first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2020-06-22 16:59:42.048749+00:00,2021-06-01 16:20:50.639932+00:00,"NYPD hits journalist with batons, confiscates his bike",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nypd-hits-journalist-batons-confiscates-his-bike/,2021-06-01 16:20:50.573727+00:00,,,,"Assault, Equipment Search or Seizure",,"bicycle: count of 1, equipment bag: count of 1",,Armin Rosen (Tablet Magazine),,2020-06-03,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"
Tablet Magazine senior reporter Armin Rosen was beaten by police, who then confiscated his bicycle, while he was covering protests in New York, New York, on June 3, 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.
Rosen told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was covering a protest march in downtown Brooklyn shortly after 9 p.m. New York Police Department officers had been gradually pushing the crowd toward Borough Hall but quickened their advance when a sudden downpour began.
Rosen — who had with him a reporting notebook, backpack, bicycle and helmet wrapped in white duct tape with “PRESS” emblazoned across it — walked his bike over to a nearby structure to take cover from the rain and put his notebook away so it wouldn’t be damaged.
Still got my helmet though! (Tape etc applied by @BenFeibleman last night) pic.twitter.com/M5zw2Bie26
— Armin Rosen (@ArminRosen) June 4, 2020
“Facing the structure, and thus with my back to the crowd, I felt a blunt object strike my right shoulder and very quickly realized I was on the grass and surrounded by police,” Rosen said.
He added that he is unsure how many times officers struck him with their batons in total.
Three officers held him down while another demanded, “What the fuck is in your bag?” The officer then quickly searched the backpack as Rosen explained that he was a journalist and had been concerned about his notebook getting wet. Rosen said the officers did not ask him to produce any identification.
Rosen said another officer said, “Take your shit and get the fuck out of here,” and threw the still-open bag toward him.
“Once back on my feet, I was aggressively pushed forwards by a nearby cop and nearly fell to the ground again,” Rosen said.
That’s when Rosen said he realized that his bike was gone. When Rosen asked if the officers could return his bike, an officer responded, “It’s not your bike anymore.”
Cops clubbed me and took my bike what the he’ll do I do
— Armin Rosen (@ArminRosen) June 4, 2020
Rosen told the Tracker that he asked if there was a number he could call in order to recover the bike, but both the officers who had surrounded him and a man who appeared to be a commanding officer dismissed or ignored his requests.
“I currently have a large welt on my right shoulder from the initial blow, along with a second area of pain in my left buttock,” Rosen said.
Rosen told the Tracker that a fellow journalist found his bike more or less abandoned near Borough Hall along with multiple others a few hours after it was taken, and was able to return it to Rosen.
When asked for comment, an NYPD spokesperson directed the Tracker to the “30-minute mark” of a press briefing held by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on June 3.
Around that point in the recording, Shea says: “Wherever appropriate, we issue summonses in lieu of arrests. We’ve obviously done a lot of both summonses and arrests. The only thing that I might add on the point of the press: We’re doing the best we can, the difficult situation. We 100 percent respect the rights of the press. Unfortunately, we’ve had some people purporting to be press that are actually lying, if you can believe that. So sometimes these things take a second—maybe too long—to sort out.”
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 Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
A man scuffles with law enforcement officers during a protest in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on June 3, 2020.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,None,None,returned in full,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-07-05 21:42:17.399587+00:00,2021-11-19 16:49:57.790859+00:00,Mission Local journalist detained with protesters while covering Bay Area demonstration,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/mission-local-journalist-detained-protesters-while-covering-bay-area-demonstration/,2021-11-19 16:49:57.717939+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Julian Mark (Mission Local),,2020-06-03,False,San Francisco,California (CA),37.77493,-122.41942,"Mission Local reporter Julian Mark was briefly detained by San Francisco police while covering a Bay Area protest on June 3, 2020.
The protest was part of a wave of Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality demonstrations across the country. The demonstrations were sparked by the release of a video showing a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest. Floyd was later pronounced dead in a hospital.
Mark told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he had been covering the San Francisco protests all day as about 10,000 people marched through the city. He had returned to Mission Local’s office at 2489 Mission St. to file his story when he saw dozens of officers outside the office window. The officers were moving down Mission Street and closing in on dozens of protesters, including 23 who were later arrested.
