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 2021-04-07 16:03:07.135397+00:00,2023-11-03 18:11:16.408686+00:00,"Journalist arrested while covering a Portland protest, equipment confiscated and damaged",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-arrested-while-covering-a-portland-protest-equipment-confiscated-and-damaged/,2023-11-03 18:11:16.218902+00:00,"obstruction: interfering with a peace officer (charges dropped as of 2021-04-07), obstruction: harassment of an officer (charges dropped as of 2021-04-07)",,,"Arrest/Criminal Charge, Equipment Search or Seizure, Equipment Damage",,"external battery: count of 1, miscellaneous equipment: count of 2, protective equipment: count of 1, cellphone: count of 2, camera: count of 2, equipment bag: count of 1",cellphone: count of 1,John (Full Revolution Media),,2020-09-26,False,Portland,Oregon (OR),45.52345,-122.67621,"
A journalist with Full Revolution Media said he was arrested by police while covering a protest on the night of Sept. 26, 2020, in downtown Portland, Oregon.
The protest was among the many demonstrations that broke out in response to police violence and in support of Black Lives Matter following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Law enforcement officers in Portland had targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The city agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests or impede their work.
Earlier in the day on Sept. 26, a rally organized by the Proud Boys far-right extremist group drew some 800 people to Portland, while at least 1,000 counterprotesters gathered nearby, The Oregonian reported. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had declared a state of emergency ahead of the rally, putting officers from the Portland Police Bureau, Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office under a unified command.
After those protests ended, left-leaning demonstrators gathered downtown later that night, according to The Oregonian, and police declared an “unlawful assembly” around 11:40 p.m. At 10:23 p.m., the MSCO tweeted that "officers have made more than a dozen arrests."
John, the Full Revolution Media journalist, told the Tracker, "I moved south and decided to separate from the protesters by myself to look for a friend that had my charging cable, as my phone was about to die."
John, who asked that his last name not be used out of safety concerns, said an officer asked him to go with the crowd, but he said, "No, I'm going southwest."
"He told me again, and knowing it was not a legal order, I started to walk when he grabbed me and said, 'You are under arrest,'" he said.
John believes he was targeted, noting he had just interacted with that officer about 30 minutes earlier.
He had press markings on the front and rear of his helmet, he said, but was still transported in a "paddy wagon with people with no masks" to the Multnomah County jail, where he was booked for harassment and interfering with a peace officer. The charges were later dropped, John said.
The journalist said he was released on a Sunday and allowed to pick up his personal belongings on Monday when the property room opened, but his work-related belongings were kept in evidence until he filed for their release. On Thursday he was allowed to retrieve his helmet, GoPro camera, Canon camera, and backpack with a backup phone, charger, batteries and other items in it.
"One of my phones (brand new) had been damaged," he told the Tracker. "I was in booking for 14 hours, and if it weren't for help from people outside jail, I wouldn't have been able to pick up my daughter."
The MSCO didn’t respond to a request for comment. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.
Livestreamer Hugo Padilla was allegedly struck with crowd-control munitions and assaulted by law enforcement before being arrested while documenting protests in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 8, 2020. Deputies later obtained a search warrant for one of his cellphones.
Padilla subsequently joined as a plaintiff in a lawsuit with three others in October 2020 against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County and then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva, alleging violations of his Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Colleen Flynn, an attorney representing Padilla, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Padilla attended the protest to broadcast it on his YouTube channel, Alien Alphabet, while providing audio narration.
Protesters had gathered outside the South Los Angeles Sheriff's Station following the Aug. 31 fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man, by deputies in a nearby neighborhood.
Flynn said that Padilla began filming the demonstration from the parking lot of a nearby 7-Eleven, and confirmed to the Tracker that throughout the protest Padilla was wearing a black bicycle helmet with “PRESS” written in silver lettering on multiple sides.
Approximately an hour into the protest, deputies declared the protest unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse. According to the lawsuit, officers began to advance on the demonstrators and shortly after fired crowd-control munitions. The crowd dispersed and many individuals — including Padilla — fled into the neighborhood.
In Padilla’s livestream from the protest, he said that he was attempting to circle around to the far side of the crowd, but as he did, a law enforcement helicopter shined a searchlight on him. Within seconds and without warning, Padilla was shot with a crowd-control munition, he said.
The lawsuit claimed the hard projectile struck Padilla in the knee, knocking him off his bicycle and onto the ground. Deputies then “jumped” on him and one of them punched him in the face, splitting his lip, Flynn said. Padilla was tightly handcuffed — his lawsuit states that restraint marks were still visible weeks later — and forced into the back of a large truck where loose pepper ball munitions caused his eyes to water painfully.
According to Flynn, Padilla had no opportunity to identify himself verbally as press before he was arrested, but he did tell deputies he was a journalist while in the truck and in an interrogation room.
Padilla’s bicycle was seized, as was his personal iPhone, which was booked into evidence and later searched. But a Samsung cellphone Padilla was using to livestream fell from his hand and, his suit claimed, deputies did not retrieve it.
Flynn told the Tracker that she believed deputies deliberately left Padilla’s phone and that of freelance photographer Julianna Lacoste, who is also her client, because they were livestreaming.
