Video producer thrown to ground, arrested while covering New Jersey protest

Freelance video producer Anita Wise was tossed to the ground and arrested while covering a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its treatment of detainees in Newark, New Jersey, on May 31, 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 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.

Wise told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she had been covering the protests since May 29, providing footage to news shows and Storyful, a digital media agency.

On May 31, she arrived at the protest just before a 9 p.m. curfew went into effect around the perimeter of Delaney Hall. Wise estimated approximately 20-30 protesters were at an intersection near the facility, outside the perimeter. Facing them were an estimated 200 New Jersey State Police and Newark police officers. Wise said she was standing off to the side with some 20 other journalists.

Suddenly and without warning, police cars drove from the opposite end of the street toward the protest, and the line of officers started pushing the group of protesters and journalists toward the cars. More officers came forward and eventually formed a semicircle around the group against a wall, kettling them.

Wise said she asked an officer what was happening, and he said everyone was getting arrested, even journalists. After a short time, another officer told the members of the press that they could leave if they had press identification; he then looked at Wise and said, “You’re not a journalist.”

“It seems like they made the assumption that I wasn’t a journalist, just automatically,” she said. “I felt a little profiled in that moment.”

“I had a camera, but I did not have my ID with me,” Wise said. “I don’t think that they really looked at ID for everybody,” she added, but rather let people go if they had a camera rig or visible identification.

Independent reporter Chuck Modiano, who was also arrested that night, posted a video on Instagram of Wise while they both were detained in the kettle.

Wise told the Tracker that state troopers were grabbing people out of the kettle one by one, tossing them to the ground and arresting them. The troopers then handed them over to the Newark police.

“I just stood there with my hands above my head,” away from the others, waiting for a state trooper to arrest her, Wise said. Eventually, an officer came and aggressively grabbed her, threw her to the ground and put zip ties on her wrists. She said that while she wasn’t injured during the arrest, “It was over the top.”

Wise said the ties were so tight they left a scar on her wrist over a month later. She added that they had to cut her camera strap to remove her camera after placing her in restraints.

Wise was put in a police bus along with the other protesters and journalists and taken to a nearby station for processing. At least three other journalists were violently arrested that night.

At the station, she continued to tell officers that she was a journalist, but “it was clear that they weren’t going to do anything about it.”

Wise said she was confined to a holding cell with 29 women, despite having a capacity for just 14.

Newark police processed those arrested very slowly, she said. She was finally released at around 5 p.m. on June 1, after more than 20 hours in custody.

Wise was initially charged with resisting arrest and rioting, according to her and to court records reviewed by the Tracker. On June 8, the resisting arrest charge was dismissed and the rioting charge was downgraded to a misdemeanor failure to disperse. Wise said she has a court appearance on Aug. 6.

She added that while she was detained, her car was towed and she received a ticket for parking illegally, which she disputed. Because the car was a rental, she had to go through extra steps to get it back.

Wise said the experience made her “think twice” about reporting on situations like Delaney Hall and realize that she needs to be more cautious.

The New Jersey State Police Office of Public Information and the Newark Police Division did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

In a statement posted to X on May 31, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport wrote that state police cleared the area outside Delaney Hall because a group of people refused to leave after the curfew order. She did not address the use of force against or arrest of members of the press.