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 2020-10-26 19:20:39.432898+00:00,2023-11-01 15:35:18.004690+00:00,Unicorn Riot reporter assaulted by crowd defending Columbus statue in Philadelphia,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/unicorn-riot-reporter-assaulted-crowd-defending-columbus-statue-philadelphia/,2023-11-01 15:35:17.878583+00:00,,,,"Assault, Equipment Damage",,,camera: count of 1,Christopher Schiano (Unicorn Riot),,2020-06-14,False,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania (PA),39.95238,-75.16362,"
A reporter for nonprofit media outlet Unicorn Riot was hit repeatedly while he filmed protesters who said they were defending a statue of Christopher Columbus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 14, 2020.
The night before, on June 13, a group of vigilantes had gathered at South Philadelphia’s Marconi Plaza to defend its Columbus statue. Monuments of the Italian explorer and other figures across the country had been toppled or vandalized during continuing protests sparked by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That evening, Schiano had filmed a group of men carrying bats and guns at the statue before he was assaulted and had his bike tires slashed.
On June 14, a much larger crowd of demonstrators claiming to defend the statue converged on Marconi Plaza, drawing counterprotesters. Schiano said when he arrived in the late afternoon, police were trying to separate the two sides but failed to keep them apart, resulting in several heated confrontations.
In one video Unicorn Riot shared on Twitter that night, Schiano asks a man if he can tell him what was going on.
“How about I beat you the fuck up? Get the fuck out of here,” says the man before walking away.
Another man sitting next to Schiano then says: “Listen, you’re not supposed to be here, like, videoing everyone, you know what I’m saying?”
It then appears Schiano is repeatedly hit by different members of the group surrounding him over the course of 30 seconds. Schiano said his camcorder was smashed into a tree by one of the people in the group, damaging the equipment.
Footage from a 6abc Action News reporter captured part of the incident, showing a crowd converging on Schiano and attacking him as he filmed. “Kill him!” a voice can be heard shouting. “That’s the one from yesterday!” another voice yells as Schiano is punched and shoved.
In video footage from the aftermath of the incident, members of the crowd can be heard taunting Schiano and threatening bodily harm as police officers intervene to keep them away from the reporter.
Like the previous evening, the assaults on Schiano appeared to come from members of the group that said they were there to protect the Columbus statue.
Schiano told the Tracker that at another point, he was standing near a police officer when a man came and tackled him to the ground. He added that at several points, people in the crowd tried to take his phone from him.
“I was standing within inches of a cop when this happened, too, who didn’t do anything,” he said.
He added that he also saw assaults on counterprotesters by members of the group purporting to defend the statue that didn’t attract police intervention.
The Philadelphia Police Department declined to comment on the incident.
Schiano said he tried to leave the plaza several times that evening, only to realize he was being followed, at which point he decided to stay, he said.
Schiano said he has covered dangerous and traumatic events previously, like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017, where he was also attacked.
“This felt like that,” he said. “It was like the stress and adrenaline of things I’ve experienced before, but dialed up to 1,000.”
He told the Tracker that he had slight swelling on his lip where he got punched and “serious bruising” under his right arm from the blows he received.
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 protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
On June 13, 2020, Unicorn Riot reporter Chris Schiano was physically assaulted and saw his bike’s tires slashed while filming protesters who claimed to be protecting a statue of Christopher Columbus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
After statues — including some depicting Christopher Columbus — were toppled or vandalized in cities across the country during protests over the police killing of George Floyd, a group of individuals stationed themselves at South Philadelphia’s Marconi Plaza on June 13 saying they were protecting the Columbus statue there.
Schiano told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he headed to Marconi Plaza after he saw a brief news article online that featured a photo of an armed man by the statue. Upon arriving on his bicycle, Schiano was quickly confronted by men asking who he was and what he was doing. He said he attempted to calm the situation and explained he was there as a journalist. However, he was assaulted within minutes of his arrival after he took out his camcorder and began filming.
In one video Unicorn Riot tweeted that evening, Schiano appeared to be in a confrontation with several men who had come to the statue.
“Sir, I’m just here taking a video of you with your bat,” says Schiano. “You’re here at the Columbus statue with a bat. That seems newsworthy to me. That’s all. Any of you guys want to tell me why you’re out here today?”
One man tells him that they are there “protecting history.” Then, the man with a bat Schiano was originally addressing begins taunting him, saying “look at you, you’re fucking shaking. How scared are you?” As he says that somebody else appears to hit Schiano.
In a second video, a man in a red-shirt walks up to Schiano holding a baseball bat and appears to slap him. About 14 seconds later, Schiano says “this guy just hit me in the head” and the camera pans to a man in the group surrounding Schiano hauling away his bicycle. Schiano can be heard asking for his bicycle to be returned before the camera shakes violently and there are sounds of a struggle. The clip ends with a man slashing the bike’s tires with a knife.