Mark said he went back outside wearing his press badge, issued by the San Francisco Police Department, around his neck. When he began filming police, he said he held his press badge up so officers could see it. While recording, Mark got in front of the officers as they closed in on some of the protesters.
“I was putting myself in the middle of the circle and as I was doing this I was making it known that I was press and I was also filming,” Mark told the Tracker. One of the officers told Mark to move back. “I tried to get out of the circle and I tried to get onto the sidewalk,” Mark said, but other officers – at odds with the original instruction – kept him in the circle of protesters on Mission Street.
“I was definitely forcibly moved into the circle of protesters and told to lay on my stomach even though I had clearly displayed my press badge,” Mark said.
At 10:53 p.m. Mark tweeted, “Lying on the ground here with a dozen protesters. Completely surrounded on mission st.” In the video accompanying the tweet, dozens of officers are visible. Capt. Gaetano Caltagirone of SFPD can be heard saying, “This is Capt. Gaetano from the San Francisco Police Department. You are all under arrest for unlawful assembly.”
Mark continued to tweet updates from the ground. “Show them my press pass and they just pushed me into the circle and made [me] lie down on my stomach,” he tweeted five minutes later. The last tweet in Mark’s thread was sent at 11:47 p.m. “I was detained and then released. I’m okay. Thanks, all, for following. There are around 20 seemingly peaceful protesters on their way to the police station, including a 14-year-old [boy].”
The certificate of release provided by the San Francisco Police Department lists Mark’s time in custody from 11 p.m. to 11:41 p.m. The next day Mark reported on his detainment, writing that he was released after an editor at Mission Local reached out to Capt. Caltagirone.
On June 4, Mark also received an invitation from San Francisco Police Chief William “Bill” Scott to come to his office and review the body camera footage from the incident.
“He explicitly said that he was sorry that it had happened,” Mark told the Tracker. “He asked for feedback from me about how the police department would improve its processes with how they deal with journalists in situations where officers feel they are under pressure to enforce the law. I really think that the effort was genuine on his part.”
SFPD spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak gave the following statement to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: “The Department is aware of these incidents and we have either met with or spoken to the journalists involved in order to gain a better picture of what transpired and how we can work to prevent similar events from happening in the future.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find all of these cases here.
Howard Koplowitz, a journalist with AL.com, was arrested while filming protests in front of Birmingham City Hall, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 3, 2020. After being taken to the city jail for processing, Koplowitz was released without charges.
Koplowitz was reporting that day with colleague Jonece Starr Dunigan, who was also arrested. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented her arrest here. Both journalists declined to comment.
The protest was held in response to a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for more than eight minutes during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The incident sparked anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country.
Koplowitz had been tweeting during the evening, including just after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew. He told AL.com that he was recording video of Birmingham Police Department officers walking out of City Hall at around 7:30 p.m., when two officers approached him. An officer told Koplowitz he was under arrest, ignoring Koplowitz’s press pass and his verbal protestations that he was a journalist.
AL.com reported that Koplowitz was also carrying letters showing proof of employment for both himself and Dunigan, as required by the city in order for journalists to be exempt from the curfew order. However, the BPD officers who arrested him didn’t allow him to show them the letters.
Within seconds of approaching Koplowitz, officers also arrested Dunigan, who also was wearing media credentials and standing nearby.
Koplowitz told AL.com that he and Dunigan were zip-tied and put into a van, which transported them to the city jail. At the jail, he said they were photographed and chained to a bench for 10 minutes before BPD Public Information Officer Sergeant Rod Mauldin intervened and had them released. Neither Koplowitz nor Dunigan are facing criminal charges.
Koplowitz said he was later told by officers that they had been detained for their safety.
Mauldin advised the Tracker to direct all questions to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to emails requesting comment.
AL.com editors condemned the journalists’ arrests.
“Unacceptable,” tweeted Kelly Ann Scott, AL.com editor and vice president of content. “I’m so sorry that @HowardKoplowitz and @StarrDunigan had to endure this while just doing their jobs as journalists.”
