An unidentified San Francisco Chronicle photographer was robbed at gunpoint in West Oakland, California, on Dec. 3, 2021.

The Chronicle reported that the photographer was on assignment when multiple armed assailants stole two cameras before fleeing in a vehicle. An Oakland Police Department spokesperson said in a statement that the robbery was reported just before 3:30pm. Police officials also said the photographer was not injured during the incident. OPD did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.

At least two members of a KATU News crew were assaulted by a group of individuals while covering unrest in Portland, Oregon, following a high-profile jury verdict in Wisconsin on Nov. 19, 2021.

Protests began after a jury acquitted 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of first-degree intentional homicide and four other felony charges for killing two men and wounding a third in Kenosha in August 2020. At that time, the city was the site of heightened Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black resident, during a summer of ongoing civil unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota in May. In 2020, Downtown Portland saw more than 100 straight days of protests, many centered around the Multnomah County Justice Center.

Protests were centered again around the justice center on Nov. 19. In a video published by KATU, an individual in black bloc — a technique of dressing in all black to avoid identification — can be seen crossing the street to where the news crew is standing and asks what the crew is filming. “The protest,” one of the journalists responds. The individual then asks why, to which the journalist responds, “To send a message for you.”

“You’re not trying to send our message,” the individual says. “You’re not here trying to get our message.”

During the interaction, approximately six other people approach the news crew, which begins to move down the street away from the protest. An individual appears to reach out and grab the journalist who was answering the questions, but a voice can be heard saying, “Let them walk.” At some point during the interaction, a smoke bomb appears to be activated in the center of the group.

Multiple individuals continued to walk alongside the crew, with one wrapping his arm around the first journalist, when a voice calls out “Stop filming,” to which a second person responds, “Yeah, we’re going to turn that camera off right now. We’re advising you to turn that camera off right now. Turn that fucking camera off right fucking now!”

As the camera operator attempts to continue walking away, another individual runs up to him screaming that he will break the camera. In the ensuing scuffle, there is an audible crack of something breaking.

KATU reported that the news crew was uninjured but the camera was damaged. Neither the station’s news director nor general manager could immediately be reached for comment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker also documented the assault of one KATU photojournalist and damage to their equipment here.

The following day, Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty released a statement upholding the right of the press to film and condemning the attack on the KATU news crew:

"I’m still learning the full details of what occurred last night but want to make it clear that attacking or intimidating the press is never acceptable, such as what happened to a KATU crew last night."

In 2020, the Tracker documented seven assaults of journalists covering protests surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. Find documented aggressions against journalists following the November 2021 Rittenhouse verdict here and at Black Lives Matter protests here.

Independent videographer and photographer Emily Molli was assaulted while gathering footage of an anti-vaccine rally outside Los Angeles City Hall in California on Sept. 18, 2021.

Molli told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was doused with an oily substance and her camera equipment was damaged while covering what organizers called a “fight for medical freedom” rally.

She told the Tracker she had not initially planned on covering the rally because of recent violent eruptions that have occurred at these events but changed her mind and began photographing the speakers several feet away from the crowd. Molli estimated there were close to 50 people at the rally in addition to about two dozen others who were watching from the sidewalk.

Molli said she had not taken her cell phone or her usual press credentials and helmet labeled “PRESS” because her last-minute decision to photograph the event had not given her enough time to prepare.

However, after covering these rallies in the past, Molli said she believed other reporters covering the event would recognize her and at the very least her professional camera would identify her as a reporter.

According to Molli, she was gathering footage of the protest for approximately five minutes when an individual walked up behind her and started hovering over her shoulder.

Jake Lee Green, an independent video journalist for News2Share, a collective that sells footage to news outlets, was slapped, kicked and sprayed with a chemical irritant while covering an anti-vaccination rally in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 14, 2021.

Green told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was covering the “stop socialism, choose freedom march against medical tyranny” rally, a demonstration outside LA’s City Hall, where demonstrators gathered to protest against mask and vaccination mandates.

When counterprotesters arrived, Green moved away from the gathering to record a brawl that had broken out on the outskirts of the rally. Footage of the incident shared on Twitter shows an individual slap Green, who was wearing a black ballistic helmet and flak jacket, both labeled “PRESS.”

Video footage shows the same person then swinging a helmet at Green while a second individual kicked Green and then grabbed at his camera in an attempt to pull it away. In footage captured by Green, he is heard identifying himself as a journalist.

Green said he backed away from the crowd to readjust his camera equipment and refocus his camera on the escalating violence when someone sprayed him with pepper gel.

“I couldn't see anything and then I felt someone grab my camera, start pulling at it, and that’s when my mic broke off and damaged the screen on the side,” Green said.

Green said the attack damaged his microphone but he attempted to keep recording until the pain from the irritant became unbearable.

Green told the Tracker he did not file a police report about the incident. At least two other journalists were assaulted by individuals during the rally.

Grant Stern, executive editor of the news arm of the progressive political organization Occupy Democrats, said he was forcefully removed from a press conference at the Hialeah Gardens Museum in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, on Aug. 5, 2021.

Stern told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was alerted to a press conference with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers via email from the governor’s press office. The email noted that the press conference was open to all and did not require an RSVP. When he arrived, Stern said, he identified himself as a reporter for Occupy Democrats and was granted entry.

“I went into the press conference like anybody else and I was there recording with my audio recorder,” Stern said, “and everything else I did with a cell phone or hand-held camera, recording all of these speeches.”

Approximately 30 minutes into the press conference, Stern said, a congressional staffer approached him and asked him to identify himself and who he worked for. Stern said he identified himself again and offered to show them his Twitter profile and author bio, as he does not carry press credentials with him. When the staffer asked him to leave, Stern said he had complied with the procedure to enter and would leave only if asked to do so by a museum employee.

During the Q&A session at the end of the press conference 15 minutes later, he said, Stern began to ask a question about the House’s proposed Jan. 6 commission. In his footage of the incident, Stern’s camera suddenly begins shaking and moving backward as he attempts to finish his question. Stern said four officers dragged him out of the room on his heels and ordered that he leave the museum.

A demonstrator sprayed the camera of Ford Fischer, co-founder and editor-in-chief of News2Share, with paint while he was documenting demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 22, 2021.

Far-right demonstrators had planned for the “summer of love” protest in support of the “political prisoners” of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to take place downtown, The Intercept reported, but had moved the location that morning to an abandoned Kmart parking lot in east Portland following the announcement of several counterprotests.

The Portland Police Bureau announced ahead of the dueling demonstrations that officers would not intervene in any resulting clashes.

“You should not expect to see police officers standing in the middle of the crowd trying to keep people apart,” Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement. “People should keep themselves apart and avoid physical confrontation.”

Fischer told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that far-right demonstrators had gathered and started drinking beer in the parking lot, with speeches beginning at approximately 2:30 p.m. After an hour and a half, Fischer said, tensions rose and conflicts began breaking out when some counterprotesters in black bloc arrived at the Kmart.

“Very suddenly everything changed tone,” Fischer said. “You had Proud Boys who were beginning to shoot paintballs and so forth at these antifascists, who were shooting mace and fireworks.”

At approximately 4:10 p.m., according to Fischer’s livestream, one of the counterprotesters approached independent journalist Maranie Rae Staab and began shouting at her. When Staab attempted to speak with the counterprotester, another protester grabbed and destroyed her phone while others threw her to the ground, maced and struck her with a paint balloon.

“We, the rest of the media, sort of pulled her away from them,” Fischer said. “As she was recovering, one person in black bloc approached and sprayed all of the press with paint again.”

Fischer said it appeared that the individual was using a fire extinguisher filled with paint, adapting what he said was a common leftist tactic of using paint balloons to mark “combatants” or damage electronic devices.

Independent journalist Maranie Rae Staab was assaulted multiple times and several pieces of her equipment were damaged while she was covering clashing demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 22, 2021.

Far-right demonstrators had planned for the “summer of love” protest in support of the “political prisoners” of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to take place downtown, The Intercept reported, but had moved the location that morning to an abandoned Kmart parking lot in east Portland following the announcement of several counterprotests.

The Portland Police Bureau announced ahead of the dueling demonstrations that officers would not intervene in any resulting clashes.

“You should not expect to see police officers standing in the middle of the crowd trying to keep people apart,” Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement. “People should keep themselves apart and avoid physical confrontation.”

Staab told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was covering the planned demonstration for the Russian video news agency Ruptly and had arrived at the demonstration before its 2:30 p.m. start. Staab said that approximately 200 demonstrators had gathered, and the general mood was calm as the crowd listened to speeches from a platform.

At around 4 p.m., Staab said, tensions rose when left-wing counterprotesters in black bloc arrived; far-right demonstrators began firing airsoft guns and antifascists responded with fireworks and clouds of mace.

Staab told the Tracker that when both sides fell back, many of the journalists present found themselves in the middle of a no-man’s land between the two groups.

“I was first sprayed with something from behind — I didn’t see the person so I only saw it in a video — with what I thought was WD-40,” Staab said, referring to a rust-prevention spray. “It definitely wasn’t mace. Someone else said it was hornet spray or wasp spray or something.”

Footage of the incident shows an individual quickly running past her and deliberately targeting her with the spray.

Not long after the initial attack, Staab said, an antifa protester approached her and began belittling her personally, accusing her of endangering the community with her recent trip to Colombia and calling her a “slut.”

“That group has never liked being documented. There’s been 10 to 15 that have been on the ground pretty consistently for the past year,” Staab said. “There are people that take particular issue with me.”

Cameraman Marcin Wyszogrodzki, who works for the Polish TV channel TVN Discovery, was trying to film a live broadcast from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2021, when members of the public prevented his team from broadcasting and threw objects at them.

Wyszogrodzki told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that just before 11 a.m., members of the public in the park began making it difficult for him to film the TVN journalist Marcin Wrona and screaming at both him and Wrona.

Normally, Wyszogrodzki said, they would walk away and film somewhere nearby, but in this case the angry people continued to follow them, he said.

“The worst thing was they didn’t want to give up — they would follow us and there was more and more hate against us. They were trying to rip off the wires from the camera. They were behind my back and pulling wires from the camera.

“It was something unusual. It never should happen when you are doing your work,” he said.

“I felt like it was coming to the point when it might turn out very badly for us,” he said.

One of the assailants had ripped a wire from the back of the camera and someone threw water at them and their equipment, but the camera was not damaged. Only a wire was missing, he added.

Wrona told the Tracker that the crew had been covering a U.S. State Department-sponsored declaration calling for freedom in Cuba, signed by the United States and 19 other countries, and a protest against government repression in Cuba.

“First we were approached by an individual with a bullhorn who was yelling something in Spanish straight in our microphone and camera. I asked him to stop doing it as the viewers would not be able to hear a word of our reporting. We moved a few steps over,” Wrona said.

“Later a group of about five people lined up behind my back, blocking the view with their raised signs. I asked them to lower the signs because we would not be able to show how big the protest is.”

As he was about to go on air, the crowd started “yelling something in Spanish and telling us that we were not welcome there. They started physically pushing us out of the park,” he said, confirming that they were prevented from doing the broadcast. Wrona said the equipment displayed the station logo and Wyszogrodzki was carrying press identification.

When the TVN crew decided to pack up and leave, the crowd started punching them, grabbing equipment, spraying water on them and throwing bottles and other objects at them. The Tracker documented Wrona’s assault here.

They managed to get across H street, still being chased by the crowd, and went towards two Metropolitan Police officers on a bicycle patrol. The officers tried to hold back the crowd using their bikes and then called for backup. Finally about 10 officers escorted them to safety, Wrona said.

“We covered at least three or four blocks and the crowd was still attacking us. Finally the police decided to get us into their squad vehicle and their lieutenant drove us away, although her car was followed by some Cubans.”

TVN is often described as the last independent news channel in Poland.

Wrona also said that there had been some “horrible” follow-up personal attacks on social media, stoked by people spreading false information.

