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 2020-12-09 12:12:26.592270+00:00,2022-11-08 20:41:21.820531+00:00,"Social media journalist arrested, injured while covering Wisconsin protest",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/social-media-journalist-arrested-injured-while-covering-wisconsin-protest/,2022-11-08 20:41:21.718543+00:00,curfew violation: violation of mayor’s emergency order (charges dropped as of 2021-01-01),,(2021-01-01 18:43:00+00:00) Charges dropped against journalist arrested and injured while covering Wisconsin protest,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Search or Seizure",,cellphone: count of 1,,Brendan Gutenschwager (Freelance),,2020-10-08,False,Wauwatosa,Wisconsin (WI),43.04946,-88.00759,"
Independent social media journalist Brendan Gutenschwager was one of four journalists arrested or detained while covering a protest in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin on Oct. 8, 2020.
The protest followed a Milwaukee County prosecutor’s Oct. 7 announcement that his office would not bring charges against a Wauwatosa police officer who shot and killed Black teenager Alvin Cole on Feb. 2. Cole, 17, had refused to put down a gun and ran away from police following a disturbance at a Wauwatosa mall. The Wauwatosa protest came amid demonstrations against police brutality and racism that had swept for months across the country, including in Wisconsin.
Gutenschwager, who is based in Michigan, said he works as an independent videographer, filming protests and other events to post on social media platforms, then distributing his footage to mainstream media outlets such as CNN, Newsweek, The New York Times and Fox News, all of which have used his footage.
Gutenschwager told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that on the day after the prosecutor’s decision was announced, he followed protesters as they marched several miles from the Milwaukee County Public Safety Building to the suburb of Wauwatosa.
While there had been some confrontations and destruction of property the previous night, Gutenschwager said, the march on the second day was peaceful. However, when marchers encountered National Guard officers deployed in Wauwatosa, he said, demonstrators became anxious about a confrontation; some decided to get in cars to continue to protest by driving through the area. The demonstrations continued after a 7 p.m. curfew in Wauwatosa took effect.
Gutenschwager said he got in a car with other journalists, including Shelby Talcott and Richie McGinniss of the news website the Daily Caller, to follow the protest caravan. The journalists stopped in the parking lot of the St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church, on North Wauwatosa Avenue, to cover a confrontation between police and protesters, he said. Gutenschwager said he stayed in the vehicle, but McGinniss, one of the Daily Caller journalists, got out.
When McGinniss returned to the car, police tackled him to the ground, Gutenschwager said. Officers then surrounded the vehicle and ordered Gutenschwager and others to get out, he said. Gutenschwager said he was trying to exit, but it was difficult to move quickly because he was in the back seat of a two-door car. A video of the encounter posted on Twitter by WISN 12 reporter Caroline Reinwald shows a police officer yanking Gutenschwager from the car and slamming him to the ground, where he struck his head on the pavement. An officer then flipped him over and pinned him face down on the ground as Gutenschwager shouted that he was a member of the press, the journalist said.
What appears to be National Guard arresting protesters at 77th and Milwaukee. It’s a church parking lot. @WISN12News pic.twitter.com/0gcg70jTGQ
— Caroline Reinwald (@WISN_Caroline) October 9, 2020
McGinniss and Talcott both described in interviews and on social media that police beat them with night sticks during the encounter. They were both detained, but released without being arrested after they were identified as credentialed press. Blair Nelson, a freelance journalist who has worked for Scriberr News and Campus Reform, was also arrested.
The Tracker is documenting all arrests here.
Gutenschwager said that he does have press credentials, but they were in his vehicle, which was parked a short distance away. He said he continued to identify himself as press at multiple other times throughout the night.
Gutenschwager said his arms were restrained in zip ties before he was loaded into a police vehicle. He and others who had been arrested were transported to a parking lot, transferred to another van belonging to police in neighboring Waukesha County and then taken to the Waukesha County Jail, he said.
Gutenschwager said that he was processed and held in the jail. When he was released at around 3 a.m., he said police provided no way to get back to where he and others had been arrested. He was able to borrow a cellphone to get a ride from one of the journalists he was with at the time he was arrested, he said.
Gutenschwager was cited for violating an emergency curfew order, with a fine of $1,321, according to a document he provided. He was initially given a court date in November, which has been postponed to Dec. 10.
