Cops have 'attacked 120 reporters and arrested more than 33 during George Floyd protests: Bill de Blasio says journalists should 'never be detained' as news crews claim they are being shot at and roughed-up by police during the chaos
By Luke Kenton
Daily Mail
June 3, 2020
Reporters
and news photographers across the country have described being
harrassed, arrested and having projectiles shot at them by police while
covering demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd over the
last week, as tensions rise and trust erodes.
The US Press Freedom Tracker said that as of Tuesday afternoon, 211 press freedom violations have been reported since May 28.
More
than 33 journalists have reported being arrested, 143 assaulted and at
least 35 reporters have had their equipment damaged while covering the
protests. Nieman Lab reported that 120 of those assaults were made by
police.
‘Although in some incidents it
is possible the journalists were hit or affected accidentally, in the
majority of the cases we have recorded the journalists are clearly
identifiable as press, and it is clear that they are being deliberately
targeted,’ Nieman Lab reported.
In New York City last night, NYPD officers
surrounded, shoved and yelled expletives at two Associated Press
journalists covering the protests.
Portions
of the incident were captured on video by journalist Robert Bumsted,
who was working with photographer Maye-E Wong to document the protests
in lower Manhattan.
The video shows
more than a half-dozen officers confronting the journalists as they
filmed and took photographs of police ordering protesters to leave the
area near Fulton and Broadway shortly after an 8pm curfew took effect.
An
officer, using an expletive, orders them to go home. Bumsted is heard
on video explaining the press are considered ‘essential workers’ and are
allowed to be on the streets. An officer responds ‘I don't give a
shit.’ Another tells Bumsted ‘get the fuck out of here you piece of
shit.’
Bumsted and Wong said officers
shoved them, separating from one another and pushing them toward
Bumsted's car, which was parked nearby.
At
one point Bumsted said he was pinned against his car. He is heard on
video telling the officer that Wong has his keys and he needs them to
leave the area. Officers then allowed Wong to approach and the two got
in the vehicle and left.
Both journalists were wearing AP identification and repeatedly identified themselves as media.
‘They didn't care,’ Wong said. ‘They were just shoving me.’
In response to the footage of the incident, NYPD officials said they would review the matter ‘as soon as possible’.
New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged the NYPD Wednesday to investigate why
members of the media were being detained and accosted while covering the
protests.
'No journalist should be detained, ever,' de Blasio warned.
In
response, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea claimed that protesters in the
city were falsely identifying themselves as reporters in attempts to
escape punishment, confusing officer's efforts to control the crowds.
'We've
had some people purporting to be press that are actually lying,' Shea
said Wednesday. 'Maybe these things take too long to resolve. We're not
perfect - we do the best we can in the situation and whether its
essential workers or press.
'The
reality is, in chaotic situations - these things take a few moments to
sort out,' shea continued, adding that his department have 'full respect
for the press'.
Journalists have faced aggressive police
and protesters during demonstrations across the U.S. over the killing of
Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a white officer Derek
Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd's neck in Minneapolis.
Many
reporters, photographers and other members of the press said the
treatment they’ve experienced over the last week has reflected an
erosion of trust in the news media that has seeped from the top down,
beginning with the Trump administration and the president’s claims of
‘fake news’ and journalists being the ‘enemy of the people’.
‘This
story, in particular, it seems journalists are really being targeted by
the police,’ Barbara Davidson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
photojournalist, told the New York Times. ‘That’s not something I have
experienced before to this degree.’
It’s
common in autocratic countries for journalists to be arrested during
protests and riots, but seldom seen in democracies –particularly in the
United States, where freedom of the press is guaranteed by the First
Amendment.
Last Friday, Minnesota State
Patrol officers arrested a CNN journalist live on air. The same day, a
TV reporter in Louisville, Kentucky, was shot at my police using pepper
bullets.
In the first incident, CNN’s
Omar Jiminez was put in handcuffs and led away from his team of
producers at 5.11am CT on Friday after the team was moved down the
street by police in riot gear.
According
to one of his colleagues, the crew was told he was being arrested for
refusing to move when he'd been told to but he was heard live on air
telling the officers: 'Put us back to where you want us - wherever you'd
want us we'll go. Just let us know.'
Jimenez told them they were live on air with CNN and was put in handcuffs.
He asked: 'Do you mind telling me why I am under arrest sir? Why am I under arrest sir' then was led away.
Two
of his colleagues from the same team were also arrested. The trio were
put in a police van and were driven to a precinct but were released
around 90 minutes later after CNN President Jeff Zucker and Minnesota
Gov. Tim Walz intervened.
Minnesota State Police has since claimed
on Twitter the crew were released once they 'confirmed' they were
reporters - which they'd already declared live on air, minutes before
Jimenez was put in handcuffs.
Just
hours later in Louisville, WAVE 3 News reporter Kaitlin Rust and
photojournalist James Dobson were struck by pepper balls fired by an
LMPD officer who appeared to be aiming at them as Rust covered the
protests.
‘I’m getting shot! I’m getting shot!’ Rust chillingly exclaimed on air.
The news anchor from inside the studio asks Rust if she’s ok, to which she replied: ‘Rubber bullets, rubber bullets.’
Early Saturday, a Fox News reporter was pummelled and chased by protesters who had gathered outside the White House.