“Watching video of a zip-tied reporter cry for someone to call me was agonizing,” tweeted Jeremy Gray, AL.com managing producer of breaking news. “I hired @StarrDunigan and have worked with @HowardKoplowitz ever since he joined our team. They were standing on a sidewalk when they were loaded into a van.”
On June 5, after another reporter was arrested by BPD officers, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin apologized for the BPD’s treatment of journalists.
“Our curfew was not intended to stifle the voices of our people or our press,” he wrote on Twitter. “We need them more now than ever.”
On June 6, Alabama Media Group, the publisher of AL.com and the Birmingham News, asked for an apology and investigation into the arrests, AL.com reported.
“Clearly, the police overstepped their legal authority in arresting, assaulting and otherwise mistreating members of the press with no inclination to use any but the most extreme measures,” said James Pewitt, attorney for Alabama Media Group, in a letter sent to Woodfin and others. Pewitt added that the explanations provided by the police “are, in our view, wholly inadequate, plainly false and pretextual.”
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.
Jonece Starr Dunigan, a journalist with AL.com, was arrested while filming officers outside Birmingham City Hall, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 3, 2020. After being taken to the city jail for processing, Dunigan was released without charges.
Dunigan was reporting that day with colleague Howard Koplowitz, who was also arrested. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented his case here. Both journalists declined to comment.
The protest was held in response to a video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for more than eight minutes during an arrest on May 25. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The incident sparked anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country.
Koplowitz told AL.com that he was recording video of Birmingham Police Department officers walking out of City Hall at around 7:30 p.m., half an hour after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew, when two officers approached him. An officer told Koplowitz he was under arrest, ignoring Koplowitz’s press pass and his verbal protestations that he was a journalist. The officers then arrested Dunigan, who was standing near Koplowitz.
AL.com reported that Koplowitz was also carrying letters showing proof of employment for both himself and Dunigan, as required by the city in order for journalists to be exempt from the curfew order. However, the BPD officers who arrested him didn’t allow him to show them the letters.
Koplowitz told AL.com that he and Dunigan were zip-tied and put into a van, which transported them to the city jail. At the jail, he said they were chained to a bench for 10 minutes before BPD public information officer Sergeant Rod Mauldin intervened and had them released. Neither Koplowitz nor Dunigan are facing criminal charges.
Mauldin advised the Tracker to direct all questions to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to emails requesting comment.
“I never want to call my mom ever again to tell her I was arrested,” Dunigan tweeted after she was released. “It was a hard conversation to have. I’m still processing it all.”
I never want to call my mom ever again to tell her I was arrested. It was a hard conversation to have. I'm still processing it all.
— Jonece Starr Dunigan (@StarrDunigan) June 4, 2020
I appreciate all the kind texts and messages. I appreciate the protesters who were nothing but kind to me.https://t.co/3RCUUpZppr
AL.com editors condemned the journalists’ arrests.
“Unacceptable,” tweeted Kelly Ann Scott, AL.com editor and vice president of content. “I’m so sorry that @HowardKoplowitz and @StarrDunigan had to endure this while just doing their jobs as journalists.”
“Watching video of a zip-tied reporter cry for someone to call me was agonizing,” tweeted Jeremy Gray, AL.com managing producer of breaking news. “I hired @StarrDunigan and have worked with @HowardKoplowitz ever since he joined our team. They were standing on a sidewalk when they were loaded into a van.”
On June 5, after another reporter was arrested by BPD officers, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin apologized for the BPD’s treatment of journalists.
“Our curfew was not intended to stifle the voices of our people or our press,” he wrote on Twitter. “We need them more now than ever.”
On June 6, Alabama Media Group, the publisher of AL.com and the Birmingham News, asked for an apology and investigation into the arrests, AL.com reported.
“Clearly, the police overstepped their legal authority in arresting, assaulting and otherwise mistreating members of the press with no inclination to use any but the most extreme measures,” said James Pewitt, attorney for Alabama Media Group, in a letter sent to Woodfin and others. Pewitt added that the explanations provided by the police “are, in our view, wholly inadequate, plainly false and pretextual.”
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.
Hope Byrd, a New Orleans photographer, says she was assaulted by a police officer who threw her to the ground and into a barricade while she was covering a protest in the city on June 3, 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.