Vishal Singh, a videographer who works on Netflix documentaries and has been covering demonstrations in Los Angeles since May 2020, was struck in the hand with a baton by a police officer while covering demonstrations outside a spa in Los Angeles, California, on July 17, 2021.

Wi Spa, located in LA’s Koreatown, became a flashpoint for anti-transgender demonstrators as the result of a viral video which police are now treating as a hoax, Slate reported.

Singh told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he arrived at approximately 10 a.m. to cover what he expected to be another confrontation between anti-transgender demonstrators and pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters outside the spa. Demonstrations had been occuring at the site for days; Singh reported that a Los Angeles Police Department officer shoved him with a baton while he was covering protests there on July 3.

Shortly before 11 a.m., the two groups were about to clash at an intersection a block away from the spa, Singh said, when LAPD officers quickly advanced in order to separate the sides.

“At that point I decided to go down Coronado Street and kind of go around the police barricade and go to the sidewalk and film the far-right side of the protest,” Singh said. Singh said he was a few steps behind a couple of other journalists who were walking the same direction, but an LAPD officer stopped him when he was about halfway across the street and pushed him back, ordering Singh to get on the sidewalk.

“He was basically saying, ‘Get back to the sidewalk.’ I said, ‘Are you serious?’ And he responded, ‘Yes I’m serious, this is our street,’” Singh said.

Within seconds of getting on the sidewalk, Singh said, a group of officers began confronting the pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters. In footage of the incident Singh shared on Twitter later that day, he can be seen on the right-hand side wearing a helmet and tie-dyed shirt.

“I started stepping backwards and I turned my camera to film the side-view shot of the protesters getting brutalized and at that point [the officer] leaned over, stepped forward toward me and with both hands on his baton like a baseball bat hit my outstretched hand that was holding my camera as hard as he could,” Singh said.

Photographer and journalist Eric Levai said he was surrounded and had around $1,000 of equipment taken from him after he photographed individuals at the Wi Spa, in Los Angeles, California.

The spa, located in L.A.’s Koreatown, became a flashpoint for anti-transgender demonstrators as the result of a viral video which police are now treating as a hoax, Slate reported.

Levai, who said he doesn’t wear press identification as he believes it attracts harassment, said it was around noon and he was covering what was happening at the Wi Spa when he spotted a photo opportunity. He stepped forward to take a shot of some masked individuals and a car around 50 feet away.

“I was doing my job and they just attacked me, screaming I was taking their picture,” Levai told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “Also, when they surrounded me, I kept telling them I was a journalist, but they kept attacking me.

Levai, who works regularly for the Daily Dot and Forensic News, as well as hosting a podcast, told the Tracker that he heard a shout, and then was charged by seven or eight people, who took his backpack including items which he valued in total at around $1,000. The items included a gas mask, goggles and a tripod.

“They grabbed the bag and phone,” he said. “They took pictures of me.”

Levai said he wasn’t injured in the incident, and that he had managed to take the phone with his photos out of the backpack, though another phone was stolen. The masked individuals then took off with his equipment, he said.

He said that going forward he would reconsider wearing a press ID, though he felt it could mean he gets targeted.

A man fleeing from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol stole a car from TV station WRAL reporter Keenan Willard and photographer Lucas Nelson just after they finished a live report to the 11 p.m. newscast on July 3, 2021.

According to a report on WRAL, the Raleigh, North Carolina NBC affiliate, a man had approached the journalist and photographer and offered them cash to drive him to a gas station in the station’s car. When they refused, he jumped into WRAL’s car and drove down U.S. Highway 64.

A State Highway Patrol trooper saw the incident and pursued the man, who shortly after crashed head-on into a trooper’s car and was taken into custody, WRAL reported.

Willard, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, wrote on Twitter just after the incident that the journalist were shaken up.

Independent video journalist Mason Lake said a Portland police officer shoved him with a baton and damaged his on-camera microphone while he was covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on June 25, 2021.

According to The Oregonian, protesters gathered near the Oregon Convention Center after a Portland police officer shot and killed a man outside a Motel 6. Some demonstrators shouted for officers to quit their jobs, while officers stood facing the protesters with shields and batons. The Portland Police Bureau on Twitter said officers throughout the city responded to help with "scene security." A few days earlier on June 16, all of the officers with the Portland Police Bureau's Rapid Response Team resigned together following news of investigations for excessive force, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

"The PPB maced & fired 40mm rounds into a crowd of protestors gathered on NE Grand Ave," Lake wrote on Twitter at 12:04 p.m. on June 25, alongside a video of officers shoving and spraying demonstrators. At the 19-second mark, it appears that an officer physically knocked the camera, cutting the audio for the rest of the clip.

"I was on the front line and I was nearly bear-maced before being physically shoved by & officer with a baton," Lake wrote the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a text message. "He hit/shoved me marking my neck & hitting my on-camera microphone damaging it." He also tweeted a photograph of his neck with a red mark across the middle and said he had multiple “press” markings across his clothes and helmet, as well as a National Press Photographers Association badge on his front strap.

Freelance videographer Brendan Gutenschwager says he was assaulted by people who claimed to be “acting as security” for an anti-evictions protest in Detroit, Michigan, on April 10, 2021.

According to The Detroit News, protesters, organized by local activist groups Detroit Will Breathe and Detroit Eviction Defense, gathered beside the Detroit Public Safety Headquarters on Third Street and proceeded through downtown.

Gutenschwager, whose videos of protests have been used by Fox News, CNN and ABC News, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that just after 2 p.m. he was filming the march with his phone and posting coverage to his own Twitter feed.

He said he was not wearing a “PRESS” jacket or identification but he identified himself verbally to the protest group as press.

A team of people monitoring the perimeter of the march identified themselves as security, he said. “Within a few seconds of seeing and identifying me, one of these individuals came up to grab my [phone] camera and force me away from the group,” said Gutenschwager.

Gutenschwager said he told the monitors that he was there solely as a journalist documenting things peacefully, “but they took significant issue with me having covered the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th earlier this year.”

According to Gutenschwager they accused him of being part of the crowd that attacked the Capitol, “and in assuming I was, said that I was a threat and tried to force me to leave.”

Gutenschwager denied he was a participant in the attack and said he was in Washington D.C. as a journalist that day. One of his videos, of a right-wing Proud Boy member bashing in a window of the Capitol with a stolen police shield, went viral.

“It appeared the anger at the Detroit event was targeted towards me for having been in DC to cover the event,” he told the Tracker.

After the group tried to force him away, “I stayed behind the march from that point forward, but several members of the group became fixated on my presence,” Gutenschwager said.

“Some attempted to keep the peace, telling the other protesters ‘Please don't engage with him. Just let him go.’ Others disagreed,” said Gutenschwager, whose video showed people shouting abuse at him, putting a hand over his phone camera and telling him “you are not welcome here.”

“Someone rammed me into the barricade,” he said. “I was then choked by a man who put both his hands around my neck as my [phone] camera was stolen and thrown over the fence.”

Gutenschwager said his lip was injured and he had scrapes on the right side of his body from the barricade. “I was able to retrieve the camera that had been thrown, at which point I resumed recording as protesters taunted me from the other side of the fence about being bloodied up,” he said.

The phone was not badly damaged so he did not report the incident to the police, he said.

Two journalists with TV news station Valley News Live, an NBC affiliate based in Fargo, North Dakota, were attacked by a man wielding a screwdriver, who damaged their camera while they were reporting in the city on May 3, 2021.

Valley News Live photojournalist Michael Downs and reporter Nachai Taylor were near downtown Fargo, preparing for a 9 p.m. live report about a building the city commission had decided to demolish, Taylor said in a report that aired on the station following the attack.

In that report, Taylor said she was walking toward Downs, who was holding the camera when an unidentified man drove a pickup truck onto the curb. The man approached them, swinging a screwdriver, “which was kind of a scary situation,” Taylor said.

Video published by Valley News Live shows a man approaching the camera, gesturing with a screwdriver, then jabbing the tool directly at the camera.

Taylor said the man was shouting at the journalists to get off his property, though the journalists were on the sidewalk, she reported.

Taylor said after she told the man that she was going to call police, he got in his truck and left. She said the journalists gave statements to police about the incident, including the license plate number of the vehicle the man was driving. Taylor’s assault is documented here.

Neither Downs nor Taylor responded to requests for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Valley News Live news director Renee Nygren told the Tracker the camera was not operable after the attack. She said it was being repaired and believed that the damage would be fixable, but was not certain.

Nygren said she does not believe either journalist was physically touched during the attack, but she described the incident as frightening. “It's concerning and really unfortunate that they had to go through that,” she said.

On May 18 Valley News Live reported that Gary Reinhart, the owner of the building slated for demolition, was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. The station reported that a fire had destroyed the property, after which the city ordered the building demolished by June 30.

The Fargo city attorney’s office told the Tracker it would not comment on charges against Reinhart because the case against him is still open. Reinhart entered a not guilty plea to both charges at his arraignment on June 8, according to North Dakota’s court tracking system.

Reinhart’s attorney declined to comment.

Ebenezer Mends, a photojournalist for CBS4 News in Miami, Florida, was attacked and his camera was damaged while he was working on a story about rising crime rates in South Beach on May 15, 2021.

Mends was with CBS4 reporter BoBeth Yates near Fifth Street and Ocean Drive in South Beach. The journalists were there to report on the Miami Beach City Commission’s passage of a resolution to stop alcohol sales past 2 a.m. in the city’s entertainment district as a way to curb unruly behavior, the station reported.

Mends and Yates were doing research in the busy nightlife area about 9 p.m. when a fight broke out. Mends began recording the fight, but some of the people involved in it came up to him and demanded that he not film them.

When they started pushing his camera and hitting Mends, Yates said in the station’s report, she tried to get in the way.

“To be honest, I've been reporting for a very long time,” Yates said, according to the report. “I don't want to date myself, but about 20 years and I've never been attacked like this on a story.”

She said both she and Mends were hit. “The first hit came when we tried to kind of block the camera and I kind of stood in between everything because they started really coming on to Ebenezer and attacking him.”

At one point, Yates said, four or five people surrounded Mends. Yates said they hit her and tried to attack Mends and the camera, which was damaged.

“They also threw a bottle of liquid what I believe is some sort of alcohol because it was literally burning our skin, my eyes,” she said.

Yates called police and followed the people who harassed her and Mends, according to the station’s report. Neither Yates nor Mends responded to U.S. Press Freedom Tracker requests for comment.

Miami Beach police officers later detained two people near Seventh Street and Ocean Drive. The subjects were arrested for criminal mischief, resisting an officer and battery, the Miami Beach Police Department confirmed to the Tracker.

A charge sheet shared by police with the Tracker confirmed that Mends reported he had received a cut on his head during the incident and that Yates had reported being struck on her arms and being targeted when a liquid was thrown at the journalists. The police report also confirmed damage to the CBS4 crew’s Sony PXW-X400 video camera, which has a replacement value of $90,000. A CBS news report confirmed that the camera was damaged but did not specify the degree of damage.

An individual was caught on film assaulting a news team for NBC-affiliate UpNorthLive, based in Traverse City, Michigan. Video posted by the station shows the man throwing one of the broadcast team’s microphones and spitting on a camera during an event with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on May 6, 2021.

The news team was covering an outdoor event in Greilickville, at which Whitmer signed a bill authorizing spending to protect Michigan’s natural resources, UpNorthLive News reported. The man first heckled the governor, shouting profanities during her speech and yelling “We don’t want you here,” before turning to criticize journalists covering the event, according to the broadcaster’s account.

UpNorthLive reporters Natalie Spala and Cortney Brown covered the signing and were scheduled to interview the governor right after, but the interview was canceled when officials escorted Whitmer away from the heckler to her car, the outlet reported.

According to UpNorthLive, the man “then turned his attention to the UpNorthLive news crew, asking if he should destroy the reporter’s [Brown’s] camera before taking a microphone and throwing it across the parking lot.”

Leelanau County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene intervened and arrested the man immediately, but as he was being handcuffed he spat on Brown and the camera she was carrying.