Gutenschwager said police confiscated his cellphone, saying it could be used for evidence, but did not explain what type of evidence. He said he retrieved his phone a week after he was arrested. When he got it, he said it had been put into airplane mode.
Gutenschwager said that he had significant pain in his back and neck the day after the arrest and went to a hospital in Michigan, where he was given a CT scan and diagnosed with a concussion that likely resulted from his fall during the arrest. He said he was treated for his injuries and told to avoid computer screen time, which he noted was difficult because of his work
Wauwatosa Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Abby Pavlik told the Tracker in an email that Gutenschwager was not wearing anything that identified him as a member of the press and did not show police any credentials when police asked. She did not respond to a question about the use of force during the arrest.
On Oct. 9, the police department posted on Twitter contradicting the reports that four credentialed journalists had been arrested. “Two individuals were arrested and they showed no press credentials at the time of their arrest,” the department wrote.
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.
This article has been updated to include comment from the Wauwatosa Police Department.
Richie McGinniss, video director for the national news site the Daily Caller, was beaten and detained by police while covering a protest in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin on Oct. 8, 2020.
The protest came one day after a Milwaukee County prosecutor announced that his office would not bring charges against a Wauwatosa police officer who shot and killed Black teenager Alvin Cole on Feb. 2. Cole refused to put down a gun and ran away from police following a disturbance at a mall. The protests came as demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice had been held for months across the country, including in Wisconsin.
On the day after the prosecutor’s announcement, protests continued past a 7 p.m. curfew that was in effect in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee. McGinniss was detained while he was filming police arresting Tracy Cole, Alvin Cole’s mother, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. McGinniss did not respond to a request for an interview, but described the incident on Twitter.
Video McGinniss posted on Twitter shows that an officer approached him as he was filming the arrest. McGinniss can be heard telling police that he has press credentials and identifying himself as working for the Daily Caller.
Video of @ShelbyTalcott and my detainment.
— Richie🎥McG🍿 (@RichieMcGinniss) October 9, 2020
As I was recording arrests, one officer told me to (quickly) clear the area.
Upon arriving to the car, I was forcibly detained (with press cred in hand) and as you can hear in the video, I tried my best to comply with police orders. pic.twitter.com/2I6GNH2CNX
Officers told him to leave, and as he moved away, someone shouted, “Don’t let me catch you,” the video shows.
The video continues as McGinniss crossed a parking lot to his car, where several officers suddenly shouted to “get down on the ground,” as McGinniss repeated that he had press credentials.
Blair Nelson, an independent journalist who had been accompanying McGinniss, was also ordered to the ground and restrained, Nelson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Police also detained McGinniss’s Daily Caller colleague Shelby Talcott and independent journalist Brendan Gutenschwager, who were in the car. The Tracker is documenting all arrests here.
Officers hit McGinnis multiple times with a club, Talcott tweeted in a description of the encounter with police.
Talcott wrote that she and McGinniss were both detained but were released after police determined they were journalists. Gutenschwager and Nelson were both arrested and cited for violating an emergency order.
Photos Talcott posted showed that McGinniss was cut on his forehead during the encounter, and the pair sustained other scrapes and bruises during the encounter.
We’ll have some nice cuts and bruises in the coming days... pic.twitter.com/wSsnumUeCA
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) October 9, 2020
In response to the incident, Daily Caller publisher and co-founder Neil Patel said in a statement reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “there is a definite problem” in the Wauwatosa Police Department. “They were brutally beaten with clubs for no reason,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Wauwatosa Police Department did not return requests for comment about the incident.
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.
Shelby Talcott, media reporter for the news website the Daily Caller, was detained and hit with a club by police while covering a protest in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin on Oct. 8, 2020.
The protest followed a Milwaukee County prosecutor’s Oct. 7 announcement that his office would not bring charges against a Wauwatosa police officer who shot and killed Black teenager Alvin Cole on Feb. 2. Cole, 17, had refused to put down a gun and ran away from police following a disturbance at a Wauwatosa mall. The Wauwatosa protest came amid demonstrations against police brutality and racism that had swept for months across the country, including in Wisconsin.
Talcott told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was following a car caravan protest through Wauwatosa, a Milwaukee suburb, the day after the prosecutor’s announcement. The caravan protest continued after a 7 p.m. curfew went into effect.