Byrd, who was on assignment for Antigravity Magazine, was left with bruises and cuts. She temporarily lost some of the use of her left arm after she was physically assaulted by a New Orleans Police Department officer, she told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
The New Orleans protest began in Duncan Plaza, a small park in the city center, on the night of June 3. At 7 p.m., between 1,000 and 2,000 protesters began marching east to Crescent City Connection, a bridge that spans the Mississippi River. At that point, it was peaceful, Byrd told CPJ. The police were anticipating the group, and had followed the marchers from the plaza to the on-ramp to the bridge, Byrd said.
But at around 9:30 p.m. protesters were underneath the bridge and getting restless. A police barricade prevented them from crossing the bridge. The protest organizers selected two or three people to try and cross the police line and begin negotiations with police, Byrd said.
“They wanted to be escorted past the bridge, to the other side,” Byrd said. “It seems like a simple gesture, but the SWAT team was not having it.”
Shortly before 10 p.m., the confrontation began. Byrd said the police line was breached, and the police started pushing into the crowd. She doesn’t know how or why the line was breached, but protesters were able to get on the other side of the police line. In response, police started firing tear gas.
“I was pushed through [the line]; I don’t know and don’t really remember how I got through,” Byrd said. “I was quickly grabbed and thrown on the ground, which is when I produced my media pass and made it very clear that I was media to an officer. That didn’t seem to help.”
“Between the first and second grab of the officer I produced my already visible media badge. I held it in my hand and put it toward his face, but it didn’t matter,” Byrd said. “I didn’t expect it to, but I felt the need to produce that. That’s when he threw me on the ground, back into the barricade, and into the crowd and into the tear gas.”
Byrd says her press credentials were visible around her neck the whole time. She was also wearing a hat with the word “Antigravity” on it, the name of the magazine she was shooting for.
After examining photos and videos from the altercation, Byrd believes the police officer who assaulted her was the captain of a New Orleans Police Department squad. Byrd said she also witnessed the same officer put a male protester in a chokehold. She did not see the names or badge numbers of any police officers, including the one who assaulted her, she said.
“The police at the line, some were talking, some weren’t,” Byrd said. “The officers I addressed, I asked them where their body cam was. I asked them to produce their name and their badge number. To my knowledge and in the photos I have, there’s no identifying anything.”
After she ended up on the other side of the police line and back with the protesters, Byrd put her goggles on as her visibility was affected by tear gas. Other photographers were wearing gas masks, but Byrd did not have one. As she was shooting, she heard rubber balls being shot by police. Although they initially denied it, the New Orleans Police Department confirmed that they used rubber balls against protesters during the city’s protests.
At around 10:40 p.m., the protest organizers began their retreat and Byrd left the scene.
When asked if she thought she was targeted for being a member of the media, Byrd said both yes and no.
“The fact that [the police officer] responded with more violence after I said I was media, by making it clear I was media, by showing the credentials [suggests yes],” she said. “Most of the damage was from the second and third throw. At the same time, we see that he’s choke holding other protesters.”
Gary S. Scheets, a senior public information officer for the New Orleans Police Department, told CPJ it could not comment on Byrd’s allegations without a police report. Byrd did not file a police report, but she did contact the New Orleans Independent Police Monitor. Byrd said she tried to use the complaint form online, but the link to upload evidence is broken.
Photographer Hope Byrd supplied this image of injuries sustained while covering a protest against police violence in New Orleans on June 3, 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, chemical irritant, protest",,, 2020-10-22 15:46:49.439206+00:00,2021-11-19 16:45:57.090497+00:00,"Tampa Bay Times journalist knocked to the ground, detained while covering Florida protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/tampa-bay-times-journalist-knocked-ground-detained-while-covering-florida-protests/,2021-11-19 16:45:57.019193+00:00,,,,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault",,,,Divya Kumar (Tampa Bay Times),,2020-06-03,False,Tampa,Florida (FL),27.94752,-82.45843,"Tampa Bay Times reporter Divya Kumar was detained in the early hours of June 3, 2020, while covering a protest in Tampa, Florida.
Protesters had gathered in Tampa and in cities across the U.S. to denounce police brutality following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.