“OK, that’s unnecessary,” Spala can be heard saying in the footage published by UpNorthLive.

In an interview with the outlet, Sheriff Mike Borkovich said, “We have been in contact with this individual before, mostly regarding political-type things. I personally believe that’s not normally what he has done but I do think when you cross the line, people have to know that we will enforce the law.”

Neither of the reporters nor the station’s news director responded to emailed requests for comment.

The man was transported to the Leelanau County Correctional facility, where he was processed and charged with two counts of assault and battery and one count of malicious destruction of property, according to a Facebook post by the Sheriff’s Office.

Reporter Don Ford, of KPIX 5, a CBS affiliate station based in San Francisco, California, and his security guard were blinded for “almost an hour” after being sprayed with chemicals while working on a story in Golden Gate Park on April 7, 2021, the journalist told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

The KPIX 5 crew had been recording a segment at around 1:20 p.m. near Stow Lake when they were approached by the suspect, who attempted to steal the crew’s camera. The assailant then sprayed Ford and his security guard with a chemical Ford believed to be pepper spray, before running away. The security guard gave chase, and the assailant dropped the camera, after being hit by his own getaway car. The suspect was then driven off by a second manin a car with Nevada plates.

Ford shared with the Tracker documentation he’d made of the incident just after it happened: “Assignment: Coyotes roaming around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. Beautiful sunny warm day with lots of people around. Just me and my guard when we were jumped and pepper sprayed. The attacker used a large canister style Pepper Spray, not the small kind sold in Drug Stores. We weren’t really sprayed, we were doused at close range, directly into our faces.”

He added: “Bad guy grabbed the camera. Guard pulled his weapon and we gave chase before the full force of the Pepper Spray had time to take us down. The bad guy had trouble getting the camera into the car. Camera was still attached to the Tripod. We closed in. Seeing the gun, bad boy dropped the camera, jumped into the car and sped away. Seconds later, we were totally incapacitated with the burning pain.

“SFPD and ambulance arrives and spent the next hour helping us get our sight back. Eventually, we were able to see again.

“I made it home, showered for almost another hour but the pepper is delivered in an oily base that soaks into the skin’s pores. Cops said it may take couple days to fully rid myself of the effects.”

Ford said that the assault happened on his second day back to work, after taking a two-week-long break following a separate assault in March. The Tracker has documented that incident here.

The video camera, a Sony HD professional, was severely damaged, Ford said.

When reached for comment by the Tracker, a San Francisco Police Department spokesperson relayed the following details: “As the suspect was fleeing with the camera, he dropped the camera and entered the getaway vehicle, which fled the scene. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene, who treated the victims’ non-life-threatening injuries.”

A veteran TV reporter who has been working in the Bay Area since 1981, Ford said that during the course of his career he has chased Sandinistas, documented numerous forest fires and multiple accounts of civil unrest, and was once even rescued from a life raft in the Pacific by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“I've seen a lot,” Ford said, “but I've never seen so many attacks on TV news crews as now.”

"I'm now taking time off work to ‘process’ the attacks,” he added.

According to the SFPD, the “incident remains under active investigation and no arrests have been made.”

Don Ford, a reporter with California TV station KPIX 5, was robbed at gunpoint while reporting on a story about car break-ins around San Francisco landmark Twin Peaks on March 3, 2021.

Ford had been talking to a local resident when a white luxury sedan with four men inside drove up, according to KPIX. “Three guys jumped out, one had a gun, put it up to my face and said, ‘We’re taking the camera,’” Ford told the station in a later interview. “My whole thought at the moment was: ‘Let’s be calm. Let’s not get this guy excited. He’s got the gun. I don’t.’”

KPIX reported that Ford was not injured in the robbery.

Responding to a Tweet posted later that evening, the journalist wrote: “When someone points a Glock into your face you definitely let the camera go.”

A San Francisco TV crew was robbed of its video camera while reporting on a story near the city’s I-80 Bay Bridge ramp, the San Francisco Police Department confirmed.

The attack happened around 6:50 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2021, when the news crew was filming in the South of Market neighborhood, according to a report from San Francisco CBS affiliate KPIX. KPIX said the journalists were from a local NBC station, NBC Bay Area. The report said the journalists were stopped by two men who jumped out of a four-door Lexus; the men claimed to be carrying firearms under their clothing and demanded the journalists hand over their camera equipment.

“The victims surrendered the news camera, and the suspects fled the scene in the Lexus, traveling eastbound on I-80. The Lexus was driven by another suspect that remained in the car. The victims were not injured,” a spokesman for San Francisco police said.

Moments later the journalists flagged down San Francisco police officers passing on their motorbikes, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The paper said the journalists gave police a license plate number and descriptions of the robbers.

San Francisco police confirmed details of the robbery to the Tracker and said they have arrested two men who were found in possession of the camera. Police said they returned the camera, a Panasonic AJ-PX, to the news crew.

NBC Bay Area did not respond to a Tracker request for comment.

There have been two other recent attacks on TV news crews in San Francisco, with attempts to steal camera equipment, one in March and the other in April.

San Francisco police said in a statement that there was nothing to show this attack was connected to an attack on another TV news crew in San Francisco in Golden Gate Park on April 7 : “We do not have information to suggest that the victims were targeted because of their status as journalists. The information suggests that the victims were targeted because of the high-dollar value of their electronic equipment.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune photojournalist Mark Vancleave said he was threatened and his camera drone was stolen May 25, 2021, as he covered demonstrations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, marking the first anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd.

The death of Floyd, a Black man, sparked months of demonstrations across the country demanding justice and reform of police departments. On April 20, a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.

Vancleave told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly after 7 a.m. on the 25th he arrived at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the intersection where Floyd was killed and which has been turned into a memorial site, to capture some aerial footage ahead of planned demonstrations in the afternoon.

“I flew [the drone] around for maybe 10 minutes or so,” Vancleave said, noting that very few people were in the area at that point. Then, said Vancleave, he returned to where his car was parked, about half a block away, so that he could land the drone and change its batteries and camera lens.

Immediately after he landed the drone, Vancleave said, a man approached him and began asking about the drone.

“Two other dudes walked up behind him and immediately got in my face, saying ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’” Vancleave said. “They started demanding that I show them the video that I had taken.”

Vancleave said they also asked him to show his press credentials and driver’s license.

“They said they were ‘security.’ And then the first guy who came over just grabbed my drone and started walking away,” Vancleave said.

Block Club Chicago reporter and photojournalist Colin Boyle was assaulted by a Chicago police officer while he was covering a demonstration in northwest Chicago, Illinois, on April 16, 2021. According to its website, Block Club is a local, reader-supported nonprofit newsroom “dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.”

According to the Chicago Sun Times, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of the city’s Logan Square Monument the evening of April 16 to demand justice for 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer on March 29, 2021. After several speeches and chants, the paper reported, the crowd marched north on Milwaukee Avenue, yelling phrases such as, "No justice, no peace, abolish the police!"

Boyle said he was leaving the demonstration around 9:50 p.m., after several hours of covering a peaceful protest, when he saw an alert on Twitter that said the Chicago Police Department was calling units to return to an intersection where Boyle had been photographing earlier.

Around 10 p.m., he said he arrived on the scene of a standoff between officers and protesters. Boyle said he had been following a group of protesters down West Logan Boulevard toward an area where police had blocked off the street.

"There was a police sergeant telling the police officers to form a line and two seconds later after he made that call, he looked at me and directed me to move," Boyle told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview. Boyle said he began to move, but “under four seconds after the sergeant told me to move, an officer comes power walking up behind me and he says, 'Sir, he's not going to tell you again.'"

Boyle said he was holding a Chicago Police Department press badge in his hand and had press markings across his helmet and vest on front and back. He said he also verbally announced that he was press. Still, he said, the officer marched up to him and "shoved me backwards through a crowd of police officers."

According to Boyle, he repeatedly told the officer he was already moving, but the officer cut him off and said, "Nope, nope, nope. Keep on going." After being pushed through "a wall of his coworkers [officers] who did not intervene," Boyle said he lost balance and fell on his camera gear, breaking a camera hood, busting open a flash, and shaking up a telephoto lens, which he said still rattles from the impact.

"This is how you treat press credentialed by your department, again?" Boyle wrote on Twitter alongside several photographs taken at the scene. "Shameful."

Getty Images photojournalist Scott Olson confirmed with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that his camera equipment was damaged by police officers while he was covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, on April 14, 2021.

According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department that evening to demand justice for 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man who was shot and killed by a white Minnesota police officer during a traffic stop on April 11, 2021. Wright's death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier.

The Pioneer Press reported that demonstrators chanted “Don’t shoot” and other slogans, threw objects at officers and tried to dismantle fences, while law enforcement responded with pepper spray and "marker" rounds. Shortly after 9 p.m., officers declared the protest an unlawful assembly, according to the paper.

"When the police let you know that you might be working a little too close to the action," Olson tweeted the next morning at 10:54 a.m. alongside a photograph of a cracked camera lens and lens hood.

At least 15 journalists were detained by police while covering protests in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on the night of April 16, 2021, according to reports given to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, noted on social media or published in other news outlets.

Several hundred protesters marched to the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, by a white police officer during a traffic stop. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier.

According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the protest had been peaceful until around 9 p.m., when, authorities told the outlet, some in the crowd began to throw objects and attempt to break through a barrier around the police station, prompting the declaration of an unlawful assembly and orders for dispersal. Minnesota Public Radio reported that police moved swiftly to corral the protesters and members of the press, deploying flash-bang grenades and pepper spray. According to state officials, a coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Minnesota State Patrol, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the Brooklyn Center Police Department, was involved in enforcement that night.

Aaron Nesheim, a Minneapolis-based freelance photojournalist on assignment for The New York Times, was one of the journalists detained.

Nesheim told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting the protest in the center of the intersection of Humboldt and 67th Avenues just after 9 p.m. when officers advanced on the crowd and ordered everyone to lie down on their stomachs.

“I did not get down. I kept photographing until finally an officer pepper sprayed me,” Nesheim said. “I was wearing a bulletproof vest, and eventually a State Patrol officer grabbed me by the front of the vest and used that to throw me on the ground.”

Nesheim said in addition to his body armor vest, which was labeled with “PRESS” on the front and back, he was wearing a helmet similarly labeled and press credentials issued by the Times and the National Press Photographers Association.

“The [trooper] definitely understood I was a member of the press and was — I guess I would use the word ‘exasperated,’ with the fact I hadn’t just complied and gotten on the ground immediately before he threw me,” Nesheim said.

The force of his fall damaged the 70-200mm lens on one of his cameras, Nesheim said, causing the autofocus not to work properly and requiring repair. The officer ordered Nesheim to stay on his stomach, he said, which he did while continuing to take photos from that vantage point.

“I did stay on the ground, kind of on my side. I didn’t make any moves after that until another officer came in and got me up and started escorting me back to where they were processing the journalists,” Nesheim said.

Law enforcement had established a “media checkpoint” at a nearby Pump n’ Munch gas station, where members of the press had their faces, press credentials and IDs photographed before they were permitted to leave the area. Nesheim confirmed to the Tracker that he had to pass through the checkpoint before he could leave the area.

The next day, April 17, more than two dozen media and advocacy organizations sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz expressing concern about the detainments and other police treatment of journalists since the protests began.

“Journalists must be allowed to safely cover protests and civil unrest. I’ve directed our law enforcement partners to make changes that will help ensure journalists do not face barriers to doing their jobs,” the governor posted on Twitter after meeting with representatives of the media.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety referred the Tracker to a statement from the Minnesota State Patrol, which acknowledged that troopers had photographed journalists, their media credentials and their identification “during recent enforcement actions in Brooklyn Center.” MSP said that though journalists had been detained and released during the protests, no journalists were arrested. The Tracker documents detainments in the arrest category but notes that the journalists were released without being processed.

The agency’s statement said troopers will no longer photograph journalists and their credentials, but will continue to check media credentials.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Independent journalist Justin Yau said he was attacked and shoved to the ground by an unidentified individual while covering a protest at Lents Park in Portland, Oregon, on April 16, 2021.

