first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2020-07-01 15:18:21.179965+00:00,2024-03-14 14:56:08.566051+00:00,"Photojournalist arrested, equipment seized outside Trump’s Tulsa rally",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photojournalist-arrested-equipment-seized-outside-trumps-tulsa-rally/,2024-03-14 14:56:08.430578+00:00,obstruction: obstructing or interfering with an officer (charges dropped as of 2020-08-07),,"(2020-08-07 14:59:00+00:00) Charges dropped against photojournalist arrested outside Trump’s Tulsa rally, (2021-01-08 08:56:00+00:00) Cellphone returned six months later to photojournalist arrested outside Trump’s Tulsa rally","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Equipment Search or Seizure",,"cellphone: count of 1, camera: count of 2, camera lens: count of 3, equipment bag: count of 1, protective equipment: count of 1, storage device: count of 2",,Alan Pogue (Freelance),,2020-06-20,False,Tulsa,Oklahoma (OK),36.15398,-95.99277,"
Texas photojournalist Alan Pogue was arrested while documenting police arresting others outside of President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20, 2020.
The Texas Observer confirmed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Pogue was covering the rally for the outlet. Pogue is also the owner of the Texas Center for Documentary Photography and was a combat medic in the Vietnam War.
Pogue told the Tracker that had already passed through security into the BOK Center when he heard somebody yell that something was happening with the police outside.
“So I grabbed my camera bag and ran out front, but by the time I got there the three people had already been arrested and were being led across some grass to a police van,” Pogue said. “I followed the police and the three people and took some photographs.”
After the individuals were in the van, however, Pogue said the officers from the Tulsa Police turned to him “almost in unison” and asked who he was.
Pogue’s arrest report, which was released to the Tracker, states that Pogue followed police into a restricted area of the Trump rally and refused to leave, stating that he was media. The report also states that Pogue was allegedly “unable to provide proof of being with the media.”
Pogue told the Tracker that the police narrative is completely inaccurate.
“One police officer told me to stand back just a little bit more,” Pogue said. “So, I took a couple of giant steps backward and he was satisfied, so I just kept taking pictures. No one else said anything to me. There was nothing to indicate that I shouldn’t be there and nobody told me I couldn’t be.”
Pogue said that when the officers turned to him and asked who he was, he identified himself as a photojournalist, showed them the wristband he received after passing through the rally’s security screening and handed them his business card.
“It was really generational: One of the younger police officers said, ‘Well, you’ve got your wristband, you’re obviously a photojournalist. I guess you can go now,’” Pogue said. “Then an older officer said, ‘No, no, no, you can’t go now.’”
Officers searched through his camera bag, which contained not only his equipment but a medical kit and a bulletproof vest that he had worn through security. Pogue told the Tracker that, during the search, one of the officers said, “It looks like he’s some kind of social justice advocate.”
When Pogue located his digital copy of a letter from the Observer verifying that he was on assignment for the news organization, he showed it to the older officer.
“[The officer] then grabs my iPhone and is flipping through my emails, and I said, ‘Officer, you do not have my permission to look through my iPhone,” Pogue said. “But, he saw that I’m also a member of the Veterans for Peace, and that pretty much nailed me.”
Pogue said that he was placed under arrest, but that the officers were not rough with him and didn’t zip-tie his hands too tightly.
A spokesperson from the Tulsa County jail told the Tracker that Pogue was arrested at approximately 5:40 p.m., and booked in the jail at 7:17 p.m. He was released on a $500 bond paid by the Tulsa Bail Project at around 11:20 p.m.
The Tulsa Police Department, the arresting agency, did not respond to requests for comment.
Pogue was charged with obstructing or interfering with an officer, the spokesperson said, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, a $500 fine or both.
Pogue’s belongings — including his wallet, ID, phone and equipment — were not returned to him upon his release. He was told he would have to come back to the county jail at 8 a.m. on June 22; when he arrived that Monday officers informed him that his two cameras, three lenses, cellphone, memory cards, camera bag and bulletproof vest were all being held as evidence.
“Obviously all they would really need is my compact flash card, nothing else really matters,” Pogue said. “It’s just harassment. There’s no intel to be gathered from my lenses.”
“I am deprived of the tools of my trade for no good reason,” he added.
Tristan Ahtone, editor-in-chief for the Observer, told the Tracker, “We condemn the arrest of reporters by security forces and demand that Tulsa police release [Pogue’s] equipment immediately.”
Pogue said that his arraignment is set for July 10, but that he is hopeful the charges will be dismissed and his equipment returned before that date.
