking-secret-document-to-news-outlet/478203203/) via Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The accused FBI whistleblower indicted by Trump's DOJ allegedly leaked secret rules for spying on reporters (https://freedom.press/news/accused-fbi-whistleblower-indicted-trumps-doj-allegedly-leaked-secret-rules-spying-reporters/), Leak Investigations Triple Under Trump, Sessions Says (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/us/politics/jeff-sessions-trump-leaks-attorney-general.html) via New York Times, Ex-Mpls. FBI agent pleads guilty to leaking classified info to reporter (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/04/17/fbi-terry-albury-pleads-guilty-leaking-info-intercept) via Minnesota Public Radio, Minutes of plea hearing (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4439562-Terry-Albury-Plea-Hearing.html), As FBI whistleblower Terry Albury faces sentencing, his lawyers say he was motivated by racism and abuses at the Bureau (https://theintercept.com/2018/10/18/terry-albury-sentencing-fbi/) via The Intercept, Ex-Minneapolis F.B.I. Agent Is Sentenced to 4 Years in Leak Case (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/terry-albury-fbi-sentencing.html) via New York Times",,,,,2018-03-27,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"On March 27, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a “felony information” document formally accusing former FBI agent Terry Albury of leaking classified documents to a news organization.
Minnesota Public Radio identified the news organization in question, which was not named in the court filing, as The Intercept.
Albury is being charged with two counts under section 793(e) of the Espionage Act, a law originally enacted in 1917 to combat foreign spying attempts that in recent years has been used to prosecute government employees who share classified information with journalists.
In a statement to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Albury’s attorneys said that their client does not dispute the government’s accusations.
"Terry Albury served the U.S. with distinction both here at home and abroad in Iraq. He accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information. We would like to add that as the only African-American FBI field agent in Minnesota, Mr. Albury’s actions were driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI."
Albury is the second person to be charged under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Last year, the Department of Justice charged NSA contractor Reality Winner with leaking a classified document to The Intercept. Winner, who is fighting the government’s charges, has repeatedly been denied bail and remains in jail pending the outcome of the case.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said that the Department of Justice plans to aggressively crack down on leaks of classified information to journalists.
David Clarey, the campus editor for University of Minnesota student newspaper Minnesota Daily, was arrested along with 18 others after a mass protest following the acquittal of former police officer Jeronimo Yanez in the shooting death of Philando Castile.
In the early evening of June 17, 2017, around 500 protesters obstructed Interstate 94 in both directions. As the protest ended, Minnesota State Patrol and St. Paul police corralled dozens who remained onto an exit ramp.
Clarey was arrested while filming shortly after midnight on June 17, 2017, alongside City Pages reporter Susan Du. The two journalists were held for nine hours and charged with unlawful assembly and being a public nuisance.
The charges were later dropped.
Members of the Minnesota State Patrol arrest protesters on Interstate 94 after a jury found St. Anthony Police Department officer not guilty in the death of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 16, 2017.
",arrested and released,Minnesota State Patrol,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, court verdict, kettle, protest, student journalism",,, 2017-07-28 06:16:26.534887+00:00,2023-11-03 18:29:44.968403+00:00,Minneapolis journalist arrested while covering protest,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/minneapolis-journalist-arrested-while-covering-protest/,2023-11-03 18:29:44.825240+00:00,"obstruction: being a public nuisance (charges dropped as of 2017-07-28), rioting: unlawful assembly (charges dropped as of 2017-07-28)",,,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Equipment Search or Seizure","Two journalists among 18 arrested during overnight freeway standoff (http://www.startribune.com/18-arrested-in-overnight-protests-over-yanez-verdict/429098693/) via Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Journalists among those arrested at Castile rally (http://www.mndaily.com/article/2017/06/journalists-among-those-arrested-at-castile-rally) via Minnesota Daily, 18 Arrested, Including 2 Journalists, During Protests Over Officer’s Acquittal in Philando Castile Killing (http://splinternews.com/18-arrested-including-2-journalists-during-protests-o-1796195652) via Splinter News","camera: count of 1, computer: count of 1, work product: count of 1, cellphone: count of 1",,Susan Du (City Pages),,2017-06-17,False,Minneapolis,Minnesota (MN),44.97997,-93.26384,"Susan Du, a journalist at Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages, was arrested shortly after midnight on June 17, 2017, after covering a mass protest against the acquittal of former police officer Jeronimo Yanez in the shooting death of Philando Castile.
On the evening of June 16, around 500 protesters obstructed Interstate 94 in both directions. As the protest ended, Minnesota State Patrol and St. Paul police corralled dozens who remained onto an exit ramp.
Du attempted to follow other members of the media over a fence in order to get off the exit ramp but was stopped by an officer. She was arrested alongside another reporter — Minneapolis Daily city editor David Clarey — and detained for nine hours. Minneapolis State Patrol officers seized her cellphone, camera, keys, notes, and laptop, which were returned to her hours after she was released from custody.
Du was being charged with unlawful assembly and being a public nuisance. The charges against her were later dropped.
SWAT teams move to arrest protesters on Interstate 94 after a jury found police officer Jeronimo Yanez not guilty in the death of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 16, 2017.
",arrested and released,Minnesota State Patrol,None,None,False,None,[],None,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, court verdict, protest",,,