After those assaults, Schiano said police came and formed a line in front of him. He said some protesters continued to try to come at him and a video he posted on Twitter showed one being shoved away by police while yelling “I don’t want him fucking filming.”
Later, a police officer approached Schiano and ordered him to leave the area, saying that it was a “volatile situation” and Schiano’s presence was “aggravating the situation.”
Schiano told the officer he was there as a journalist to document what was going on.
“And you’re inciting a riot,” said the officer.
Fearing arrest if he did not comply, Schiano left the area.
“I walked away with my slashed tires bike under threat of arrest to these cheering sounds of basically everybody who was there,” he told the Tracker. “It was like they’d just won a baseball game because the cops told me to leave.”
Contacted by the Tracker, the Philadelphia Police Department declined to comment.
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 protests across the country. Find these incidents here.
On May 30, 2020, a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, struck Unicorn Riot journalist Chris Schiano’s phone with a baton while Schiano was covering an arrest.
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.
The incident occurred around 10 p.m. on the night of May 30, while Schiano was covering a group of police officers arresting a young black man. He had been live-streaming the protests for Unicorn Riot, a non-profit media collective based in known for its extensive and sympathetic coverage of street demonstrations.
Unicorn Riot later published a video on Twitter showing Schiano’s interaction with the police officers.
Philly police pin young black man to the ground with their knees, swat our field reporter with a baton for filming the scene.
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) May 31, 2020
"Beat it."
"I'm a journalist, sir!"
"I don't care what you are. Beat it." pic.twitter.com/llguNcdTlx
As seen in the video, Schiano approached the officers, who had pinned the young man to the ground. As Schiano moved closer to document the man’s arrest, an officer appeared and waved his baton at Schiano.
Schiano identified himself as a journalist, and the officer said, “I don’t care what you are, beat it!” and struck his phone with his baton, bringing the video to an abrupt end.
Schiano said that, after he was forced to stop filming, one of the officers told him, “You’re not essential,” and suggested that he was in violation of Philadelphia’s 8 p.m. curfew. The curfew, which exempts “persons with essential duties,” is not supposed to apply to members of the media.
Schiano told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was wearing a press pass during the incident. He said the altercation was “fairly minor” and he did not suffer any injuries, but he was upset that the police stopped him from documenting an arrest.
“This seems fairly egregious if the First Amendment is supposed to be real,” he said.
Schiano said that Philadelphia police officers similarly attacked him with batons in 2016, while he was documenting protests around the Democratic National Convention, and in 2018, while he was documenting a demonstration outside of a federal prison.
“Cops here are quite proficient swatting phone cameras with those little metal batons,” he said. “It was clearly a motion they are used to making for the specific reason of not getting filmed.”
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.
While filming an arrest during protests in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a police officer knocked the phone from Unicorn Riot journalist Chris Schiano’s hand with a baton, ending his recording.
",None,None,None,None,False,None,[],None,None,False,law enforcement,None,None,False,False,None,None,law enforcement,yes,False,None,[],None,None,None,None,None,None,False,None,,"Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter 1 year, Black Lives Matter 2020, protest",,, 2017-08-15 13:20:44.701047+00:00,2020-03-18 19:43:38.999310+00:00,Unicorn Riot journalist attacked while reporting in Charlottesville,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/unicorn-riot-journalist-attacked-while-reporting-charlottesville/,2020-03-18 19:43:38.906472+00:00,,,,Assault,White Supremacist Mob Carrying Torches Attacks Anti-Racist Protesters in Charlottesville (http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=18028) via Unicorn Riot,,,Christopher Schiano (Unicorn Riot),,2017-08-11,False,Charlottesville,Virginia (VA),38.02931,-78.47668,"Christopher Schiano — a reporter for Unicorn Riot, a radical, non-profit journalism organization — was attacked while attempting to interview participants in a white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the night of Aug. 11, 2017.
In an interview with the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Schiano said that he and a colleague were repeatedly pushed and shoved by white nationalist marchers as they tried to interview Jason Kessler, one of the leaders of the march, and other participants.
A video recorded by Schiano on his phone and published by Unicorn Riot shows Schiano interviewing one of the marchers, before being interrupted by a second marcher. The second marcher complains that Schiano is asking irrelevant questions and then reaches for his phone.
"OK, that's it," the second participant says before reaching for the phone. "That's a fucking rabbit hole."
The march finished near a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia camp, where the marchers aggressively confronted a small group of college students and anti-racist protesters. At that point, Schiano said, one of the marchers hit him in the head with a tiki torch.
When we asked other #UniteTheRight attendees about their 'white genocide' claims, some of them responded violently pic.twitter.com/erxgZ3aFG1
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) August 12, 2017
Our reporter repeatedly had phone thrown to ground and was hit in face with a tiki torch by Jason Kessler's security after we asked him Qs
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) August 12, 2017
A screenshot from a video captured by a Unicorn Riot journalist shows a man reaching for the reporter's camera.
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