Incident details
- Date of incident
- May 30, 2026
- Location
- Newark, New Jersey
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Unknown
Assault
- Equipment damaged
- Actor
- Law enforcement
Equipment Damage
Photojournalist Neil Constantine, at bottom right, falls to the ground outside a federal detention center after New Jersey State Police push through their own barricade during their response to protests at the Newark facility on May 30, 2026.
Photojournalist Neil Constantine was knocked to the ground, damaging his camera flash, as state police advanced on protesters outside a federal detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on May 30, 2026.
Protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility began May 22, when many detainees went on a hunger strike. Members of Congress, state and local lawmakers and rights groups have alleged dire conditions at the facility.
Federal officers responded to the protests with chemical irritants, physical force and arrests, as did state police in the days that followed.
The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of detainee mistreatment.
Constantine told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was on assignment for NurPhoto Agency covering demonstrations May 30, the second day that New Jersey State Police managed the protest response.
Later in the evening, he said, riot officers advanced on the crowd — composed predominantly of press — so he and some fellow journalists moved further back in an attempt to stay out of the officers’ path.
As they continued to move backward, Constantine said, he suddenly fell over a metal barricade, breaking his camera flash and nearly goring himself on the bottom railing. He told the Tracker he’s not certain what exactly happened or whether he was deliberately pushed.
Freelance photojournalist Edna Leshowitz, who documented Constantine’s fall, told the Tracker that an officer had pushed him. Her image of the incident shows that officers from multiple agencies — including the Essex County Sheriff’s Office and Essex County Prosecutor’s Office — were involved in that police line.
Constantine told the Tracker that state police had also knocked him down with a metal barricade earlier that day, and that officers targeted him and a fellow journalist with crowd-control munitions.
In a statement posted to X early May 31, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport wrote that, after a large number of individuals took “aggressive actions” at the facility, “a coalition of state and local law enforcement, including the Newark Police Department and the New Jersey State Police, had to step in to disperse crowds.”
She did not address the use of force against members of the press.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