According to Willamette Week, Portland police fatally shot a man in the park that morning after receiving reports of a man pointing a gun. Demonstrators immediately gathered near the scene, yelling “shame on you," at police, which led police to declare an unlawful assembly shortly before noon, according to the article.

Yau, who has bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Portland Mercury, ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting, said at around 2 p.m., he was attacked by an individual while photographing the protest. Yau said he had a press credential issued by Willamette Week, which he was then on assignment for, clipped to his collar.

"I was standing and talking to a colleague, when the attacker shoved me to the ground,” Yau told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “It was an unprovoked surprise attack. The attacker pushed my head while I was on the ground & tried to take my cameras, but was unsuccessful."

Yau said he didn’t know the person, and that accomplices stood by yelling phrases like “Don’t take pictures!” and stopping his colleague from protecting him.

Portland Tribune reporter Zane Sparling tweeted two photographs of the scene, writing that Yau was "bleeding after being shoved to the ground, hit multiple times."

Freelance photojournalist Joshua Rashaad McFadden, on assignment for The New York Times, said he was detained and hit by law enforcement officers while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 16, 2021.

The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11 rekindled a wave of racial-justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd. Protests began outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department the day Wright was killed, and continued daily through mid-April.

McFadden told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and other journalists stuck together as a group as police rushed the crowd.

“We're all literally huddled together in one area, and the police rushed in,” McFadden said. “They rushed the crowd and they detained us.”

The group included other photographers, TV news staff and reporters, McFadden said. He said the journalists were repeating “we’re press, we’re press!” Officers told the journalists “we don’t care” and ordered them to lie on the ground, he said.

McFadden said he was on the ground when one officer came over to him and ordered him to get up, then another officer came over and told him to get back down.

At that point, McFadden said, he was on his knees. He identified himself as a member of the press, he said, and asked the officers, “what do you want me to do?”

Then, McFadden said, another group of officers rushed and trampled over him, knocking him to the ground “like a football tackle.”

He said the officers started hitting him and hitting his camera. He said he was holding his phone in one hand, and felt an officer try to yank the device from him. McFadden said he didn’t want to appear to be confrontational, but he was concerned about losing his phone so he held onto it.

McFadden, who is Black, said a white photographer acquaintance came over and told the officers that McFadden was a journalist and that he worked with the Times.

After the other photographer identified him, he said, the officers allowed him to stand up. He showed them his press pass, which is issued by the National Press Photographers Association. McFadden said the officer told him, “anybody could have made that,” and asked to see his driver’s license, which he had left in his car.

McFadden said it was clear that the officers weren’t going to allow him to go, but they were going to let the other photographer go. He said officers only allowed him to leave when the other photographer volunteered to escort him to his car.

He said he previously had similar experiences, including three days earlier in Brooklyn Center.

“I do know it's because Black members of the press are treated differently,” he said. “And I have to acknowledge that.”

McFadden said the other photographer walked with him so she could help him navigate interaction with law enforcement.

“It's because she knew that at every kind of checkpoint they set up, they were going to either try to hold me or arrest or detain me, or I'll get a million questions if my credentials are real,” McFadden said. He said there was also a risk he could be shot at with rubber bullets while approaching officers from a distance. “If I'm with her I'm able to walk up to the group.”

As they were trying to leave the area, McFadden said, they came upon a checkpoint at a gas station where police had stopped a large number of journalists and were taking photographs of their credentials, IDs and faces. He said officers told the journalists the photographs would be entered into a database.

McFadden said law enforcement again asked him to see his license, and he told them it was in his car. He said that they were stopped at the gas station for about an hour.

McFadden said his shoulder was injured when he was tackled and hit. He also had bruises on his legs, adding to bruises he had gotten earlier in the week when he was hit with crowd-control munitions, and hit with sticks by law enforcement officers while in a car. McFadden said he sought medical attention for the injuries he accumulated through the week. He said he was told to take ibuprofen after he declined other medication, he said.

McFadden’s camera was damaged when he was tackled, he said. The body of the camera was scratched up and he said he needed to get some parts replaced. As a result of the two assaults, he also needed to get the lens repaired.

McFadden told the Tracker he believed he was targeted because he was a journalist.

He said Minnesota State Patrol troopers were involved in the incident. MSP didn’t respond requests for comment by email and phone

McFadden was detained the same evening a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring MSP from arresting or using force against journalists, in response to a motion filed earlier in the week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

The next day, April 17, more than two dozen media and advocacy organizations, including the New York Times, sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz expressing concern about the detainments and other police treatment of journalists since the protests began.

In response to the court order, MSP released a statement on April 17 that acknowledged troopers had photographed journalists, their media credentials and their identification “during recent enforcement actions in Brooklyn Center.” MSP said no journalists were arrested, though some had been detained and released during the protests. The Tracker documents detainments in the arrest category, but notes that the journalists were released without being processed.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Freelance photojournalist Joshua Rashaad McFadden, on assignment for The New York Times, said he was detained and hit by law enforcement officers while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 16, 2021.

The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11 rekindled a wave of racial-justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd. Protests began outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department the day Wright was killed, and continued daily through mid-April.

McFadden told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and other journalists stuck together as a group as police rushed the crowd.

“We're all literally huddled together in one area, and the police rushed in,” McFadden said. “They rushed the crowd and they detained us.”

The group included other photographers, TV news staff and reporters, McFadden said. He said the journalists were repeating “we’re press, we’re press!” Officers told the journalists “we don’t care” and ordered them to lie on the ground, he said.

McFadden said he was on the ground when one officer came over to him and ordered him to get up, then another officer came over and told him to get back down.

At that point, McFadden said, he was on his knees. He identified himself as a member of the press, he said, and asked the officers, “what do you want me to do?”

Then, McFadden said, another group of officers rushed and trampled over him, knocking him to the ground “like a football tackle.”

He said the officers started hitting him and hitting his camera. He said he was holding his phone in one hand, and felt an officer try to yank the device from him. McFadden said he didn’t want to appear to be confrontational, but he was concerned about losing his phone so he held onto it.

McFadden, who is Black, said a white photographer acquaintance came over and told the officers that McFadden was a journalist and that he worked with the Times.

After the other photographer identified him, he said, the officers allowed him to stand up. He showed them his press pass, which is issued by the National Press Photographers Association. McFadden said the officer told him, “anybody could have made that,” and asked to see his driver’s license, which he had left in his car.

McFadden said it was clear that the officers weren’t going to allow him to go, but they were going to let the other photographer go. He said officers only allowed him to leave when the other photographer volunteered to escort him to his car.

He said he previously had similar experiences, including three days earlier in Brooklyn Center.

“I do know it's because Black members of the press are treated differently,” he said. “And I have to acknowledge that.”

McFadden said the other photographer walked with him so she could help him navigate interaction with law enforcement.

“It's because she knew that at every kind of checkpoint they set up, they were going to either try to hold me or arrest or detain me, or I'll get a million questions if my credentials are real,” McFadden said. He said there was also a risk he could be shot at with rubber bullets while approaching officers from a distance. “If I'm with her I'm able to walk up to the group.”

As they were trying to leave the area, McFadden said, they came upon a checkpoint at a gas station where police had stopped a large number of journalists and were taking photographs of their credentials, IDs and faces. He said officers told the journalists the photographs would be entered into a database.

McFadden said law enforcement again asked him to see his license, and he told them it was in his car. He said that they were stopped at the gas station for about an hour.

McFadden said his shoulder was injured when he was tackled and hit. He also had bruises on his legs, adding to bruises he had gotten earlier in the week when he was hit with crowd-control munitions, and hit with sticks by law enforcement officers while in a car. McFadden said he sought medical attention for the injuries he accumulated through the week. He said he was told to take ibuprofen after he declined other medication, he said.

McFadden’s camera was damaged when he was tackled, he said. The body of the camera was scratched up and he said he needed to get some parts replaced. As a result of the two assaults, he also needed to get the lens repaired.

McFadden told the Tracker he believed he was targeted because he was a journalist.

He said Minnesota State Patrol troopers were involved in the incident. MSP didn’t respond requests for comment by email and phone

McFadden was detained the same evening a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring MSP from arresting or using force against journalists, in response to a motion filed earlier in the week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

The next day, April 17, more than two dozen media and advocacy organizations, including the New York Times, sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz expressing concern about the detainments and other police treatment of journalists since the protests began.

In response to the court order, MSP released a statement on April 17 that acknowledged troopers had photographed journalists, their media credentials and their identification “during recent enforcement actions in Brooklyn Center.” MSP said no journalists were arrested, though some had been detained and released during the protests. The Tracker documents detainments in the arrest category, but notes that the journalists were released without being processed.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Freelance journalist Michael Elliott said he was repeatedly shoved by law enforcement officers, damaging his camera, while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, early on the morning of Sept. 27, 2020.

Elliott told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was documenting one of the many protests held for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction, barring the Portland Police Bureau from harming or impeding journalists.

On Sept. 26, a rally organized by the Proud Boys far-right extremist group drew some 800 people to Portland, while at least 1,000 counter-protesters gathered nearby, The Oregonian reported. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had declared a state of emergency ahead of the rally, putting officers from the PPB, Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office under a unified command. After those protests ended, left-leaning demonstrators gathered downtown later that night, according to The Oregonian, and police declared an “unlawful assembly” around 11:40 p.m.

Videos posted on social media into early the morning of Sept. 27 show police pushing many people who were marked as “press.”

Elliott, who says his work has been published by VICE, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Willamette Week, among others, told the Tracker he was one of the journalists repeatedly shoved by officers using their batons shortly after midnight. At least six other journalists also reported being shoved, pushed or grabbed by law enforcement officers that night.

“I was literally pleading with the law enforcement [officers] to stop pushing me because they were pushing me into protesters who were pushing back,” Elliott said. “They were relentlessly pushing us, a group predominantly of press, and the press was essentially trampling each other at that point.”

Elliott added he believes that at some point during the incident, one of the officer’s batons struck his camera, cracking the glass of his camera’s viewfinder. He said that in addition to his camera, he was wearing a press credential around his neck and a helmet labeled “PRESS.”

The following day, the ACLU called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate police treatment of journalists, The Oregonian reported.

Gov. Brown tweeted on Sept. 27 that she asked the individual law enforcement agencies to investigate any allegations about the use of force against members of the press or public. In a statement on behalf of the three agencies, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said it was aware that video had been taken of several incidents involving force, which would be reviewed to determine whether any officers violated law enforcement policies, according to The Oregonian.

Since July, law enforcement officers from the PPB and federal agencies have been barred by court rulings from arresting, harming or impeding journalists or legal observers of the protests. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case. A spokesperson for the Oregon State Police said they weren’t aware of the incidents.

Freelance journalist Michael Elliott said he was repeatedly shoved by law enforcement officers, damaging his camera, while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, early on the morning of Sept. 27, 2020.

Elliott told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was documenting one of the many protests held for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction, barring the Portland Police Bureau from harming or impeding journalists.

On Sept. 26, a rally organized by the Proud Boys far-right extremist group drew some 800 people to Portland, while at least 1,000 counter-protesters gathered nearby, The Oregonian reported. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had declared a state of emergency ahead of the rally, putting officers from the PPB, Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office under a unified command. After those protests ended, left-leaning demonstrators gathered downtown later that night, according to The Oregonian, and police declared an “unlawful assembly” around 11:40 p.m.

Videos posted on social media into early the morning of Sept. 27 show police pushing many people who were marked as “press.”

Elliott, who says his work has been published by VICE, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Willamette Week, among others, told the Tracker he was one of the journalists repeatedly shoved by officers using their batons shortly after midnight. At least six other journalists also reported being shoved, pushed or grabbed by law enforcement officers that night.

“I was literally pleading with the law enforcement [officers] to stop pushing me because they were pushing me into protesters who were pushing back,” Elliott said. “They were relentlessly pushing us, a group predominantly of press, and the press was essentially trampling each other at that point.”

