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 2021-08-24 18:41:17.910399+00:00,2024-02-21 21:15:32.627617+00:00,Photographer arrested by NYPD while covering pro-police march,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photographer-arrested-by-nypd-while-covering-pro-police-march/,2024-02-21 21:15:32.448079+00:00,,,"(2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2023-09-05 15:07:00+00:00) Journalists reach 'historic' settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit, (2023-09-08 09:24:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD",Arrest/Criminal Charge,,,,Mel D. Cole (Independent),,2020-07-15,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"
Photographer Mel D. Cole was documenting police-protester clashes from the Brooklyn Bridge footpath in New York City when officers arrested him, confiscated his equipment and detained him for seven hours on July 15, 2020, according to a federal lawsuit.
Cole is one of five news photographers who filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 5, 2021, “seeking to hold the New York Police Department [NYPD] accountable for its violation of their First Amendment rights.” The suit is being led by the National Press Photographers Association, of which four of the journalists are members, in partnership with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Cole was covering the protests that broke out in New York in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
According to the complaint, Cole was on the Brooklyn Bridge footpath, preparing to photograph a pro-police march that was scheduled to cross the bridge into Manhattan. At approximately 10:30 a.m., counterprotesters arrived and clashes erupted between demonstrators and police.
“Cole had not participated in the counter-protests, had been peacefully photographing from a position outside the conflict, and was wearing multiple professional cameras around his neck and shoulder, making his status as a photojournalist visibly apparent,” according to the complaint. However, NYPD Lieutenant Richard Mack approached Cole and directed another officer to arrest him despite his status as a journalist and documentarian, the complaint noted, because he did not have a press pass.
The complaint said officers seized his cameras, brought him to One Police Plaza in Manhattan where he was processed, transported him to the 5th Police Precinct and placed him in a holding cell. “Sergeant Quigley told Mr. Cole that the NYPD knew that Mr. Cole had not been involved in any criminal act and should not have been arrested,” according to the complaint. “Sergeant Quigley also told Cole that he was ‘lucky’ that he was ‘not going to be locked up all weekend’ and indicated Mr. Cole should ‘thank’ Sergeant Quigley and the NYPD for ‘putting their necks on the line’ for him.” While maskless, Sergeant Quigley also pulled down Cole's mask at one point during the interaction, the complaint stated.
After several more hours, Cole was released without charge and his equipment returned to him with no documentation provided upon his release, according to the complaint.
“The reason why he was being arrested and the other journalists weren’t is because they had press passes and he didn't. When you're out in a traditional public forum, you don't need press passes if it's a matter of public concern,” Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the NPPA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “Very often, having a press pass is a detriment and many will have them around their neck rather than displaying for that very reason.”
Cole and the New York Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Police officers in New York City, on July 15, 2020. Photographer Mel D. Cole was arrested while documenting clashes between police and counterprotesters at a pro-police protest that day.
",detained and released without being processed,New York Police Department,None,None,False,1:21-cv-06610,['SETTLED'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, Blue Lives Matter, protest",,, 2020-06-23 03:13:42.190502+00:00,2024-02-29 19:37:02.814702+00:00,"NYPD officer assaults British photojournalist, breaks camera",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nypd-officer-assaults-british-photojournalist-breaks-camera/,2024-02-29 19:37:02.704758+00:00,,,"(2023-09-08 00:00:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD, (2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2021-08-05 16:42:00+00:00) British photojournalist sues NYPD for assaulting him, damaging his camera, (2023-09-05 15:11:00+00:00) Journalists reach 'historic' settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit","Assault, Equipment Damage",,,"camera: count of 1, camera lens: count of 1",Jae Donnelly (Daily Mail),,2020-06-02,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"Photojournalist Jae Donnelly was assaulted by a police officer while documenting protests in New York City on June 2, 2020. His camera and lens were also damaged in the attack.
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.
Donnelly, who works for the U.K.-based Daily Mail, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting peaceful protests on the Upper West Side at approximately 9:30 p.m. An 8 p.m. curfew was in place that night, though members of the media were exempt as “essential workers.”
He told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was wearing his foreign press pass and had a helmet strapped to his backpack, though he hadn’t used it given how peaceful the protests had been for the previous three hours.
The protest was progressing down Ninth Avenue and had just passed near the Midtown North Police Precinct on 54th Street when everyone started running south, Donnelly wrote in an account for the Daily Mail.
“I looked back and behind the running crowd, the tail end of the protests, a bunch of NYPD officers were picking off anybody they could get their hands on and arresting them,” Donnelly said.
