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 2021-05-21 15:27:13.144756+00:00,2022-08-05 19:09:39.959507+00:00,"Reporter, colleague arrested while documenting Elizabeth City protests",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-colleague-arrested-while-documenting-elizabeth-city-protests/,2022-08-05 19:09:39.896397+00:00,,,,Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Ayano Nagaishi (The Staunton News Leader),,2021-05-19,False,Elizabeth City,North Carolina (NC),36.2946,-76.25105,"
Two reporters for The Staunton News Leader, a USA TODAY network paper, were detained while covering a social justice protest in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on May 19, 2021.
The protest was in response to an announcement earlier that day from the prosecutor’s office that the police shooting death of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, on April 21 was justified and that none of the Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies would face charges. The demonstration was the latest in a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020.
At approximately 9 p.m., law enforcement officers ordered the crowd to disperse under threat of arrest on charges of standing, sitting or lying on a street or roadway, the News Leader reported. Minutes later, as reporters Ayano Nagaishi and Alison Cutler were standing in a crosswalk about a foot away from the curb and filming an arrest across the street, law enforcement officers approached them, asking for the “ladies in the vests,” according to the outlet.
In footage captured on Nagaishi’s livestream, both journalists were placed in zip-tie cuffs and led away by officers. When asked on what charge they were being arrested, an officer can be heard responding, “For standing in the middle of the street, in the roadway.”
#ElizabethCity #AndrewBrownJr https://t.co/9Gf5DxGJHm
— Ayano Nagaishi (@yanonaga98) May 20, 2021
Nagaishi and Cutler were both wearing fluorescent yellow vests that said “NEWS MEDIA” and identified themselves as journalists when law enforcement in riot gear detained them, according to a video on their employer’s website and Casey Blake, the North Carolina Statewide Team Editor, who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
According to the News Leader, a citizen filmed the journalists’ arrests using Nagaishi’s phone, and Cutler was able to call the news outlet from a police van to confirm they’d been arrested.
Blake told CPJ, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that the reporters could not distinguish which law enforcement officials arrested them because the officials were in unmarked riot gear.
Cutler was booked, but was not formally charged; Nagaishi was neither booked nor charged, according to Blake. The reporters were released from police custody at approximately 10:30 p.m., the News Leader reported. The Tracker has documented Cutler’s arrest here.
When reached for comment via phone, an Elizabeth City Police Department officer directed CPJ to Deputy Chief of Police James Avens, who did not immediately respond to CPJ’s voicemail and email requesting comment.
The Daily Advance, based in Elizabeth City, reported that City Manager Montre Freeman said the two reporters were apart from the main group of protesters when they were arrested and that they had refused to comply with officers’ directives.
“Reporters have to decide if they’re going to be a protester or a reporter,” Freeman reportedly said. “They can be both, but they have to follow the directives of the officers out there.”
While a curfew went into effect at 8 p.m., members of the press were explicitly exempted. The livestream footage captured by the Nagaishi also contradicts Freeman’s assertions.
Nagaishi posted on Twitter following their release that both reporters were safe.
I just want to say @alisonjc2 and I are safe. We truly appreciate the support we got from the local community, friends, family and co-workers from @USATODAY Network. You can never make assumptions on what happens when reporting from the ground and this situation was one of them.
— Ayano Nagaishi (@yanonaga98) May 20, 2021
“We truly appreciate the support we got from the local community, friends, family and co-workers from @USATODAY Network,” Nagaishi wrote. “You can never make assumptions on what happens when reporting from the ground and this situation was one of them.”
Two reporters for The Staunton News Leader, a USA TODAY network paper, were arrested while covering a social justice protest in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on May 19, 2021.
The protest was in response to an announcement earlier that day from the prosecutor’s office that the police shooting death of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, on April 21 was justified and that none of the Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies would face charges. The demonstration was the latest in a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020.
At approximately 9 p.m., law enforcement officers ordered the crowd to disperse under threat of arrest on charges of standing, sitting or lying on a street or roadway, the News Leader reported. Minutes later, as reporters Alison Cutler and Ayano Nagaishi were standing in a crosswalk about a foot away from the curb and filming an arrest across the street, law enforcement officers approached them, asking for the “ladies in the vests,” according to the outlet.
In footage captured on Nagaishi’s livestream, both journalists were placed in zip-tie cuffs and led away by officers. When asked on what charge they were being arrested, an officer can be heard responding, “For standing in the middle of the street, in the roadway.”
Tensions are rising in #ElizabethCity as protestors for #AndrewBrownJr are deemed an unlawful assembly ordered to leave the premises in under five minutes. One man has already been arrested. Stay tuned with @yanonaga98 live as we cover the scene on the ground tonight. @USATODAY pic.twitter.com/JJcnZ962wH
— Alison Cutler (@alisonjc2) May 20, 2021
Cutler and Nagaishi were both wearing fluorescent yellow vests that said “NEWS MEDIA” and identified themselves as journalists when law enforcement in riot gear detained them, according to a video on their employer’s website and Casey Blake, the North Carolina Statewide Team Editor, who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists in a phone interview.