Elliott added he believes that at some point during the incident, one of the officer’s batons struck his camera, cracking the glass of his camera’s viewfinder. He said that in addition to his camera, he was wearing a press credential around his neck and a helmet labeled “PRESS.”

The following day, the ACLU called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate police treatment of journalists, The Oregonian reported.

Gov. Brown tweeted on Sept. 27 that she asked the individual law enforcement agencies to investigate any allegations about the use of force against members of the press or public. In a statement on behalf of the three agencies, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said it was aware that video had been taken of several incidents involving force, which would be reviewed to determine whether any officers violated law enforcement policies, according to The Oregonian.

Since July, law enforcement officers from the PPB and federal agencies have been barred by court rulings from arresting, harming or impeding journalists or legal observers of the protests. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case. A spokesperson for the Oregon State Police said they weren’t aware of the incidents.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for the New York Times, said law-enforcement officers hit him with batons as he covered a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 13, 2021.

The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11, 2021 rekindled a wave of racial-justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd. Protests began outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department the day Wright was killed, and continued daily through mid-April.

McFadden told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that police got more aggressive with the crowd as the protest continued into the night, and that he heard law enforcement order press to leave the area. McFadden, who had been hit with projectiles the previous night, said he decided to leave.

He said he wasn’t able to go directly to his car because the street was blocked, so he walked in the opposite direction to a gas station up the street. He said he hesitated to walk to his car alone, and while he was at the gas station, he saw another photographer he recognized — freelance photojournalist Chris Tuite.

The two photographers saw someone with a car heading in their direction, McFadden said, and the driver offered to give them a ride to where McFadden’s car was parked.

Right after they got in the car, he said, a large number of law-enforcement officers started up the street. Police and National Guard vehicles also pulled into the area, he said.

Officers surrounded the car McFadden was in and beat on the windows with batons, he said.

“It almost seemed like the windows were going to break,” he told the Tracker.

He said the officers pointed their weapons at them. McFadden said he assumed they were loaded with rubber bullets, but that they looked like guns. McFadden, who was in the back seat with Tuite, said the officers were shouting at them to get out of the car, but it wasn’t possible because the vehicle was surrounded.

Officers dragged the driver of the car out, he said, and Tuite was pulled from the car. The Tracker has documented Tuite's assault here.

Then, McFadden said, two officers got into the vehicle — one into the driver’s seat and the other in the back next to him. He said the officers started hitting him with their clubs, striking him on his legs and hitting his camera, like they were trying to break it.

McFadden, who is Black, said he identified himself as a member of the press multiple times, but the officers didn’t stop.

When Tuite, who is white, then outside of the car, saw the officers in the car hitting McFadden, he told another officer that McFadden was a member of the press and a photographer for the New York Times.

McFadden said the officers then stopped and got out of the car. He said they tried to have him get out of the car on the opposite side from the other photographer, but McFadden objected because he saw police were making arrests on that side of the vehicle. He was able to exit the car next to Tuite.

McFadden said the officers checked his press credential, issued by the National Press Photographers Association. He said the troopers were skeptical, and said, “anybody could have made this.”

Officers told him they needed to see his driver’s license, which he had left in his car because he didn’t want to lose it. He said the officers allowed him to leave when Tuite said he would walk McFadden to his car.

“I saw them hitting Josh with their batons, including his camera,” Tuite said. “He’s a Black male, and they trusted me more than him. It took me saying 10 times that he was media before they got off of him.”

In total, McFadden said, it was about 45 minutes from when officers began beating on the car windows until when he was let go.

McFadden said he believes he was targeted because he is a journalist. “It just seemed there was a certain amount of disdain for the journalists there.”

McFadden also said that in this April 13 incident, and when he was detained and hit again by law enforcement three days later, officers released him only after a white journalist vouched for him.

“I do know it's because Black members of the press are treated differently,” he said. “And I have to acknowledge that.”

McFadden said Minnesota State Patrol troopers were involved in the incident. He said officers from other law enforcement agencies were also present, though he wasn’t sure which ones. A coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota National Guard, were involved in the response to protests in Brooklyn Center.

The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to the Tracker’s requests for comment by email and phone.

McFadden said he had bruises on his legs from being hit. After he was tackled and hit by law enforcement again on Friday the 16th, he went to the hospital for treatment. He said he was given a tetanus shot because he had a cut on his hand.

The officers damaged his camera lens, which was “wiggly” and no longer fit correctly on the mount, McFadden said. He was able to continue using it through the week, but as a result of the damage sustained in the two incidents, he needed to get it fixed. He said he hadn’t decided whether he would file a complaint or take any other action related to the incident.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for the New York Times, said law-enforcement officers hit him with batons as he covered a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 13, 2021.

The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11, 2021 rekindled a wave of racial-justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd. Protests began outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department the day Wright was killed, and continued daily through mid-April.

McFadden told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that police got more aggressive with the crowd as the protest continued into the night, and that he heard law enforcement order press to leave the area. McFadden, who had been hit with projectiles the previous night, said he decided to leave.

He said he wasn’t able to go directly to his car because the street was blocked, so he walked in the opposite direction to a gas station up the street. He said he hesitated to walk to his car alone, and while he was at the gas station, he saw another photographer he recognized — freelance photojournalist Chris Tuite.

The two photographers saw someone with a car heading in their direction, McFadden said, and the driver offered to give them a ride to where McFadden’s car was parked.

Right after they got in the car, he said, a large number of law-enforcement officers started up the street. Police and National Guard vehicles also pulled into the area, he said.

Officers surrounded the car McFadden was in and beat on the windows with batons, he said.

“It almost seemed like the windows were going to break,” he told the Tracker.

He said the officers pointed their weapons at them. McFadden said he assumed they were loaded with rubber bullets, but that they looked like guns. McFadden, who was in the back seat with Tuite, said the officers were shouting at them to get out of the car, but it wasn’t possible because the vehicle was surrounded.

Officers dragged the driver of the car out, he said, and Tuite was pulled from the car. The Tracker has documented Tuite's assault here.

Then, McFadden said, two officers got into the vehicle — one into the driver’s seat and the other in the back next to him. He said the officers started hitting him with their clubs, striking him on his legs and hitting his camera, like they were trying to break it.

McFadden, who is Black, said he identified himself as a member of the press multiple times, but the officers didn’t stop.

When Tuite, who is white, then outside of the car, saw the officers in the car hitting McFadden, he told another officer that McFadden was a member of the press and a photographer for the New York Times.

McFadden said the officers then stopped and got out of the car. He said they tried to have him get out of the car on the opposite side from the other photographer, but McFadden objected because he saw police were making arrests on that side of the vehicle. He was able to exit the car next to Tuite.

McFadden said the officers checked his press credential, issued by the National Press Photographers Association. He said the troopers were skeptical, and said, “anybody could have made this.”

Officers told him they needed to see his driver’s license, which he had left in his car because he didn’t want to lose it. He said the officers allowed him to leave when Tuite said he would walk McFadden to his car.

“I saw them hitting Josh with their batons, including his camera,” Tuite said. “He’s a Black male, and they trusted me more than him. It took me saying 10 times that he was media before they got off of him.”

In total, McFadden said, it was about 45 minutes from when officers began beating on the car windows until when he was let go.

McFadden said he believes he was targeted because he is a journalist. “It just seemed there was a certain amount of disdain for the journalists there.”

McFadden also said that in this April 13 incident, and when he was detained and hit again by law enforcement three days later, officers released him only after a white journalist vouched for him.

“I do know it's because Black members of the press are treated differently,” he said. “And I have to acknowledge that.”

McFadden said Minnesota State Patrol troopers were involved in the incident. He said officers from other law enforcement agencies were also present, though he wasn’t sure which ones. A coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota National Guard, were involved in the response to protests in Brooklyn Center.

The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to the Tracker’s requests for comment by email and phone.

McFadden said he had bruises on his legs from being hit. After he was tackled and hit by law enforcement again on Friday the 16th, he went to the hospital for treatment. He said he was given a tetanus shot because he had a cut on his hand.

The officers damaged his camera lens, which was “wiggly” and no longer fit correctly on the mount, McFadden said. He was able to continue using it through the week, but as a result of the damage sustained in the two incidents, he needed to get it fixed. He said he hadn’t decided whether he would file a complaint or take any other action related to the incident.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg was shoved by a police officer while reporting on a protest near Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles, California on March 24, 2021, Berg told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Protesters gathered near Echo Park Lake to demonstrate against the city’s plan to clear a homeless encampment, blocking Los Angeles Police Department officers from the park, LAist reported.

In the evening protesters were trying to block police from putting up a barrier around the park, Berg told the Tracker.

Berg, who reports for Status Coup, which describes itself as a progressive, independent news outlet, said she was one of about a half dozen journalists between a line of police officers and protesters. She said she asked if she could move through to the other side of the police line, but an officer refused, telling her, “you’ve made your choice.”

Berg, who was filming using a video camera with a light attachment, said that police were objecting to journalists’ use of camera lights, saying that they were trying to blind the officers.

In a video published by Status Coup on YouTube, officers multiple times ask people, including Berg, to turn off their camera lights. Berg can be heard refusing, at times confrontationally.

In one clip multiple people with cameras can be seen near an officer, who says, “Turn off that light please.”

“I’m not turning off my light, dude, it is necessary for my job,” Berg can be heard saying.

In another clip, an officer can be heard saying “Leave the area, ma’am.”

The video then shows the top of another officer’s helmet, abruptly shakes, and Berg can be heard saying “no!”

Berg told the Tracker that’s when an officer hit her camera lens with a baton, then jabbed her in the abdomen with the baton.

Berg told the Tracker she was wearing a Kevlar vest and was not hurt by the baton. The blow to her camera lens cracked the outer casing of the lens, she said. The interior of the lens was not damaged and it is still usable, she said, though she has not gotten the casing repaired.

Berg said she was wearing multiple press credentials on a lanyard around her neck, including one issued by the Los Angeles Press Club and another that identified her as a journalist for Status Coup.

LAPD spokesperson Raul Jovel said the department opened an investigation into the incident after the Tracker reached out to the department for comment.

At a protest in Echo Lake Park the following day, March 25, at least 20 journalists were arrested, detained or assaulted. Find all documented press freedom violations from the Echo Park Lake protests here.

Independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg was shoved by a police officer while reporting on a protest near Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles, California on March 24, 2021, Berg told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Protesters gathered near Echo Park Lake to demonstrate against the city’s plan to clear a homeless encampment, blocking Los Angeles Police Department officers from the park, LAist reported.

In the evening protesters were trying to block police from putting up a barrier around the park, Berg told the Tracker.

Berg, who reports for Status Coup, which describes itself as a progressive, independent news outlet, said she was one of about a half dozen journalists between a line of police officers and protesters. She said she asked if she could move through to the other side of the police line, but an officer refused, telling her, “you’ve made your choice.”

Berg, who was filming using a video camera with a light attachment, said that police were objecting to journalists’ use of camera lights, saying that they were trying to blind the officers.

In a video published by Status Coup on YouTube, officers multiple times ask people, including Berg, to turn off their camera lights. Berg can be heard refusing, at times confrontationally.

In one clip multiple people with cameras can be seen near an officer, who says, “Turn off that light please.”

“I’m not turning off my light, dude, it is necessary for my job,” Berg can be heard saying.

In another clip, an officer can be heard saying “Leave the area, ma’am.”

The video then shows the top of another officer’s helmet, abruptly shakes, and Berg can be heard saying “no!”

Berg told the Tracker that’s when an officer hit her camera lens with a baton, then jabbed her in the abdomen with the baton.

Berg told the Tracker she was wearing a Kevlar vest and was not hurt by the baton. The blow to her camera lens cracked the outer casing of the lens, she said. The interior of the lens was not damaged and it is still usable, she said, though she has not gotten the casing repaired.

Berg said she was wearing multiple press credentials on a lanyard around her neck, including one issued by the Los Angeles Press Club and another that identified her as a journalist for Status Coup.