Talcott was in a car with her Daily Caller colleague Richie McGinniss, as well as independent social media reporter Brendan Gutenschwager and freelancer Blair Nelson. She said they parked the car when they came upon police making arrests. McGinniss and Nelson left the car to film the scene, but Talcott said she stayed inside because the situation seemed tense and she had a “bad feeling” about it.
McGinniss was filming police as they arrested Tracy Cole, Alvin Cole’s mother, when police confronted McGinniss and told him to leave, video he posted on his Twitter shows. When he jogged toward the car, police ordered him to the ground and hit him with night sticks, Talcott said.
As McGinniss was being detained, Talcott said officers surrounded the journalists’ car, pointed a taser at her head, and ordered her and Gutenschwager to get out and get on the ground. During the interaction, she said, an officer struck her on her upper left arm with a club.
Talcott said that she repeatedly identified herself to officers as a journalist. She did not have her press credentials out at the time she was arrested because she had been riding inside the car, she said. According to Talcott, McGinniss had his displayed, but an officer tossed aside his credentials when the journalists were being detained.
Talcott said her wrists were restrained and she was loaded into a police van. After about 10 minutes, she said she heard an officer outside the van ask if there were any credentialed press inside. When Talcott and McGinniss identified themselves as press, she said, they were released, but Gutenschwager and Nelson, who did not have any form of press credentials with them, were arrested and cited with violating the emergency curfew order.
The Tracker is documenting all arrests here.
The incident in Wauwatosa was the third time this year that Talcott had been arrested or detained while covering protests in 2020. In September she was arrested while covering a protest in Louisville, Kentucky, and in June she was briefly detained at a protest in Washington, D.C.
In response to the Wauwatosa arrests of his journalists, Daily Caller publisher and co-founder Neil Patel said in a statement reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “there is a definite problem” in the Wauwatosa Police Department. “They were brutally beaten with clubs for no reason,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Wauwatosa Police Department did not return a request for comment about Talcott’s detention.
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.
Freelance journalist Blair Nelson was arrested while covering a protest in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, on Oct. 8, 2020.
Demonstrations began after a Milwaukee County prosecutor said on Oct. 7 his office wouldn’t bring charges against a Wauwatosa police officer who shot and killed Black teenager Alvin Cole on Feb. 2. Police said Cole refused orders to put down a gun after he ran away from police following a disturbance at a mall. The protests came as demonstrations against police violence and racial injustice had been held for months across the country, including in Wisconsin.
Nelson, who has reported for the conservative national college news site Campus Reform and news site The RF Angle, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he decided to go to Wauwatosa from his base in central Illinois to cover protests sparked by a lack of charges in Cole’s death. He wasn’t on assignment for a particular outlet, he said.
On the second day of demonstrations following the prosecutor’s announcement, protesters were driving through Wauwatosa in a car caravan, he said. The protest continued after a 7 p.m. curfew in Wauwatosa took effect.
Nelson said he was following the caravan in a car with three other journalists — Daily Caller reporters Richie McGinniss and Shelby Talcott, and independent social media journalist Brendan Gutenschwager. At one point the group saw police were making arrests, so they parked the car. Nelson said he got out and started filming the scene from the sidewalk. He said he and McGinniss were filming police as they arrested Alvin Cole’s mother when police “swarmed us,” Nelson said.
Nelson said a National Guardsman took his phone and pulled Nelson’s hands behind his back. McGinniss told the officer they were journalists, Nelson said, and the officer released him, returned his phone, and told him to leave.
As they left, Nelson said local police officers chased them. Video McGinniss posted on Twitter shows that police shouted at the journalists to “get down on the ground” as they returned to their car.
Nelson said he followed police orders, got down on the ground and told police he was a journalist, but didn’t have any form of credentials with him.
He said he was handcuffed, loaded into a police van and transported to jail in neighboring Waukesha County. He said he was released at around 2:30 a.m. the following morning.
Nelson was cited for violating an emergency order. He pleaded not guilty at a hearing on Dec. 10, and his attorney told the judge that he was at the protest as press, Nelson said. A date hasn’t yet been set for the next court hearing.
Gutenschwager was also arrested and cited for violating an emergency order. Talcott and McGinniss were detained, but released when police identified them as journalists.
Nelson said police confiscated his phone when he was arrested, and that it was not returned to him until Dec. 1.
Wauwatosa Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Abby Pavlik told the Tracker in an email that Nelson wasn’t wearing anything that identified him as a member of the press and didn’t show police any credentials when police asked.
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.