Incident details
- Date of incident
- September 3, 2020
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Officers aim projectile launchers during a protest in Rochester, New York, on Sept. 5, 2020. At a demonstration two days earlier, police shot at reporter Will Cleveland with pepper balls.
Reporter Will Cleveland was fired on with pepper projectiles by law enforcement while covering a Black Lives Matter protest in Rochester, New York, on Sept. 3, 2020.
Demonstrators had marched that day to the downtown Public Safety Building in protest of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died by asphyxiation after an encounter with police in March; details surrounding his death came to light only after police body camera footage was released on Sept. 2.
Cleveland, a reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that during the protest a cloud of pepper spray seemingly stretched for half a block and was all but unavoidable around the government office building.
Cleveland said that, while wearing his press badge, he removed himself from the crowd of protesters and stood off to the side by himself to get a better vantage point of the scene.
In a social media post that night, Cleveland wrote that the police had then fired pepper balls directly at him. He told the Tracker he had been standing apart at the time, with his press badge visible.
Throughout the night, Cleveland said, he tried to maintain open communication with the officers, so that he and other journalists from the Democrat and Chronicle — including Executive Editor Michael Kilian and two reporters — would not be in the way of the police advance.
At one point, an officer yelled at the group of journalists, saying that if they didn’t get out of the way, they would be arrested. Cleveland said he tried to stand his ground and explain that he was acting as a reporter, protected by the First Amendment. He said he was not worried about actually being arrested, and continued to report until 1:30 a.m., when the area had cleared of police and protesters.
The Tracker has documented hundreds of assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering “Black Lives Matter” protests across the country in 2020, including more than 10 other incidents in which journalists were assaulted or caught in chemical irritants covering the September 2020 protests in Rochester.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