The final photograph Donnelly captured was of a highly decorated officer coming toward him with a wooden stick taken from a protester.
“I remember trying to get away as he came at me, while explaining, ‘I’m media,’” he said.
Footage captured by The Associated Press shows a second officer charging at Donnelly from his left and striking him over the arm and head with a baton. Donnelly then spins around and appears to hold out his press pass. Donnelly told the Tracker that he was identifying himself again as a photojournalist for the Daily Mail.
The officer is then seen charging and striking Donnelly again.
“He hit me with such force that I had no control over how I landed,” Donnelly wrote. The next thing he knew he was on the ground on the opposite side of the street, his cheekbone in pain and his DSLR camera and lens smashed.
Donnelly told the Tracker that he is sure that the officer deliberately chose to assault him.
“There was absolutely no way he could not have seen me holding up my press pass and shouting that I’m media,” Donnelly said. “He made a decision, and that was to harm me.”
Donnelly said that he tried to find a high-ranking NYPD officer to speak to about the incident. When he asked officers congregating around the precinct how to file a complaint, they told him to call 911 and speak to Internal Affairs.
“I’ve never felt in fear doing my job but what I was on the receiving end of Tuesday night is setting a really dangerous precedent,” he wrote in his account.
When asked for comment, an NYPD spokesperson directed the Tracker to the “30-minute mark” of a press briefing held by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on June 3.
Around that point in the recording, Shea says: “The only thing that I might add on the point of the press: We’re doing the best we can, the difficult situation. We 100 percent respect the rights of the press. Unfortunately we’ve had some people purporting to be press that are actually lying, if you can believe that. So sometimes these things take a second—maybe too long—to sort out.”
Donnelly told the Tracker that he has been unable to work since the incident due to the damage to his equipment.
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 all of these cases here.
NYPD officers detain protesters for violating curfew during demonstrations in Manhattan on June 2, 2020. Photojournalist Jae Donnelly was covering protests in the city that day when an officer charged and struck him repeatedly.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:21-cv-06610,['SETTLED'],Civil,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2021-08-18 14:02:46.749071+00:00,2024-02-21 21:12:50.684343+00:00,Photographer struck in face with officer’s baton while documenting protests; lawsuit filed against NYPD,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photographer-struck-in-face-with-officers-baton-while-documenting-protests-lawsuit-filed-against-nypd/,2024-02-21 21:12:50.509844+00:00,,,"(2023-09-08 00:00:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD, (2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2023-09-05 15:13:00+00:00) Journalists reach 'historic' settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit",Assault,,,,Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi (Independent),,2020-06-01,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"Documentary and news photographer Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi was assaulted by a baton-wielding New York Police Department officer while she was photographing police beating a young man in lower Manhattan on June 1, 2020, according to a federal lawsuit.
Alhindawi is one of five news photographers who filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 5, 2021, “seeking to hold the New York Police Department [NYPD] accountable for its violation of their First Amendment rights.” The suit is being led by the National Press Photographers Association, of which four of the journalists are members, in partnership with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
According to the complaint, Alhindawi was photographing NYPD officers beating a young man inside a Foot Locker store at 440 Broadway that had been broken into, “taking a position near the store window and to the left of the security gate,” alongside several other photographers. When the photographers were directed by officers to move back from the window, they complied and shifted to the other edge of the sidewalk.
“Alhindawi was staring down at the tilted-up view screen of her camera, focusing on getting her shot,” when at least two NYPD officers charged toward the group of photographers, according to the complaint. One swung a baton at Alhindawi, “striking her in the face and splitting her lip open.”
“This is an unprovoked assault. It's one thing to order or request someone to move back,” Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the NPPA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “It's another thing to physically assault someone for no apparent reason.” Osterreicher confirmed Alhindawi was carrying a camera and wearing a Frontline Freelance Register credential.
Alhindawi and the New York Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Police after a New York protest on June 1, 2020, following the killing of George Floyd. Journalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi was photographing police beating a man during that day’s protest when an officer hit her in the face.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:21-cv-06610,['SETTLED'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-06-09 04:15:54.027872+00:00,2024-02-21 21:15:05.401211+00:00,"In 'pandemonium,' photojournalist arrested, held overnight in NYC",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/pandemonium-photojournalist-arrested-held-over-night-amid-new-york-city-protests/,2024-02-21 21:15:05.168492+00:00,rioting: unlawful assembly (charges dropped as of 2020-06-05),,"(2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2021-08-05 16:40:00+00:00) British photographer sues NYPD for unlawful arrest, police brutality, (2023-09-05 16:54:00+00:00) Journalists reach ‘historic’ settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit, (2023-09-08 00:00:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Assault, Equipment Damage",,,camera lens: count of 1,Adam Gray (South West News Service),,2020-05-30,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"Adam Gray, chief photojournalist for UK-based South West News Service, was pushed to the ground and arrested while covering protests in New York, New York, on May 30, 2020.
