Journalist convicted on arrest charge from Chicago convention protest

Independent journalist Sylvie Evans was arrested by Chicago Police Department officers on Aug. 20, 2024, while covering a pro-Palestinian protest planned to coincide with the nearby Democratic National Convention. She accepted a plea deal on Jan. 6, 2025, and was sentenced to a day of probation.

On the second day of the convention, a small gathering of protesters converged around 7 p.m. outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago’s West Loop section. The demonstrators and police, who far outnumbered them, clashed repeatedly. The protesters were later ordered to leave the area and police began arresting them, Block Club Chicago reported.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented seven other journalists arrested or assaulted at the protest. Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling claimed that three arrested photojournalists had not complied with officers’ orders to disperse.

Evans, who runs the Colorado People’s Press, a small independent outlet that covers local news in Colorado, described police officers’ behavior as confusing and intense.

“All night they were screaming,” she told the Tracker. “They just kept saying ‘move back’ or ‘get on the sidewalk,’ but even if you’re on the sidewalk, it didn’t seem to matter that much. Wherever you’re trying to go, that’s where they want to be. All the instructions were super unclear.

“I was as careful as I’ve ever been during any protest,” she added. “I was always on the very edge, as far back on the very edge as I could be. I listened to all of the instructions. I was always on the sidewalk. This was completely different from anything I’ve ever dealt with before. I was kind of surprised by how aggressive they were. And how they just seemed to fucking hate everyone there.”

She told the Tracker that she and a group of protesters were kettled by police on the sidewalk a few blocks away from the consulate. Police issued a dispersal order and Evans attempted to leave, but was directed twice to different areas and then grabbed by a police officer who pulled her arms behind her back, bruising her shoulder.

Evans told the Tracker that she doesn’t think she was targeted for arrest as press. “They were just mad at whatever,” she said.

While in handcuffs, Evans, who was wearing a helmet labeled “press,” said she was approached by Tom Ahern, deputy director of news affairs and communications for the police department, who told her that she was not press because she hadn’t procured police credentials.

Evans said she spent four hours in a police wagon, then eight hours in a cell, before being released around 8:30 the next morning, with paperwork listing a disorderly conduct charge.

Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, told the Tracker the day after the protest that in advance of the convention, he had offered the Chicago Police Department a training on interacting with the press similar to one he gave the Milwaukee Police Department before the Republican National Convention in July.

“They told me that they had been providing First Amendment training and they didn’t need anything from NPPA,” Osterreicher said. “Given the events of last night, I would have to say that that alleged training was an abysmal failure.”

In January, Evans accepted the charge in exchange for no fine and one day of supervision, and the case was closed, Evans’ attorney confirmed to the Tracker.

After the case ended, Evans told the Tracker that she hasn’t been reporting since her arrest “partially because I can’t risk something like that happening again.”

“I’ll probably get back to it eventually but I’m taking a break for a while,” she said.