The Times reported that Kumar was arrested downtown when Tampa Bay Police Department officers declared an unlawful assembly near Joe Chillura Courthouse Square.
The outlet reported that Kumar held up her media credentials to identify herself as a member of the press as a line of bicycle officers advanced. However, one of the bicycle officers knocked Kumar to the ground, handcuffed her and then placed her in plastic zip ties for 10 to 15 minutes.
Luis Santana, a Times photojournalist, posted photos of her detention on Twitter.
@TB_Times @divyadivyadivya places in cuffs and detained by @TampaPD while covering the protests in downtown Tampa even after identifying herself as a Times reporter. She was eventually released. pic.twitter.com/4E9095kmcM
— Luis Santana (@TBTphotog) June 3, 2020
“I don’t know what I could have done differently,” Kumar told the Times. “I identified myself as a journalist and tried to get out of there safely.”
In a news conference held later that day, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan defended the officers’ actions and emphasized that Kumar had been detained, not arrested.
“I think what happened was in their effort to cover the actions they ended up too close to it and ended up getting detained,” Dugan said, adding that Kumar was released after she was identified as a member of the media.
At the same press conference, Mayor Jane Castor suggested that many people attended the protest with fake media credentials, and declined to apologize for Kumar’s detention.
“We got bigger things out there than apologizing to a reporter that gets detained that didn’t leave when they were asked to leave three times,” Castor said.
The Times reported that later that day, Castor did call Kumar to apologize, as did Chief Assistant City Attorney Kirby Rainsberger.
Rainsberger said officers’ treatment of Kumar was “an overreaction,” and the city was reiterating the right of the press to the department during officer roll calls and via email.
In a statement published that day, Times Executive Editor Mark Katches objected to the detentions of Kumar and a second Times journalist, Jay Cridlin, in St. Petersburg the night before. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented Cridlin’s arrest here.
“Journalists need to be able to do our jobs and report the news without being harassed, detained, intimidated or harmed by law enforcement,” Katches said.
The 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.
Reuters photojournalist Brendan McDermid was struck and shoved to the ground by a New York City police officer while he was covering protests against police violence in the borough of Brooklyn on June 3, 2020.
The protest was one of many held this year across the U.S. following the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
McDermid was photographing the demonstration in downtown Brooklyn, where police had mustered near Cadman Plaza Park to try to block demonstrators from advancing. According to a letter Reuters General Counsel Gail Gove wrote to the New York City Police Department, provided to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, an officer first noticed McDermid around that time. Protesters and police clashed, and police began arresting demonstrators, sometimes using physical force, as the protest moved toward Borough Hall.
The officer who had observed McDermid continued to watch him, Gove wrote. After moving about four blocks, the officer approached McDermid, got very close to his face, and shouted at him to “get out of here!”
McDermid was clearly marked as a journalist, displaying his press pass and wearing a flak jacket with the word “PRESS” clearly visible, Gove wrote. An account of the encounter in a June 6 letter by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that McDermid complied with police orders as he was covering the protest.
McDermid continued to photograph the scene after the officer left. A short time later, according to Gove, McDermid turned and saw the officer charging at him from about 10 feet away. The officer struck the photographer with his baton in his chest, and knocked him to the ground. While McDermid was on the ground, the officer hit him in the leg and on his helmet and laughed, Gove wrote.
McDermid consulted with a doctor after the assault, according to Gove. He wasn’t injured, which Gove said was because of the protective gear he was wearing.
The NYPD didn’t respond to requests for comment about the incident.
“Journalists must be allowed to cover the news in the public interest without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are,” a spokesperson for Reuters said in an email to the Tracker.
RCFP referenced the assault on McDermid and several other incidents targeting journalists in its June 6 letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea urging the city to discipline officers who arrested or assaulted journalists, along with taking other steps to protect journalists covering 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 these protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
Reuters said photographer Brendan McDermid was knocked down and hit with a baton by a New York Police Department officer while he was on assignment capturing this image and others during a protest in Brooklyn on June 3, 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",,, 2020-12-22 19:13:18.776513+00:00,2022-03-10 20:49:40.787096+00:00,National Guard uses pepper spray against CNN reporter covering DC protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/national-guard-uses-pepper-spray-against-cnn-reporter-covering-dc-protests/,2022-03-10 20:49:40.723409+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,Alexander Marquardt (CNN),,2020-06-03,False,Washington,District of Columbia (DC),38.89511,-77.03637,"CNN journalists Alexander Marquardt and Josh Replogle were pepper sprayed by National Guard troops on June 3, 2020, while covering early-morning protests in Washington, D.C., near Lafayette Square.