Protests that began in Minnesota on May 26 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.
Gray told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he had been documenting protests all day, and was photographing demonstrations in and around Union Square in Manhattan at around 10:40 p.m.
When Gray reached the front of a crowd of protesters on 13th Street, he said officers started charging the crowd and arresting protesters in what he described as “pandemonium.”
“I’m photographing this happening and I turn and I see this big guy, this cop coming at me,” Gray said. As the officer pushed him to the ground, two of the three cameras he was carrying “smashed” to the ground off his shoulders. Gray noted that luckily the only damage to the equipment was a broken UV lens filter.
Two additional officers then came up and assisted the first in restraining Gray and arresting him, he said.
I now have more images of my arrest whilst photographing protests on Saturday from a NYC colleague. Three cameras hanging off me and a press card in a lanyard around my neck (clear and visible on the other side) @SWNS @TheSun @GreensladeR @KateEMcCann pic.twitter.com/uvoil0DdNT
— Adam Gray (@agrayphoto) June 5, 2020
“I have a lanyard that has my foreign press card in it around my neck,” Gray said. “They stood me up and another guy in white came up — I think he was a more senior officer — and I’m shouting at him as well that I’m foreign press, that I’m a photographer.”
Gray said they asked him whether his press pass was issued by the NYPD, and that he responded no, that it was a foreign press card issued by the US State Department. Gray told the Tracker that the officer said something to the effect of, “Alright, no no no, I’ll take him away.”
Officers then took Gray down the street and passed him off to another officer who was designated his arresting officer and was eventually listed on all of Gray’s arrest reports.
After being stripped of his equipment and re-cuffed, Gray waited on a prison transport bus with 50 to 60 others for half an hour until the rest of the seats were filled. He said he then waited an additional hour outside One Police Plaza due to the volume of arrestees that night.
“At this point, I feel like I’m just in the system and we’re going through with it, I’m being booked and that’s what’s happening. There’s nobody else there that I can speak to or remonstrate with,” Gray said.
After being processed, he was placed in a holding cell with 50-70 people crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder. Gray said that he still had a face mask in order to combat the spread of coronavirus, but most others did not.
Gray was released at around 9:30 a.m. — nearly 11 hours after his arrest — with a desk appearance ticket for unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail and a $500 fine.
When asked for comment, an NYPD spokesperson directed the Tracker to the “30 minute mark” of a press briefing held by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on June 3.
Around that point in the recording, Shea says: “The only thing that I might add on the point of the press: We’re doing the best we can, the difficult situation. We 100 percent respect the rights of the press. Unfortunately we’ve had some people purporting to be press that are actually lying, if you can believe that. So sometimes these things take a second — maybe too long — to sort out.”
The Manhattan district attorney announced in a press release on June 5 that his office would not prosecute unlawful assembly or disorderly conduct arrests.
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 who had their equipment damaged while covering protests across the country related to the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Find all of these cases here.
British photojournalist Adam Gray is arrested near Union Square in New York City on May 30, 2020.
",arrested and released,New York Police Department,2020-05-31,None,True,1:21-cv-06610,['SETTLED'],Civil,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,unknown,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2021-08-18 14:25:30.757966+00:00,2024-02-21 21:14:30.788372+00:00,Photographer assaulted by police officer during protests; now part of lawsuit against NYPD,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/photographer-assaulted-by-police-officer-during-protests-part-of-lawsuit-against-nypd/,2024-02-21 21:14:30.615837+00:00,,,"(2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2023-09-05 17:02:00+00:00) Journalists reach ‘historic’ settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit, (2023-09-08 00:00:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD",Assault,,,,Amr Alfiky (Independent),,2020-05-29,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"Visual journalist and documentary filmmaker Amr Alfiky was repeatedly assaulted by police officers while photographing a protest in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, on May 29, 2020, according to a federal lawsuit.
Alfiky is one of five news photographers who filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 5, 2021, “seeking to hold the New York Police Department [NYPD] accountable for its violation of their First Amendment rights.” The suit is being led by the National Press Photographers Association, of which four of the journalists are members, in partnership with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
According to the complaint, Alfiky was covering a demonstration near Barclays Center with his camera in one hand and press pass in the other when an NYPD officer began shouting at him. Alfiky repeated, “I'm a journalist, I have a press pass,” but the officer responded with “I don't give a fuck about your press pass,” shoving him in the chest with a baton.
