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 2021-09-29 18:25:29.033319+00:00,2023-11-01 16:15:55.567370+00:00,Sacramento Bee reporter shoved to the ground while covering protests in California capital,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/sacramento-bee-reporter-shoved-to-the-ground-while-covering-protests-in-california-capital/,2023-11-01 16:15:55.470935+00:00,,,,"Assault, Equipment Damage",,,computer: count of 1,Sam Stanton (The Sacramento Bee),,2020-05-31,False,Sacramento,California (CA),38.58157,-121.4944,"
Two Sacramento Bee journalists were assaulted and their work equipment damaged and stolen while covering protests against police violence in downtown Sacramento, California, on May 31, 2020.
SacBee reporter Sam Stanton was reporting that night with colleague photojournalist Paul Kitagaki Jr. The pair had been following protests at the state Capitol, which law enforcement had dispersed with flash-bang grenades and tear gas at around 11:30 p.m. As the crowd broke up, Stanton and Kitagaki left the area, soon walking past a 7-Eleven a block from the Capitol that appeared to be being looted, according to Kitagaki.
Kitagaki told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a phone interview that the city was loud that night and the journalists didn’t hear as two men ran up behind them, hitting them, in Stanton’s words, “full speed from behind.” Stanton was thrown to the ground, hitting his knee and head, and his work iPad in his backpack was smashed on impact. Kitagaki had a camera yanked off his shoulder, breaking his right hand in the process. The Tracker has documented Kitagaki’s assault and equipment damage here.
Kitagaki told the Tracker that he got the impression that the attackers, who quickly ran away after the assault, were looters, unassociated with the protesters, and that he and Stanton were targeted because of the camera equipment he was carrying.
Stanton said he “was just roughed up” and he and Kitagaki intended to continue working that night. However, within 10 minutes of Stanton tweeting about the attack, all Sacramento Bee reporters and photographers were pulled out of the area. Reporter Alex Yoon-Hendricks tweeted the newspaper was concerned for its journalists’ safety, as looting had escalated and police were hard to find.
All @sacbee_news reporters and photographers have been pulled out of downtown/midtown Sacramento. Right now, groups of mostly young men are smashing windows, stealing. Few cops along J and K St. Some people were walking dogs right next to people in ski masks breaking into cars. https://t.co/qrjUNoCdk5
— Alex BOOn-Hendricks 🐝 (@ayoonhendricks) June 1, 2020
Stanton tweeted at 11:42 p.m., “I have never willingly left the scene of a news story because of personal peril in my 38 years in the business. But when my editor ordered me to leave tonight, I did it.”
Kitagaki reported the assault to the police the following day, and Kitagaki and Stanton were both interviewed about the attack. The Sacramento Police Department did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Protests in Sacramento and across the United States have surged in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following a viral video that showed a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a Black man, George Floyd, during his arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
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.
Getty photojournalist Justin Sullivan was robbed at gunpoint while covering protests in Oakland, California, in the early hours of 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.
Sullivan told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and his colleague, freelance photojournalist Stephen Lam, were walking back to their cars in downtown Oakland at around 12:30 a.m. after documenting the night’s protests and some looting at a nearby Target when two men approached them.
“We got to our cars — I got in my car, my other colleague was going to his car — and the one guy came around, blocked my door, put a gun to my chest, said, ‘Give me your cameras,’” Sullivan said.
He handed over his two cameras with their lenses to one of the men, who also took his backpack containing his laptop and passport.
The other man pushed Lam into the trunk of Sullivan’s car. He got out unharmed, but was robbed of his camera and lens.
“The big takeaway for both of us was that we were unharmed,” Sullivan said. “The thing that we were most upset about, to be honest, was that we had been shooting for a couple of hours and we had a lot of pictures that we lost. Just gone.”
Sullivan said that they had alerted the police but had not been able to file a police report in the days following the robbery as police were occupied with a backlog of emergency calls.
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.
Photojournalist Justin Sullivan — and a colleague who took this photograph — had been documenting the looting of this Target store and other protests in Minneapolis late on May 29, 2020, when they were robbed at gunpoint.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,private individual,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, robbery",,, 2020-09-10 13:01:33.310704+00:00,2023-11-03 15:02:43.455160+00:00,Three Raleigh newsrooms damaged during protests,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/three-raleigh-newsrooms-damaged-during-protests-may-30/,2023-11-03 15:02:43.350760+00:00,,,,Equipment Damage,,,"building: count of 1, computer: count of 1",,,2020-05-30,False,Raleigh,North Carolina (NC),35.7721,-78.63861,"The offices of INDY Week, The News & Observer, and ABC11 in downtown Raleigh, N.C. were damaged during protests in the city on May 30, 2020.
Alternative weekly newspaper INDY Week reported extensive damage to its newsroom, while ABC11 and The News & Observer newspaper both had windows smashed as protests stretched late into the night.