LAPD spokesperson Raul Jovel said the department opened an investigation into the incident after the Tracker reached out to the department for comment.

At a protest in Echo Lake Park the following day, March 25, at least 20 journalists were arrested, detained or assaulted. Find all documented press freedom violations from the Echo Park Lake protests here.

Freelance photojournalist Tim Evans told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was assaulted by multiple law enforcement officers and detained while reporting on a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 16, 2021.

Evans was one of at least 10 journalists detained that night, according to reports given to the Tracker, noted on social media or published in other news outlets.

Several hundred protesters had marched to the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, by a white police officer during a traffic stop. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier. According to state officials, a coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Minnesota State Patrol, and the Brooklyn Center Police Department, was involved in enforcement that night.

Evans, whose work has been published by the European Pressphoto Agency, the Guardian, NPR and other outlets, told the Tracker he arrived to cover the protests earlier in the evening. The demonstration was peaceful, he said, though a few people in the crowd shook the fence around the police station or threw a water bottle at law enforcement. Evans said he heard law enforcement announce an order to disperse at 9:45 p.m. Shortly after 10, he said, law enforcement moved swiftly to form a “kettle,” a crowd-control tactic in which officers block people from leaving.

As law enforcement closed in around the crowd, Evans said, dozens of Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies moved out from behind a fence that surrounded the Brooklyn Center police station, tackling people and spraying them with chemical agents “indiscriminately.”

Evans said that after he’d photographed an officer tackle someone to the ground in front of him, he’d looked to his right, toward a group of other photojournalists. When he turned to look back to his left, he said, he saw a sheriff’s deputy running directly at him. Evans said the officer, about 5 feet away, sprayed him in the face with a chemical agent he believes was mace.

Evans, who was wearing a helmet and goggles, said he dropped to his knees and held up his press credential in one hand and one of his cameras in the other; his credential, he said, is a card he made himself that features his name and photo and states “press” on the top and “photojournalist” on the bottom. In addition to his credential, he said, he had a label fixed to his backpack that identified him as “PRESS.”

Evans said that while he was still kneeling, he took a photograph of another photojournalist being confronted by a law enforcement officer. Right after taking the frame, he said, he heard someone shout, “Get on the ground!”

Evans said he then looked to his left and saw a sheriff charging at him. He said he held out his press credential and shouted to identify himself as press, but the officer proceeded to tackle him onto his back and punch him in the face. Evans said his face was largely protected because the brunt of the blow hit the padded goggles he was wearing.

The officer then ordered him to roll over onto his stomach, Evans said, and told him he was under arrest.

Evans said he complied, continuing to tell the officer he was a journalist. The officer, he said, ignored him and told him to “shut up.” While lying on his stomach, on top of his camera, Evans said he held his press credential over his shoulder. He said the officer grabbed the card, unsnapping the clasp on the lanyard, and threw the pass facedown.

“He rips it off and just, like, throws it into the ground and tells me he doesn’t give a fuck who I am, he doesn’t care if I’m media, and that I should have left when I had a chance,” Evans told the Tracker.

Evans said the officer kneeled on his back and used a shield to push down on him. At that point, Evans said, it seemed clear the officer was not going to release him because he was a journalist, so Evans said he started to try and attract the attention of other law enforcement nearby.

Evans said another officer soon came up to them and asked the deputy if Evans was being arrested. Evans said he tried to tell the new officer that he was press. The new officer told him to “shut the fuck up” and smashed the back of Evans’ helmet, thrusting his face into the dirt. Evans said he could not clearly see this officer, but he believes it was also a sheriff’s deputy.

Evans’ hands were restrained with zip tie cuffs behind his back, he said. After a few minutes on the ground, he said, he was raised to his feet and brought to sit on a curb.

About 10 minutes later, he said, another officer, who Evans believes was a Minnesota State Patrol trooper, came by and offered to make adjustments so he would be more comfortable. He said he told her he shouldn’t be there because he was a member of the press.

The officer looked at his credential and asked him about who he worked for. Evans said she then went to speak to a lieutenant. When she returned, she said they would let him go, “as long as I agreed to leave the area, and not continue to cover,” Evans said.

“I agreed because at that point, you know, I was not in a position to make demands, I suppose,” he told the Tracker.

He said the officer cut the zip ties and escorted him to the police perimeter, about a block away, where he was allowed to go.

Evans said he does not believe he was targeted by the first officer, who sprayed the chemical agent at him. “But everything from that point on felt targeted,” he told the Tracker.

Evans said he felt the second officer who attacked him “became more aggressive when he realized that I was a member of the media.”

Evans said the spray left him with rashes on his face, though the impact was mitigated because he was wearing personal protective equipment. His helmet and goggles also protected him from the impact of the punch and having his head shoved into the ground, he said. He said he had scratches on his hands, which he thinks were from the scuffle, but he did not require any medical attention.

The body of one of his cameras was scuffed, the screen protector was broken, and a rubber thumb grip was ripped off, he said. He said his equipment, including his lenses, is all still functional.

Evans’ detainment came hours after a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order barring Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or using force against journalists, in response to a motion filed earlier in the week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

Evans wrote a declaration about his experience, which the ACLU presented with a letter to the court the following day. He told the Tracker he is planning to file a formal complaint with relevant law enforcement agencies and is considering other action.

A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office told the Tracker that the department is aware of the incident and is investigating whether any of its staff were involved. He declined to comment further, pending the determination of the investigation. Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Freelance photojournalist Tim Evans told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was assaulted by multiple law enforcement officers and detained while reporting on a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 16, 2021.

Evans was one of at least 10 journalists detained that night, according to reports given to the Tracker, noted on social media or published in other news outlets.

Several hundred protesters had marched to the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, by a white police officer during a traffic stop. Wright’s death, on April 11, occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier. According to state officials, a coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Minnesota State Patrol, and the Brooklyn Center Police Department, was involved in enforcement that night.

Evans, whose work has been published by the European Pressphoto Agency, the Guardian, NPR and other outlets, told the Tracker he arrived to cover the protests earlier in the evening. The demonstration was peaceful, he said, though a few people in the crowd shook the fence around the police station or threw a water bottle at law enforcement. Evans said he heard law enforcement announce an order to disperse at 9:45 p.m. Shortly after 10, he said, law enforcement moved swiftly to form a “kettle,” a crowd-control tactic in which officers block people from leaving.

As law enforcement closed in around the crowd, Evans said, dozens of Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies moved out from behind a fence that surrounded the Brooklyn Center police station, tackling people and spraying them with chemical agents “indiscriminately.”

Evans said that after he’d photographed an officer tackle someone to the ground in front of him, he’d looked to his right, toward a group of other photojournalists. When he turned to look back to his left, he said, he saw a sheriff’s deputy running directly at him. Evans said the officer, about 5 feet away, sprayed him in the face with a chemical agent he believes was mace.

Evans, who was wearing a helmet and goggles, said he dropped to his knees and held up his press credential in one hand and one of his cameras in the other; his credential, he said, is a card he made himself that features his name and photo and states “press” on the top and “photojournalist” on the bottom. In addition to his credential, he said, he had a label fixed to his backpack that identified him as “PRESS.”

Evans said that while he was still kneeling, he took a photograph of another photojournalist being confronted by a law enforcement officer. Right after taking the frame, he said, he heard someone shout, “Get on the ground!”

Evans said he then looked to his left and saw a sheriff charging at him. He said he held out his press credential and shouted to identify himself as press, but the officer proceeded to tackle him onto his back and punch him in the face. Evans said his face was largely protected because the brunt of the blow hit the padded goggles he was wearing.

The officer then ordered him to roll over onto his stomach, Evans said, and told him he was under arrest.

Evans said he complied, continuing to tell the officer he was a journalist. The officer, he said, ignored him and told him to “shut up.” While lying on his stomach, on top of his camera, Evans said he held his press credential over his shoulder. He said the officer grabbed the card, unsnapping the clasp on the lanyard, and threw the pass facedown.

“He rips it off and just, like, throws it into the ground and tells me he doesn’t give a fuck who I am, he doesn’t care if I’m media, and that I should have left when I had a chance,” Evans told the Tracker.

Evans said the officer kneeled on his back and used a shield to push down on him. At that point, Evans said, it seemed clear the officer was not going to release him because he was a journalist, so Evans said he started to try and attract the attention of other law enforcement nearby.

Evans said another officer soon came up to them and asked the deputy if Evans was being arrested. Evans said he tried to tell the new officer that he was press. The new officer told him to “shut the fuck up” and smashed the back of Evans’ helmet, thrusting his face into the dirt. Evans said he could not clearly see this officer, but he believes it was also a sheriff’s deputy.

Evans’ hands were restrained with zip tie cuffs behind his back, he said. After a few minutes on the ground, he said, he was raised to his feet and brought to sit on a curb.

About 10 minutes later, he said, another officer, who Evans believes was a Minnesota State Patrol trooper, came by and offered to make adjustments so he would be more comfortable. He said he told her he shouldn’t be there because he was a member of the press.

The officer looked at his credential and asked him about who he worked for. Evans said she then went to speak to a lieutenant. When she returned, she said they would let him go, “as long as I agreed to leave the area, and not continue to cover,” Evans said.

“I agreed because at that point, you know, I was not in a position to make demands, I suppose,” he told the Tracker.

He said the officer cut the zip ties and escorted him to the police perimeter, about a block away, where he was allowed to go.

Evans said he does not believe he was targeted by the first officer, who sprayed the chemical agent at him. “But everything from that point on felt targeted,” he told the Tracker.

Evans said he felt the second officer who attacked him “became more aggressive when he realized that I was a member of the media.”

Evans said the spray left him with rashes on his face, though the impact was mitigated because he was wearing personal protective equipment. His helmet and goggles also protected him from the impact of the punch and having his head shoved into the ground, he said. He said he had scratches on his hands, which he thinks were from the scuffle, but he did not require any medical attention.

The body of one of his cameras was scuffed, the screen protector was broken, and a rubber thumb grip was ripped off, he said. He said his equipment, including his lenses, is all still functional.

Evans’ detainment came hours after a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order barring Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or using force against journalists, in response to a motion filed earlier in the week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

Evans wrote a declaration about his experience, which the ACLU presented with a letter to the court the following day. He told the Tracker he is planning to file a formal complaint with relevant law enforcement agencies and is considering other action.

A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office told the Tracker that the department is aware of the incident and is investigating whether any of its staff were involved. He declined to comment further, pending the determination of the investigation. Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Niko Georgiades, a journalist with the nonprofit media outlet Unicorn Riot, said he was detained by police while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 14, 2021.

Demonstrations were held several days in a row outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop on April 11. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier.

Georgiades told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly before midnight, he and other journalists were near the Lutheran Church of the Master, a short distance up Humboldt Avenue from the police station. He said that police had earlier issued a dispersal order for an area near the police station.

Georgiades said the National Guard, which had been in Brooklyn Center to assist law enforcement, were loading up and leaving with their vehicles. A group of people were shouting at the National Guard vehicles and antagonizing them, Georgiades said, which appeared to prompt the Minnesota State Patrol to decide to make arrests.

Georgiades said as a line of the troopers started running toward him, he turned to run as well. After he started running, Georgiades said he slowed down and stopped to identify himself to police as a journalist.

In a video posted on Unicorn Riot’s website, Georgiades can be heard identifying himself as a member of the press as an officer comes up to him and tells him he’s under arrest.

“For what? I’m press” Georgiades says. “I’m not doing anything, I’m press.”

An officer shouts, “stop resisting!” Georgiades told the Tracker that at that point he had his camera in one hand and the officer had straightened out his other arm behind him.

Georgiades responded, “I’m not resisting, I’m press.”

He said that while officers were detaining him, one pulled a wireless microphone out from his pocket, threw it on the ground, and kicked it.

Georgiades said his wrists were restrained in cuffs and he was brought over to where journalists Naasir Akailvi and Tracy Gunapalan, of the social media news outlet the Neighborhood Reporter also were being held.