“It appears that the deputies that abandoned Mr. Padilla and Ms. Lacoste's cell phones on the street while they were livestreaming did so to get rid of the evidence that may have recorded their actions, including their use of excessive force and violation of my clients' constitutional rights,” Flynn wrote in an email.
Padilla’s lawsuit states that once he arrived at the South Los Angeles Sheriff's Station, some of the officers used personal cellphones to photograph Padilla and the other detainees while laughing. Lacoste and student journalist Pablo Unzueta, who were also arrested that evening, said the same.
Padilla was ultimately released from a county jail in downtown LA midmorning the following day with a citation for failure to disperse. His wallet, headphones and a set of keys — not his — were returned to him; the remainder of his equipment was not. Deputies ultimately returned Padilla’s bicycle in December 2020 and his iPhone in June 2021; his bicycle helmet was never returned.
When Padilla appeared for his hearing date at the Inglewood Courthouse on Sept. 11, 2020, according to his lawsuit, a court clerk told him that no charges had been filed.
Sheriff's Deputy Trina Schrader, a spokesperson for the department, told the Tracker in the days following the protest that an investigation had been launched into the events that day. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department values the media and highly respects the freedom of the press,” she added.
The day following the protest, sheriff’s deputies obtained a search warrant for cellphones belonging to more than a dozen individuals, including Padilla. The search warrant and an affidavit in support of the warrant were only released in May 2023, more than 2 1/2 years after the incident, and following an August 2022 motion to unseal filed by the First Amendment Coalition and independent news organization Knock LA.
The media organizations said that the sheriff’s department had fought the release of the materials for more than two years, in violation of California state law and the First Amendment. The release only came after Villanueva was ousted in a November 2022 election and replaced by Robert Luna, who acceded to the unsealing.
Susan E. Seager of the UC Irvine School of Law, who represented Knock LA and FAC in the case, said the timing shows that the department never had a good reason to seal the warrants in the first place.
Photos accompanying the warrant materials included the helmet marked “PRESS,” which Padilla’s attorney confirmed belonged to him. FAC noted in a later statement that police records confirmed that the LASD knew journalists were included as targets, which raises press rights concerns.
“Those photos, along with the fact [the] journalists have said they verbally identified themselves as press, should have put pause on the probe or, at a minimum, prompted the department to make disclosures to the judge to ensure press rights were protected,” the FAC statement said.
David Snyder, executive director of FAC, also commented: “While we are grateful the public can finally see these documents, they should have been able to do so long ago. There can be no real accountability without knowledge – what did the police tell the judge who issued this warrant? Now this crucial question can be answered, and accountability for any unjustified arrest and seizure can at long last begin.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include additional details concerning the seizure and return of some of Padilla’s equipment.
Livestreamer Hugo Padilla, extreme left, filmed multiple protests outside a Los Angeles Sheriff’s station in 2020. During a Sept. 8 protest, he claims deputies shot him with a munition, then arrested him and seized his equipment.
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The protest was one of many that have broken out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to the city agreeing to a preliminary injunction in July to not arrest, harm or impede the work of journalists or legal observers of the protests.
Rushmore was covering a protest that began at around 9 p.m. in Laurelhurst Park. Protesters then marched about a half mile to the Penumbra Kelly building, a repeated focus of demonstrators because it houses the Multnomah County Sheriff's office and some Portland Police Bureau units.
Protesters blocked the road in front of the building while chanting, making speeches and yelling at officers, Rushmore told the Tracker. At one point, police officers rushed into the crowd, driving protesters into the surrounding residential neighborhood.
At some point after midnight, about 50 protesters regrouped to head back to the Kelly building, said Rushmore, who was following them. When the group was about a block from the building, officers blocked the way and started pushing protesters and journalists west along East Burnside Street.
Footage of Rushmore’s arrest, taken by an observer sometime after 1 a.m. and shared with the Tracker, shows officers rushing into the street and knocking down Rushmore and several protesters. Rushmore can be seen getting grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground. A group of officers then restrains Rushmore and arrests him.
“I have two very large cameras around my neck at all times so it is quite obvious I am press,” said Rushmore, though he wasn’t wearing any press credentials or clothing marked as press.
“During this rush, an officer with Portland Police Bureau grabbed me from behind, spun me around and threw me to the ground, slamming my head hard into the pavement,” said Rushmore, adding that his helmet protected him from injury. “At least one more officer got on top of me, and they held me down while zip-tying my hands behind my back. I yelled to the officer that I was press multiple times. He told me, `Now you're part of the riot.’ And when I told him again I was just press, he said, ‘Then you shouldn’t have been rioting.’”
The officers searched Rushmore and seized his helmet, cameras, backpack and phone before being taken to the Kelly building, he said. He was then sent to the jail at the Multnomah County Justice Center downtown, where he was detained in a general holding area. By noon, Rushmore was released, he said. He got all his equipment back two days after his arrest.
Rushmore was charged with two misdemeanors, interfering with an officer and disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped sometime in the weeks after the arrest, he said.
Portland City Attorney Tracy Reeve didn’t respond to a request for comment. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.
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.
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