The complaint stated that the officer continued to shove Alfiky back, causing him to trip and fall with “such force that an approximately one-inch-wide benign cyst on his back ruptured,” which led to "excruciating pain.” The officer continued to hit him with his baton and did not stop until two protesters pulled Alfiky away and helped him stand, according to the complaint.
“As a result of this assault, Mr. Alfiky suffered fever and infection. He later had to undergo medical treatment including a surgical procedure to clean the infected area in his back, and an additional procedure to remove the ruptured cyst,” the complaint noted. “Mr. Alfiky has also suffered back pain since the assault, which has been evaluated as likely caused by a traumatic incident.”
“He was showing his credential and not only did the officer completely disregard it, but actually said, ‘I don't give a fuck,’” Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the NPPA, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “That seems to sum up, unfortunately, a lot of the attitude of law enforcement toward journalists.”
Alfiky and the New York Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.
Police officers at a protest in New York City on May 29, 2020, following the killing of George Floyd. Journalist Amr Alfiky was shoved and beaten by an officer while documenting the demonstration.
",None,None,None,None,False,1:21-cv-06610,['SETTLED'],Civil,None,False,None,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,[],,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2020-02-14 21:28:47.367239+00:00,2024-02-21 21:13:52.472841+00:00,"NYPD arrests photojournalist, charges him with disorderly conduct",https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/nypd-arrests-photojournalist-charges-him-disorderly-conduct/,2024-02-21 21:13:52.227503+00:00,obstruction: disorderly conduct (charges dropped as of 2020-05-17),,"(2020-05-17 21:47:00+00:00) Charges dropped against photojournalist arrested in NYC, (2024-02-07 00:00:00+00:00) Judge accepts journalists’ settlement with NYPD, (2021-08-05 16:39:00+00:00) Photojournalist sues NYPD for unlawful arrest, (2023-09-05 17:04:00+00:00) Journalists reach ‘historic’ settlement with NYPD in First Amendment suit, (2023-09-08 00:00:00+00:00) Judge voids First Amendment settlement with NYPD","Arrest/Criminal Charge, Equipment Search or Seizure",,press identification: count of 1,,Amr Alfiky (ABC News),,2020-02-11,False,New York,New York (NY),None,None,"Photojournalist Amr Alfiky was arrested while documenting an arrest in New York City, New York, on Feb. 11, 2020.
Alfiky, who is a photo editor at ABC News and a contributor to Reuters and The New York Times, was taking video of a man being arrested at about 7 p.m. in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood when police took him into custody, Alfiky’s friend Mostafa Bassim told the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In a video captured by Bassim, Alfiky can be heard repeatedly telling officers that he is a journalist as the officers push him toward the back of an SUV. As additional officers approach him, Alfiky can be heard offering to show them his press credentials and stating, “I did not refuse. I did not refuse.”
According to @mostafabassim1 our friend @alfiky_amr, an Egyptian photojournalist w/@Reuters @abcnews, was arretsed by @NYPDnews while taking pictures of police officers arresting someone on the street!
— Tarek Hussein (@TarekHussein22) February 12, 2020
pic.twitter.com/Jc2AST50Gx
An NYPD spokesman alleged that Alfiky “refused to comply with repeated requests to step back,” and didn’t identify himself as a journalist until he was in police custody, the New York Daily News reported.
A police spokesman told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Alfiky was taken to Manhattan’s 7th precinct and held for several hours before being released. The spokesman also confirmed that Alfiky’s press credential, issued by the NYPD, was confiscated.
That evening on Twitter, Alfiky wrote, “I’m out and safe. Thank you all for your invaluable support!”
Alfiky declined to comment and instead directed the Tracker to his attorney, Mickey Osterreicher.
Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, told the Tracker that Alfiky was charged with disorderly conduct and issued a summons for March 31.
“I’m hoping to have [the charges] disposed of before then, either to have the summons voided or to have the charges dismissed,” Osterreicher said.
If convicted, Alfiky could face a fine of up to $250 and up to 15 days in prison under state law.
Osterreicher told the Tracker that Alfiky’s press credential was returned to him on Feb. 14.
The New York City Police Department’s 7th Precinct in Manhattan. Journalist Amr Alfiky was arrested and detained there and had his NYPD press credential confiscated while he was documenting an arrest on Feb. 11, 2020.
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