Marquardt and Replogle were covering one of the many protests that erupted in Washington and other U.S cities following the May 25 death of George Floyd while he was in custody of Minneapolis police.
Marquardt, senior national security correspondent for CNN, tweeted on June 3 that a group of individuals attempted just after 12:30 a.m. to push down a fence erected around Lafayette Square. National Guard troops at the scene “responded with pepper spray and rounds,” Marquardt tweeted, without explaining what types of rounds the troops used.
“An otherwise peaceful day that ends with unrest,” Marquardt tweeted. “I really don’t know how that helped anything.”
Replogle was operating a camera for CNN’s reporting from the scene. Marquardt said in a tweet thread that troops fired pepper spray at his team despite the fact that the journalists weren’t standing near protesters.
Another angle that shows how separated from agitators we were and how obvious it was we were press. @Joshrepp and I were with @JayMcMichaelCNN and @cnnjamie. https://t.co/IhU2x5K2x7
— Alexander Marquardt (@MarquardtA) June 3, 2020
He also said that because he was holding a microphone, and Replogle was holding a large camera, it should have been clear that they were press, covering the protest.
“3 hours later my arm was still burning,” Marquardt tweeted. “Others got it far worse.”
Mark Irons, a correspondent for the Catholic-themed Eternal Word Television Network, tweeted that National Guard troops fired rubber bullets at the crowd gathered at Lafayette Square around the time that Marquardt and Replogle were hit with pepper spray.
Irons also posted a video depicting troops firing pepper spray at protesters who lowered themselves to their knees and raised their hands.
Marquardt and Replogle didn’t respond to requests by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker for comment and CNN didn’t comment on the incident further. The District of Columbia National Guard also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Two days earlier, on June 1, President Trump had used St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square as the backdrop for a controversial photo op. National Guard troops used tear gas and pepper balls to clear protesters from the area before Trump posed for cameras while holding up a Bible. Tall fences were erected in the park after protesters were expelled, but the protesters later returned to the park area.
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 journalists Josh Replogle and Alexander Marquardt were pepper sprayed by National Guard troops on June 3, 2020, while covering early-morning protests in Washington, D.C. near Lafayette Square.
Replogle and Marquardt were covering one of the many protests that erupted in Washington and other U.S cities following the May 25 death of George Floyd while he was in custody of Minneapolis police.
Marquardt, senior national security correspondent for CNN, tweeted on June 3 that a group of individuals attempted just after 12:30 a.m. to push down a fence erected around Lafayette Square. National Guard troops at the scene “responded with pepper spray and rounds,” Marquardt tweeted, without explaining what types of rounds the troops used.
Replogle was operating a camera for CNN’s reporting from the scene. Marquardt said in a tweet thread that troops fired pepper spray at his team despite the fact that the journalists weren’t standing near protesters.
He also said that because he was holding a microphone, and Replogle was holding a large camera, it should have been clear that they were press, covering the protest.
Mark Irons, a correspondent for the Catholic-themed Eternal Word Television Network, tweeted that National Guard troops fired rubber bullets at the crowd gathered at Lafayette Square around the time that Marquardt and Replogle were hit with pepper spray.
Irons also posted a video depicting troops firing pepper spray at protesters who lowered themselves to their knees and raised their hands.
Replogle and Marquardt didn’t respond to requests by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker for comment and CNN didn’t comment on the incident further. The District of Columbia National Guard also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Two days earlier, on June 1, President Trump had used St. John’s Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square as the backdrop for a controversial photo op. National Guard troops used tear gas and pepper balls to clear protesters from the area before Trump posed for cameras while holding up a Bible. Tall fences were erected in the park after protesters were expelled, but the protesters later returned to the park area.
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.