Georgiades said police photographed the three journalists’ faces and press credentials. He said he was wearing a press card that identified him as a journalist with Unicorn Riot. Police told the journalists they took the photos so that they would not be detained again.

Georgiades said he was detained for less than 15 minutes in total.

After he was released, he said he went back to retrieve his microphone. He said he asked an officer where it was. The officer yelled at him when Georgiades asked why the equipment had been thrown, but did tell him where to look.

Georgiades said he found the microphone under some bushes. He said the mic flag, a label attached to the microphone which has Unicorn Riot’s logo on it, was missing. Yellow foam that covers part of the microphone was damaged.

The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On April 16, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or threatening to arrest journalists. In a statement in response to the court order, MSP acknowledged that the agency is prohibited from enforcing dispersal orders against journalists.

“While journalists have been detained and released during enforcement actions after providing credentials, no journalists have been arrested,” the MSP statement said.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Niko Georgiades, a journalist with the nonprofit media outlet Unicorn Riot, said he was detained by police while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 14, 2021.

Demonstrations were held several days in a row outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop on April 11. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier.

Georgiades told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly before midnight, he and other journalists were near the Lutheran Church of the Master, a short distance up Humboldt Avenue from the police station. He said that police had earlier issued a dispersal order for an area near the police station.

Georgiades said the National Guard, which had been in Brooklyn Center to assist law enforcement, were loading up and leaving with their vehicles. A group of people were shouting at the National Guard vehicles and antagonizing them, Georgiades said, which appeared to prompt the Minnesota State Patrol to decide to make arrests.

Georgiades said as a line of the troopers started running toward him, he turned to run as well. After he started running, Georgiades said he slowed down and stopped to identify himself to police as a journalist.

In a video posted on Unicorn Riot’s website, Georgiades can be heard identifying himself as a member of the press as an officer comes up to him and tells him he’s under arrest.

“For what? I’m press” Georgiades says. “I’m not doing anything, I’m press.”

An officer shouts, “stop resisting!” Georgiades told the Tracker that at that point he had his camera in one hand and the officer had straightened out his other arm behind him.

Georgiades responded, “I’m not resisting, I’m press.”

He said that while officers were detaining him, one pulled a wireless microphone out from his pocket, threw it on the ground, and kicked it.

Georgiades said his wrists were restrained in cuffs and he was brought over to where journalists Naasir Akailvi and Tracy Gunapalan, of the social media news outlet the Neighborhood Reporter also were being held.

Georgiades said police photographed the three journalists’ faces and press credentials. He said he was wearing a press card that identified him as a journalist with Unicorn Riot. Police told the journalists they took the photos so that they would not be detained again.

Georgiades said he was detained for less than 15 minutes in total.

After he was released, he said he went back to retrieve his microphone. He said he asked an officer where it was. The officer yelled at him when Georgiades asked why the equipment had been thrown, but did tell him where to look.

Georgiades said he found the microphone under some bushes. He said the mic flag, a label attached to the microphone which has Unicorn Riot’s logo on it, was missing. Yellow foam that covers part of the microphone was damaged.

The Minnesota State Patrol didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On April 16, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or threatening to arrest journalists. In a statement in response to the court order, MSP acknowledged that the agency is prohibited from enforcing dispersal orders against journalists.

“While journalists have been detained and released during enforcement actions after providing credentials, no journalists have been arrested,” the MSP statement said.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Independent journalist Naasir Akailvi, of the Minnesota-based social media news outlet the Neighborhood Reporter, said he was detained while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 14, 2021.

Akailvi told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was detained by Minnesota State Patrol troopers at the same time as his Neighborhood Reporter colleague, journalist Tracy Gunapalan. The Neighborhood Reporter covers social justice movements in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region and publishes on social media platforms, Akailvi said.

Demonstrations were held several days in a row outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department in response to the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop on April 11. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on trial in the death of George Floyd, rekindling a wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that had started nearly a year earlier.

Akailvi and Gunapalan were returning to their car late on the night of April 14 as the protest was winding down, they told the Tracker. As they were moving away from the police department, close to a nearby church, a group of people were tapping on the windows of law enforcement vehicles and going up to officers, so Gunapalan said the pair stopped to film the interaction.

Suddenly, she said, a line of MSP troopers started running up the street toward them. Gunapalan said the journalists held up their camera and microphone and yelled to identify themselves as press, but the troopers shouted at them to move, so they turned and started running.

Akailvi told the Tracker that as he was running, troopers grabbed him and pushed him to the ground. As he was taken down, he said, a trooper pulled his microphone out of his hand. As his backpack was taken off of him, a battery pack fell out, he said.

Akailvi said he was restrained on the ground with a trooper on top of him, and his hands were restrained in cuffs.

He said he told the troopers that he was press and had a press pass around his neck. Akailvi said a trooper got in front of him and said, “That doesn’t always work, does it?” When he asked another trooper to speak with a supervisor, he said the trooper responded, “You can get the fuck out of here.”

Akailvi said troopers brought him over to where Gunapalan and another independent journalist, Niko Georgiades of Unicorn Riot, were also detained.

Troopers had the journalists pull their face masks down, and they took photographs of the journalists’ faces and press passes, he said. Akailvi said he and Gunapalan wear self-made press cards that have their photographs, identify them as press and say “The Neighborhood Reporter.” Gunapalan said the troopers told the journalists they wanted to keep a record of their faces so they wouldn’t be detained again. The journalists, who were released after their photographs were taken, said they were detained for between 10 and 15 minutes.

After they were released, Akailvi said they went back to find the microphone and battery pack he lost when he was detained. He said the microphone was more than 15 feet away from where he had been pulled to the ground and was broken into multiple pieces. He said that he wasn’t able to find his battery pack.

The Minnesota State Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.

On April 16, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring Minnesota State Patrol from arresting or threatening to arrest journalists. In a statement in response to the court order, MSP acknowledged that the agency is prohibited from enforcing dispersal orders against journalists.

“While journalists have been detained and released during enforcement actions after providing credentials, no journalists have been arrested,” the MSP statement said.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas or who had their equipment damaged in the course of reporting. Find all incidents related to Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests here.

Maya Saenz, a news anchor for Omaha-metro area CBS affiliate KMTV, said she was shoved by National Guard officers while covering a June 1, 2020 protest in Omaha, Nebraska, against police violence.

Protests against police violence had spread across the country following the May 25 death of George Floyd. On June 1, demonstrations in Omaha also protested a decision by Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine to not charge a white bar owner, who had shot and killed 22-year-old Black man James Scurlock two days earlier, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

After an 8 p.m. curfew went into effect June 1, the World-Herald reported that at least 150 protesters remained on downtown streets. According to Mayor Jean Stothert's proclamation, as reported by WOWT 6 News, members of the media were exempt from the curfew.

Saenz told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she and her KMTV colleague, Kent Luetzen, were covering protests near Jackson Street and South 13th Street when they were aggressively confronted by National Guard officers.

“Guardsmen quickly ran towards the middle of the street and started grabbing protesters and throwing them on the ground and then placing zip-ties around their wrists,” she said. “I started recording on my cell phone and recorded when one guardsman shoved my colleague and I against a wired fence and attempted to arrest both of us and place zip-ties around us. We yelled, ‘We’re media! We’re media!’ and that’s when they let us go, but several others barked at us to leave the scene.”

In a video posted to Twitter at 9:07 p.m., both reporters repeatedly scream that they are media as a National Guard officer grabs Luetzen. Saenz said she was wearing a shirt with a KMTV logo in the top corner as well as her media credential on a lanyard around her neck. “During the forceful encounter with the guardsmen, my lanyard tore,” she said. “After that, I put it in my pocket.”

Luetzen told the Tracker he was briefly put into zip-ties, but quickly released. At the same time on the same block, one of their colleagues, Jon Kipper, was tackled and also briefly detained.

Approximately half an hour later, Luetzen and Saenz were briefly detained by Omaha police.

Around 9:30 p.m., Luetzen said protesters had spread out after police made a series of arrests in the downtown area. He told the Tracker that he and colleagues from his station, including Saenz, were walking away from the main demonstration area after being told repeatedly that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave. At the intersection of Leavenworth Street and South 15th Street, they came across four Omaha police officers who had detained two people.

"They made us get on the ground and put our hands behind our backs," Luetzen said. "Even though we work with them daily and they knew my co-worker, they still made us get down, put our chests to the ground."

Luetzen said he had his press credentials around his neck and a KMTV logo on his hat. He said that Saenz told the officers that they were all working journalists and were leaving the area. After Saenz’s clarification, he said, the officers let them leave.

The Nebraska National Guard did not respond to an immediate request for comment. When asked for comment about Luetzen’s detainment, Lt. Sherie Thomas, a spokesperson for the Omaha Police Department, told the Tracker that Police Chief Todd Schmaderer had ordered “an overall review of the protests.” Thomas later said that the department sent “clear communication” to news outlets “to make sure employees had visible badges showing that they work for the media” and to “wear highly visible vests.”

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Freelance journalist and National Press Photographers Association member Julianna Lacoste was struck with crowd-control munitions, assaulted by law enforcement and arrested while documenting protests in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 8, 2020.

Lacoste told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an email that at around 7:30 p.m. she’d arrived at the intersection of Normandie Avenue and West Imperial Highway, where protesters had gathered outside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department following the fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man, by deputies on Aug. 31.

According to Lacoste, at approximately 8:30 p.m., the deputies declared the protest unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse. Shortly thereafter, she said, they began to advance on the crowd and fire crowd-control munitions.

“I began to run down Normandie trying to escape the clouds of tear gas, rubber/foam bullets, pepper balls, stinger grenades and sand bags being fired,” Lacoste said. “I kept running, but it seemed like I couldn’t get away from the action.”

Lacoste said that as things began to calm down, about an hour later, she saw some people walking to their cars and that no deputies were in sight. Lacoste said she continued to move and had just passed a group of individuals when she felt a crowd-control munition strike her hand and knock her phone away.

“Then my head was shot, but I was luckily wearing a helmet,” she said. “Then my shoulder was shot as well. At that point I was only looking to find shelter because I was simply getting pelted with shots.”

Lacoste said she was eventually able to crouch behind a nearby car, but almost immediately after hunching down, two deputies appeared beside her. Lacoste said one aimed a weapon at her as the other forced her onto her stomach.

“I said, ‘I’m not resisting. I’m press. OK, OK, I’m not resisting,’” Lacoste recounted. She said she had a press badge in her bag and her helmet featured a “PRESS” label.

Lacoste said that the camera she was wearing around her neck broke from the weight of the deputies during the course of the arrest. “Their knee was on my back and neck as they wrestled for the cuffs,” she said.

Lacoste said the deputies secured the handcuffs incredibly tight, which worsened the pain in her injured hand.

She said they refused to pick up her cellphone from where it had fallen and escorted her to an LASD vehicle, where she waited as others were loaded in “like sardines.” The detainees were taken to a van and then transported to the Imperial Sheriff’s station, Lacoste said. There, she said, deputies used a knife to cut the straps of both her backpack and camera in order to pull them off without removing her handcuffs.

Lacoste also alleged that at the station some of the officers used personal cellphones to photograph her and other detainees. Student journalist Pablo Unzueta, who was also arrested that evening, made similar allegations. The Tracker has published his case here.

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department values the media and highly respects the freedom of the press,” Deputy Trina Schrader, a spokesperson for the department, told the Tracker in an emailed statement when asked for comment on Unzueta’s arrest. Schrader also noted that an investigation had been launched into the events that day. The department did not respond to an emailed request for comment about Lacoste’s arrest as of press time.

Lacoste said she was detained for more than an hour before being transported to a hospital for treatment. At approximately 6 a.m. the following day, she said, she was transported back to the sheriff’s station.

Lacoste said that at around 10 a.m. she was finally able to speak with her lawyer, who informed her that her bail had been posted and she should be released within two hours. According to Lacoste’s bail paperwork, which was reviewed by the Tracker, she posted a $5,000 bond.