The protests in Raleigh echoed demonstrations across the country sparked by a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The newsrooms in Raleigh were damaged late in the first major day of protesting in the city. Demonstrations had been peaceful through the day, but late in the evening, after police began using tear gas to disperse crowds, a small group of people began destroying property in the city’s downtown.
INDY Week Raleigh news editor Leigh Tauss told U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she had returned to the office while covering the protests to wash her face off and get some water, after she had been caught up in tear gas. She was in the back of the ground-floor office near the water cooler, shortly before 10 p.m., when she heard the window shatter, she said.
She sank down to the floor and called her editor, before she moved out toward the front of the office and saw a brick had been thrown through the window, she said. She posted about the damage on Twitter.
Tauss said she tried to leave the office then, but when she stepped outside, there was more tear gas in the street so she came back inside. She was in the hallway when she heard someone enter the office and ducked into the basement to hide. After waiting for a few minutes, she got a text from another journalist who was outside and who told her it was clear for her to leave. She posted on Twitter at that point that it appeared that someone had tried to take water, but no computers were missing.
Later that night, according to Tauss, somebody entered the office and caused more extensive damage. Large windows were entirely smashed. Couches in the office were set on fire, setting off the sprinkler system. While other equipment was damaged by the water, her desktop computer went missing, she said.
I’m devastated. We are a progressive newspaper. Last night I was inside when the first brick was thrown #Raleigh pic.twitter.com/MJvPdscyqf
— Leigh Tauss (@LeighTauss) May 31, 2020
The three offices were just some of many businesses damaged in the city. According to an article in the News & Observer, “nearly every” business in Raleigh’s downtown area was damaged overnight.
A spokesperson for the Raleigh Police Department said police were aware of damage to INDY Week and the News & Observer. There haven’t been any arrests related to the incidents, according to the department.
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.
INDY Week Raleigh news editor Leigh Tauss was washing off tear gas in the North Carolina newsroom when the vandalizing began. “I’m devastated,” she said the next day posting the damage — burned furniture, water damage and stolen equipment.
",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,INDY Week,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2019-12-20 17:08:25.838234+00:00,2023-10-27 21:26:58.448084+00:00,"Wife of Georgia county commissioner dumps drink on reporter’s head, soaking her and her equipment",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/wife-of-georgia-county-commissioner-dumps-drink-on-reporters-head-soaking-her-and-her-equipment/,2023-10-27 21:26:58.323267+00:00,,,(2023-07-10 13:59:00+00:00) Case against commissioner’s wife who doused reporter is closed,"Assault, Equipment Damage",,,computer: count of 1,Casie Bryant (AllOnGeorgia),,2019-12-13,False,Chattooga County,Georgia (GA),None,None,"AllOnGeorgia reporter Casie Bryant was set up to report on a county budget meeting in Chattooga County in the state’s northwest corner on Dec. 13, 2019, when the county commissioner’s wife dumped a soda on her.
According to a Summerville police incident report published by AllOnGeorgia, Bryant was sitting at the conference table when Abbey Winters, wife of Sole Commissioner Jason Winters, poured a drink over her head, soaking her hair, clothes, belongings and equipment. In photos of the incident published by The Summerville News, it appears that Bryant’s tablet was covered in the beverage.
The wife of Chattooga County's sole commissioner poured a soda on a reporter's head this morning. The Summerville PD is charging Abbey Winters with simple battery and disorderly conduct. The reporter is Casie Bryant of All On Georgia. Photos courtesy of the Summerville News pic.twitter.com/V3pz6UbWY8
— Patrick Filbin (@PatrickFilbin) December 13, 2019
The incident was witnessed by representatives from the local newspaper and radio station, as well as four others. Several of these witnesses told police that the attack appeared to be completely unprovoked and that they heard Abbey Winters say twice after dumping the drink that Bryant “deserved” it.
In a video of the incident taken by Bryant and posted on AllOnGeorgia’s YouTube channel, Jason Winters is seen and heard saying, “Every bit of this has been brought on,” while pointing toward Bryant.
According to the incident report, neither of the Winters’ spoke with police at the scene, but after seeking legal counsel Abbey Winters told police that she had tripped and spilled the drink accidentally.
AllOnGeorgia reported that following an investigation, police applied for warrants on Abbey Winters for simple battery and disorderly conduct, turning the matter over to the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office.
“What happened at the budget meeting today was completely inappropriate and I’m disappointed to see not only the behavior of those involved, but the excuses made for the behavior after the fact,” AllOnGeorgia owner Delvis Dutton said in the outlet’s report of the incident. “The media plays an integral role in ensuring transparency and these types of antics are dangerous to open government and a disservice to the people it serves.”
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that Winters turned herself in at the Chattooga County Jail that afternoon and was released on a $1,520 bond on both counts.
Reporter Casie Bryant sits drenched in liquid after a drink was poured on her head at a Chattooga County, Georgia, budget meeting. The wife of the county commissioner has been charged with simple battery and disorderly conduct for the dousing.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,private individual,None,None,False,False,None,None,private individual,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,,,,