Journalist pulled off concrete planter box by Chicago police at protest

Independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg was physically pulled by a Chicago Police Department officer while documenting a pro-Palestinian protest planned to coincide with the nearby Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20, 2024.

A small gathering of protesters, unaffiliated with and more militant than other groups that had organized larger demonstrations earlier in the week, 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.

Berg told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the police response to protests up to that point of the week had been restrained, but “shit went south” that day. She said she was trying to stay out of the way of the police when an officer grabbed her without warning.

“I was up on a planter, behind a bush filming — you do what you do to get the shot — when all of a sudden a cop came up from behind me and yanked me out of the bush, onto the ground. And he just started yelling at me,” Berg said.

In footage captured in the moments leading up to the incident, police can be seen corralling a small group of protesters while Berg and other journalists film from atop a concrete planter box. Near the end of a clip, an officer shouts, “Get down from there! Get down! Get them down!” The clip ends and it is unclear how much time passed before Berg was physically pulled from the planter.

Later that evening, a supervisory officer ordered Berg to show him her press credentials and said he was revoking them. She told the Tracker that he seemed shocked when she pushed back.

“I told him: ‘You’re not in charge of my credentials, you don’t get to revoke anything. There’s still a First Amendment in this country,’” Berg said.

Shortly after the encounter, a different officer filmed or photographed both her face and her press credentials, which are from Los Angeles, where she’s based. Berg said that she observed officers similarly documenting journalists’ identities that night.

When reached by email for comment, the Chicago Police Department directed the Tracker to CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling’s news conferences during the DNC, declining to respond to questions about officers’ aggression toward journalists and attempts to revoke press credentials.

“We want to allow you to do your jobs. We really do. But there are times when we’re calling a mass arrest or we’re attempting to move in, we need you guys to step to the side,” Snelling said of journalists during the Aug. 21 news conference. “If you don’t do that, it’s obstructing us and it makes it harder for us to take the people into custody that we’re trying to take into custody. And what we don’t want is for you to get caught in the middle of it and injured and hurt.”

At least three other journalists were shoved or pulled by officers responding to the protests outside the consulate that day, and at least three were arrested.