According to the News Leader, a citizen filmed the journalists’ arrests using Nagaishi’s phone, and Cutler was able to call the news outlet from a police van to confirm they’d been arrested.
Blake told CPJ, a founding partner of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, that the reporters could not distinguish which law enforcement officials arrested them because the officials were in unmarked riot gear.
Cutler was booked, but was not formally charged; Nagaishi was neither booked nor charged, according to Blake. The reporters were released from police custody at approximately 10:30 p.m., the News Leader reported. The Tracker has documented Nagaishi’s arrest here.
When reached for comment via phone, an Elizabeth City Police Department officer directed CPJ to Deputy Chief of Police James Avens, who did not immediately respond to CPJ’s voicemail and email requesting comment.
The Daily Advance, based in Elizabeth City, reported that City Manager Montre Freeman said the two reporters were apart from the main group of protesters when they were arrested and that they had refused to comply with officers’ directives.
“Reporters have to decide if they’re going to be a protester or a reporter,” Freeman reportedly said. “They can be both, but they have to follow the directives of the officers out there.”
While a curfew went into effect at 8 p.m., members of the press were explicitly exempted. The livestream footage captured by the Nagaishi also contradicts Freeman’s assertions.
Cutler retweeted a post on Twitter following their release that both reporters were safe.
Ayano said it all in this tweet. Thank you to everyone who supported us in every way, especially our @USATODAY family. We were two of many people who were arrested by police this evening. Tonight was an important night to be present here as a journalist in #ElizabethCity. https://t.co/oaBaUxwkiK
— Alison Cutler (@alisonjc2) May 20, 2021
“Thank you to everyone who supported us in every way, especially our @USATODAY family,” Cutler wrote. “We were two of many people who were arrested by police this evening. Tonight was an important night to be present here as a journalist in #ElizabethCity.”
For the first time in decades the Texas Department of Criminal Justice failed to let journalists cover an execution, even though two reporters had been cleared to do so and were waiting nearby to be called into the state penitentiary in Huntsville on May 19, 2021.
A database maintained by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed that there had been media in attendance at each of the state’s previous 570 executions. Prison officials said “miscommunication” had kept media from witnessing the 571st execution, of Quintin Jones, who was convicted of the 1999 murder of his great-aunt Berthena Bryant, according to The New York Times.
Joseph Brown, editor of The Huntsville Item in Huntsville, Texas, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk had arrived at around 5 p.m., about an hour ahead of the scheduled time for the execution. The Huntsville Item is one of two news outlets regularly called to attend and report on executions in Texas, and Brown said that he is often the reporter on duty.
Brown said the two reporters were sequestered in an office across the street from the penitentiary and were waiting to be told by the prison’s communications director they could be taken over the road.
But according to Brown, the call never came.
Jones had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for clemency, but the court declined his appeal and the execution was set to go ahead at around 6:15 pm local time. According to Brown, reporters are usually called in to witness an execution about 10 minutes in advance. “We went 25-30 minutes and still hadn't heard the call. So we started asking questions,” Brown told the Tracker.
Brown said that when the communications director called to see what was happening, “he was informed that the warden was already in the room going through the process. It was already ongoing,” said Brown who then realized the reporters were locked out of witnessing the execution.
Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told the Tracker: “Normally, upon the final notifications that there is no action pending in any court or from the Office of the Governor of Texas, a phone call is made to the Director of Communications to escort the media witnesses into the unit. As a result of a miscommunication between officials at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, there was never a call made to summon the media witnesses into the unit.”
Desel said the department apologized “for this critical error. The agency is investigating to determine exactly what occurred to ensure it does not happen again.”
Editor Brown said he was skeptical about the department’s explanation, based on his experience covering previous executions.
The failure to call in reporters was an “egregious” error he said. “To me, it seems like a pretty big mess up to make. Because stuff like this is very methodical, it's very planned. It's very … to the book,” Brown said. If the department failed to tick one of the boxes in its normal routine this time, “what are the boxes that get missed that we don't know?” he said.
Coverage of executions is a longstanding media oversight tradition. Press advocates say it can be essential for making public issues such as a state’s use of faulty equipment or drugs. Jones was executed by lethal injection.
“It's the same reason why many members [of the media] cover your state legislature and your federal governments, your local councils,” said Brown. “If you don't have that public oversight, then they can almost willy nilly do whatever they want.”
Brown said there were a number of procedural changes that were in place for the first time in the execution of Jones, making it even more imperative to have eyewitness media reporting.
Graczyk, the AP reporter, did not respond to a request for a comment from the Tracker.