The exterior of Tulsa’s BOK Center, where President Donald Trump held his first re-election campaign rally in many months on June 20, 2020.
",arrested and released,Tulsa Police Department,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,[],,Donald Trump rally,,, 2020-11-04 19:45:48.776373+00:00,2023-07-17 16:56:50.378871+00:00,"Atlanta journalist threatened with pistol, beaten during Rayshard Brooks protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/atlanta-journalist-threatened-pistol-beaten-during-rayshard-brooks-protests/,2023-07-17 16:56:50.271989+00:00,,,,Assault,,,,George Chidi (Freelance),,2020-06-20,False,Atlanta,Georgia (GA),33.749,-84.38798,"Freelance writer George Chidi was beaten by several unknown assailants and threatened by an armed man while covering protests that erupted in Atlanta’s Peoplestown neighborhood over the fatal June 12 police shooting of Rayshard Brooks.
Chidi is a former reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution whose work has appeared more recently in The Intercept and the Atlanta hyperlocal news site Decaturish. While reporting at the scene of a June 20, 2020 protest at the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot dead, Chidi said he was confronted by an armed man who threatened to shoot him after Chidi refused to turn over his phone. When Chidi tried to walk away from the man, he said, he was surrounded by other assailants who punched him repeatedly on his face and head.
Brooks was killed three weeks after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody had touched off unrest in cities across the United States. The day after his death, protesters gathered at the Wendy’s restaurant, which was closed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the restaurant caught fire when protesters broke windows and threw fireworks into the building. Over the next week, protesters, some of them armed, continued to gather in the Wendy’s parking lot and on nearby University Avenue.
Chidi was reporting at the protest site on the night of June 20 when he heard multiple gunshots off in the distance at about 10 p.m, he said. Chidi told the Tracker he could not see the source of the initial shots, but he saw armed individuals in the parking lot assuming defensive firing positions. He said he heard someone else in the parking lot closer to him fire additional shots. At that point, the crowd of about 500 began to clear out, he said.
The crowd dwindled to about 50, Chidi said, and most of those who remained were carrying firearms -- including AR-15 semiautomatic rifles.
Chidi stayed at the scene and approached a group of armed men near the Wendy’s who were “gingerly disarming someone they didn’t know.” What had begun a week earlier, as a vigil for 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, “had transformed into something more militant,” he wrote in an article for The Intercept.
As he came close to them, a woman with the group accused Chidi of working with the unknown shooter who had fired into the protesters, according to Chidi. Chidi said he had spoken with the woman earlier in the evening and identified himself as a journalist. When she later confronted him, he said, she and others in the group accused him of using his smartphone to take pictures of them.
“I hadn’t captured their images and I wasn’t going to hand over my cellphone,” Chidi told the Tracker. “[Even] if they were the cops I would have said no.”
Chidi said that after he refused to hand over his phone, one of the men in the group put his hand on a shoulder holster holding a pistol. The armed man said he would kill Chidi and began counting down from 10, according to the journalist. When the countdown reached five, Chidi started to walk away, telling the group, “I’m out, good luck, guys,” the journalist told the Tracker. Before he could get away, he said, some of the men formed a semi-circle around him and began punching him in the head. Eventually, Chidi said, he was able to escape, and he later sought medical attention for lacerations and bruising on his face. A cut above his right eye was deep enough that it needed to be glued shut, Chidi said.
Chidi told the Tracker that he has continued covering protests in Atlanta since the June 20 attack, but that he was considering seeking mental health treatment. “I’m a fairly cool guy under duress,” he said. “But I’ve had trouble sleeping.”
Chidi said he did not report the attack to the Atlanta Police Department, out of concern that it might compromise relationships with his reporting sources. “It conveys the appearance that I am working with police against street protesters,” he said. He did, however, send his Intercept article to the police department public relations staff “to make sure they would see the story.”
The Atlanta Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on Chidi’s report.
Chidi said he felt that the assailants targeted him because he is a journalist. He identified himself as an opinion writer who has regularly spoken out on criminal justice issues and other civic affairs in on-air segments for Fox 5 Atlanta and in his George on Georgia column for Decaturish. Although he writes opinion pieces, Chidi said he has worked to keep his objective, and he has not joined in with protesters at demonstrations.
“I was not a direct participant, at least not in anything I was writing about,” Chidi said. “But I make no secret about my biases.”
Journalist George Chidi was threatened by an armed man and beaten by individuals in Atlanta on June 20, 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",,,