Fox’s Leland Vittert was rattled following the Washington attack that he said was clearly targeted at his news organization.
‘We took a good thumping,’ he later recalled of the incident.
During
a live take he was interrupted by a group of protesters who shouted
obscenities directed at Fox. Flanked by two security guards, he and
photographer Christian Galdabini walked away from Washington’s Lafayette
Park trailed by an angry group before riot police dispersed them.
Vittert said there were no markings on him
or the crew’s equipment to identify them as from Fox. But he said
during the demonstration, one man continually asked him who he worked
for.
Virrert didn’t answer, but the man
found a picture of the reporter on his cell phone and shouted to other
protesters that he was from Fox.
‘The
protesters stopped protesting whatever it was they were protesting and
turned on us,’ he said, ‘and that was a very different feeling.’
He
compared the incident to being chased away from a demonstration in
Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011, by a group who were shouting, ‘Fox
News hates Muslims’.
Freelance
journalist Linda Tirado, 37, was left blind in one of her eyes while
photographing a protest in Minnesota the same day, having been struck
with what she believed was a rubber bullet or a marking round.
Tirado had been lining up her next shot, when she put her camera down for a moment and suddenly felt her face ‘explode’.
Tirado told DailyMail.com: 'Protesters said police were tear-gassing. I put on my goggles and respirator.
'It was pretty chaotic - people were moving in every direction. Then I kind of felt my face explode.'
The mother of two young girls, who had
also photographed the protest in the city the night prior, added: 'I put
up my hands and shouted "I'm press, I'm press."'
With
her eyes filled with blood, protesters 'acted as my eyes when I
couldn't see past the blood and the swelling' and got her to hospital.
'I
was in surgery 20 minutes after that,' she told DailyMail.com after
returning from hospital on Saturday. 'I woke up this morning with an eye
patch on.'
Doctors have told her she
is going to be left with scarring on her face and will be permanently
blind in one eye - although she hopes in the future she may be able to
gain the ability to see light and shadows through the damaged eye.
Similarly,
KPCC reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez was struck in the throat by a rubber
bullet while he was interviewing a protester in Long Beach, California.
Just as Rust and Tirado reported, Guzman-Lopez believes the officer deliberately aimed at him.
‘I
talked to him for about a minute and just as I was finishing talking to
him — right after I said: “Thank you,” I heard a pop and I felt
something, you know, the bottom of my throat and I saw something bounced
onto the ground, and then I ran,’ he later recalled.
‘Nobody else in that intersection was doing anything like I was doing there…I was obviously interviewing someone.’
At a press conference on Monday, Long Beach's Mayor and Chief of Police addressed the incident and apologized to the reporter.
‘I've
personally also communicated with him, apologized to him as well, and
we'll look forward to discussing that in the days ahead,’ Mayor Robert
Garcia said.
In Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan was also
forced to apologize to journalists from the Detroit Free Press and
Detroit News who were seemingly targeted by police.
Duggan’s
apology also came during a Monday press conference, saying: ‘They had a
lot of courage to be on the other side of the police-line with the
protestors, and I apologize to you.’
Detroit
News reporter Christine MacDonald told her station she had been filming
an arrest on Sunday at Grand Circus Park when she was handcuffed by an
officer.
As dozens of other journalists
have reported, she repeatedly identified herself as press, telling the
officer she had credentials. Despite this, she was escorted to the
officer’s squad car and detained briefly before being released.
Meanwhile,
Free Press reporter JC Reindl posted on Twitter that he was chased down
by a Detroit police officer during a protest on Saturday. The officer
pepper-sprayed him in the face, despite the Reindl holding up his press
badge to show he was a reporter.
Mayor
Duggan called the editors of both outlets to discuss the incidents that
inhibited the reporters’ ability to cover the protests.
‘We need to work together to make sure that the media has clear identification,’ Duggan said, according to Detroit News.
‘We
do respect the heroism that you showed the last three days and I want
all the reporters to know that we are going to make adjustments to use
every opportunity to keep you safe,’ he added.
In the late night drama at Lafayette Park, our team (@Joshrepp
on camera) was sprayed with pepper spray though we were away from
protesters and clearly press (camera, microphone, etc). 3 hours later my
arm was still burning. Others got it far worse.
Yesterday, an Australian reporter for Sunrise was accosted by police in Washington DC.
An
officer was filmed using his shield to smash Amelia Brace's cameraman
Tim Myers in the middle of her live cross to the studio before another
officer hit her in the back with his baton.
Brace
said they were both hit by rubber bullets prior to the altercation, as
police used batons and tear gas to push hundreds of protesters back away
from the White House.
Brace shouted, 'We're media!' as officers targeted her and Myers.
'Cameraman Tim Meyers and I are both okay. Pretty bruised, but okay,' Brace later told Channel 7.
CNN’s
Josh Replogle and Alexander Marquardt had been covering the same
protests near DC’s Lafayette Park in the early hours of Wednesday
morning when he and his crew were pepper sprayed by the National Guard.
‘An otherwise peaceful day ends with unrest,’ Marquardt tweeted. ‘I really don’t know how that helped anything.
‘Our
team was sprayed with pepper spray though we were away from protesters
and clearly press (camera, microphone, etc),’ he continued in a thread.
‘3 hours later my arm was still burning. Others got it far worse.’
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