Independent journalist held overnight for documenting city curfew in Virginia

Mickey Barker, an independent journalist, was arrested by police in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as he documented the city’s curfew on April 18, 2026.

Barker was recording on his iPhone in the oceanfront area, where an all-ages curfew had been imposed after two earlier shootings in March and April. He told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was looking for local business owners and residents to interview about the effects of the curfew when officers stopped him.

Though the City Council exempted members of the media from the curfew, Barker said he was treated differently because he is an independent journalist.

In a video Barker posted of the interaction, an officer asks, “Sir, do you have credentials?”

“The First Amendment, yes, of the Constitution,” Barker replies.

“That’s not how that works,” says the officer, who was joined by other police asking Barker to leave the oceanfront area.

Although credentials are not a requirement under the city ordinance, the officers demanded them after Barker asserted that he was an independent journalist gathering content for a story.

“You’re not press,” an officer was heard telling the journalist, before Barker insisted that he hadn’t broken any law and refused to provide his identification. The officer then took Barker’s phone and detained him in an overheated police van for about 45 minutes before taking him to jail.

“I’m an Iraq veteran, and I’ve never sweat so hard,” Barker told the Tracker, adding, “They handcuffed me so tight that I had numbness and tingling in my fingers for about three days afterward.”

Barker was released from jail early the next morning, and his case was dismissed April 24, according to Barker and his attorney, Tim Anderson, who say they’re preparing a civil suit.

“The First Amendment issue is as simple as this — CNN could have been there, but this guy couldn’t,” Anderson told The Virginian-Pilot. “That’s the shocking part of this. If the guy had a CNN jacket on, he would have been allowed to be down there, but this independent, amateur journalist gets put in handcuffs.”

Barker documents happenings in his community to a small following on his Facebook page, titled Billy the Billy of Rights Billy Goat, which contains occasional political commentary and documents Barker participating in protests.

“Anybody who documents and tries to make some of it publicly accessible is a journalist,” he told the Tracker. “Journalism is an activity, not an occupation. It’s the activity that is protected in our constitutional rights.”