Before her release, Lacoste said, she was transferred to the women’s jail and asked about her injuries. Upon detailing them, the officer processing Lacoste rejected her paperwork and instructed deputies to transport her back to the hospital so her injuries could be fully documented. According to Lacoste, deputies did not transport her back to the hospital, however, and placed her in a cell at the sheriff’s station.

“After hours of begging for a phone that worked they finally let me use the phone,” Lacoste said. “At that point I called my boyfriend and he informed me that I was going to get out soon and they had been making hundreds of calls on my behalf. During that phone call is when I got released.”

Lacoste was charged with misdemeanor failure to disperse and ordered to appear in court on Jan. 6, 2021. Lacoste hasn’t responded to the Tracker’s latest requests for comment, and the status of her case remains unknown.

A KMTV 3 News Now car was found vandalized in the early morning hours of May 30, 2020, while the reporter was covering protests against police violence in Omaha, Nebraska.

Reporters from KMTV 3 News Now, a CBS-affiliate station, were documenting protests that began across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.

According to the Omaha World-Herald, thousands of protesters gathered at 72nd and Dodge, one of Omaha’s busiest intersections on May 29th. Deputy Chief Ken Kanger said that there was generally no violence and harm, according to the World-Herald, but as of 10:30 p.m. Lt. Sherie Thomas said the demonstration was no longer peaceful.

KMTV-TV 3 News Now News Director Geoffrey Roth told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the news vehicle was parked about 3 blocks away from the protests as a safety precaution. Roth said a reporter returned to the car shortly after midnight on the 30th to find it spray painted with profanity and what appeared to be gang symbols, but there was no other damage.

“The vandalizing of our news vehicle was only a small part of what happened to our reporters in the field that evening,” he said. “Two were shoved to the ground by police officers while covering the protest that night and another was threatened with arrest.”

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Los Angeles Times photographer Luis Sinco said his camera was struck by a rubber bullet, which also bruised his arm, while he was covering a protest in Los Angeles on May 30, 2020.

Sinco was covering one of hundreds of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that were held across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25.

Peaceful protests were held across the city earlier in the day on May 30, but by afternoon, people began looting and vandalizing property in some parts of the city, the LAist reported. Later that day, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency, and a curfew was imposed from 8 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. the following morning in L.A. and the surrounding area.

Sinco told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an email that he was covering a protest that night in downtown Los Angeles. Demonstrators were confronting police, and some people threw objects toward law enforcement, according to Sinco. Police began moving in a line formation toward the group of protesters, where Sinco was positioned, and two officers shot less-lethal projectiles, a category that includes rubber bullets, toward the demonstrators.

Sinco said that he was lowering his camera from his eye, holding it near his stomach, when a rubber bullet hit it. He said he could feel the impact of the projectile on the camera. The rubber bullet then ricocheted off and hit him near his elbow on the inner bicep of his left arm, he said.

The projectile ripped through metal alloys of the body of the Canon 1DX camera, according to Sinco. A photograph he posted on Twitter shows a hole on the top of the camera exposing the interior of the device.

A journalist with Full Revolution Media said he was arrested by police while covering a protest on the night of Sept. 26, 2020, in downtown Portland, Oregon.

The protest was among the many demonstrations that broke out in response to police violence and in support of Black Lives Matter following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland had targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The city agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests or impede their work.

Earlier in the day on Sept. 26, a rally organized by the Proud Boys far-right extremist group drew some 800 people to Portland, while at least 1,000 counter-protesters gathered nearby, The Oregonian reported. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had declared a state of emergency ahead of the rally, putting officers from the Portland Police Bureau, Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office under a unified command.

After those protests ended, left-leaning demonstrators gathered downtown later that night, according to The Oregonian, and police declared an “unlawful assembly” around 11:40 p.m. At 10:23 p.m., the MSCO tweeted that "officers have made more than a dozen arrests."

John, the Full Revolution Media journalist, told the Tracker, "I moved south and decided to separate from the protesters by myself to look for a friend that had my charging cable, as my phone was about to die."

John, who asked that his last name not be used out of safety concerns, said an officer asked him to go with the crowd, but he said, "No, I'm going southwest."

"He told me again, and knowing it was not a legal order, I started to walk when he grabbed me and said, 'You are under arrest,'" he said.

John believes he was targeted, noting he had just interacted with that officer about 30 minutes earlier.

He had press markings on the front and rear of his helmet, he said, but was still transported in a "paddy wagon with people with no masks" to the Multnomah County jail, where he was booked for harassment and interfering with a peace officer. The charges were later dropped, John said.

The journalist said he was released on a Sunday and allowed to pick up his personal belongings on Monday when the property room opened, but his work-related belongings were kept in evidence until he filed for their release. On Thursday he was allowed to retrieve his helmet, GoPro camera, Canon camera, and backpack with a backup phone, charger, batteries and other items in it.

"One of my phones (brand new) had been damaged," he told the Tracker. "I was in booking for 14 hours, and if it weren't for help from people outside jail, I wouldn't have been able to pick up my daughter."

The MSCO didn’t respond to a request for comment. The PPB has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.

Independent videographer Melissa Lewis was hit multiple times by crowd-control munitions while covering dueling demonstrations in downtown Olympia, Washington, on Dec. 12, 2020. One of the rounds struck and damaged her press pass.

Lewis told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she was covering a “Stop the Steal” protest organized by the far-right group Patriot around the state Capitol, where counter-protesters had also gathered.

“There was a much larger ‘Stop the Steal’ presence than anti-fascist presence, so the anti-fascists were beat back by the far-right very quickly,” Lewis said.

The Olympian reported that the two groups began to clash around 12:30 p.m., and soon after Olympia police declared a riot and issued orders to disperse.

Around 2:30 p.m., Olympian reporter Rolf Boone tweeted that police pushed back antifa protesters using flash-bang grenades.

Lewis told the Tracker the Olympia Police Department officers were using small, round flash-bang grenades, some of which contained OC “pepper” capsaicin dust, an irritant also used in some tear gas and pepper sprays.

As the officers pushed the antifascist counter-protesters away from downtown, Lewis said officers blocked the north and south sides of the street, forcing protesters to choose between facing them or entering a private parking garage.

“It was pretty overwhelming,” Lewis said, adding that police were using so many chemical irritants that residue built up in her eyes.

“[It got] to the point that it was gritty and I had to have my eyes washed out,” Lewis said, “and I was afraid that it might scratch my corneas.”

Lewis said she was physically struck twice in the thigh and once in the chest with the plastic flash-bang grenades. The one that struck her in the chest damaged the press pass from the Industrial Workers of the World Freelance Journalists Union that she was wearing on a lanyard.

An unidentified man attacked Bellingcat journalist Robert Evans with a baton, breaking bones in his hand, Evans said, as the journalist was covering demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 22, 2020.

Clashes erupted after more than 100 far-right protesters, including members of the extremist group the Proud Boys and supporters of then-President Donald Trump, gathered outside the Justice Center for a “Back the Blue” rally on Aug. 22, the Washington Post reported. Hundreds of counter-protesters, including Black Lives Matter activists, amassed in opposition.

Evans, a reporter for investigative news site Bellingcat and host of a podcast for iHeartMedia, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that shortly after 1 p.m. he saw a fight break out as he was reporting on the protests outside the Justice Center.

Video he posted on Twitter shows that as Evans nears the skirmish, a man in a gray baseball hat and orange-tinted sunglasses turns around and hits his baton downward at Evans’s hand, knocking his phone to the ground.

Law enforcement damaged livestreaming equipment belonging to independent journalist Jon Ziegler while he was covering protests in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 15, 2020.

On the night of Aug. 15 and early into the morning of Aug. 16, Ziegler was covering demonstrations in northeast Portland against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Ziegler, who previously worked with the media collective Unicorn Riot, has been documenting protests for his independent livestreaming account, RebZ.tv.

Sometime after 9 p.m., law enforcement declared the gathering a riot and forced protesters to disperse, Ziegler told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. The journalist said he was walking behind a line of police officers and filming them as they chased protesters down the street, when he saw an officer shove a woman in front of him. In a recording of the incident posted to Twitter, the woman can be seen falling to the ground. Ziegler is then seen following the officer and asking for his badge number. The officer turns, yells “right up behind you” and lunges at Ziegler.

Law enforcement damaged livestreaming equipment belonging to independent journalist Jon Ziegler while he was covering protests in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 15, 2020.

On the night of Aug. 15 and early into the morning of Aug. 16, Ziegler was covering demonstrations in northeast Portland against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Ziegler, who previously worked with the media collective Unicorn Riot, has been documenting protests for his independent livestreaming account, RebZ.tv.

Sometime after 9 p.m., law enforcement declared the gathering a riot and forced protesters to disperse, Ziegler told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. The journalist said he was walking behind a line of police officers and filming them as they chased protesters down the street, when he saw an officer shove a woman in front of him. In a recording of the incident posted to Twitter, the woman can be seen falling to the ground. Ziegler is then seen following the officer and asking for his badge number. The officer turns, yells “right up behind you” and lunges at Ziegler.

Independent social media journalist Joey Wieser said he was shoved by police and sprayed in the face and mouth with a chemical irritant while reporting on a protest in Seattle, Washington, on July 25, 2020.

Protests in Seattle had been held regularly since George Floyd, a Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25. In late July, the Seattle protests intensified when the Trump administration deployed U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers to the city, Crosscut reported.

Wieser, who told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he began covering protests in late May by livestreaming and posting videos on social media, said that on July 25 he was reporting from the front of a large protest on 11th Avenue in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Police began advancing on the crowd of protesters, shepherding them around a corner onto a narrower street, Wieser said. Because of the size of the crowd, Wieser said, he couldn’t move quickly.

A video he posted on Facebook shows Wieser repeating, “we are moving back, we are being peaceful.” Suddenly, an officer lunges toward him, sprays him and shoves him.

Wieser coughs and shouts out, “Oh my god I just got shoved and sprayed!” Seconds later the camera turns back toward the police, and an officer blasts an orange substance, which Wieser told the Tracker was pepper spray, directly toward Wieser, who begins screaming and repeats “I’m being attacked, I’m being attacked.” The camera becomes blurry from the spray.

Wieser told the Tracker he was “completely incapacitated.”

“I cannot breathe, and I cannot see, and I'm practically flailing about trying to get out of that situation,” Wieser said. “And then I am shoved incredibly hard — I mean the hardest I've ever been shoved in my entire life.”

Seconds later on the video, several bangs can be heard. The video, blurry from the spray on the camera lens, shows a bright orange flash, and Wieser shouts, “That exploded!” He told the Tracker that was when blast balls — explosive devices containing a chemical irritant — started erupting around his feet. He said it felt as though one had gone off directly near him, because he felt heat rushing up his legs.

Wieser said he was incapacitated for about half an hour after he was attacked. The video shows that he retreated to an alley where someone came to help him wash out his eyes. Wieser told the Tracker his Samsung phone, which he used to stream video, was so badly damaged from the spray that he needed to replace it.

In a July 27 declaration he gave for an American Civil Liberties Union motion for contempt, Wieser said he couldn’t open his eyes for at least 15 minutes, and his face, arms and neck were burning. “It was the most excruciating pain I have experienced in my adult life,” he wrote.

The ACLU motion argued that the city had violated an earlier injunction restricting Seattle police from using chemical agents and projectiles, and that the Seattle Police Department “repeatedly targeted journalists with brutal violence” on July 25. The motion led to a modified court order on Aug. 10 that barred police from targeting projectiles and chemical irritants at journalists, as long as they are displaying a press pass or wearing clothing that distinguishes them as members of the media. Wieser, identified as an independent journalist, is named in the ACLU motion.

Wieser said that at the July 25 protest, he was not wearing any press identification, but he stood near other members of the press who repeatedly shouted to police identifying themselves as media.

Weiser said he did not feel that he was targeted because he was a journalist. “I feel that the animosity towards just about anybody on the street was indiscriminate,” he told the Tracker.

Three other journalists — Omari Salisbury and John Mitchell of Converge Media and Renee Raketty of the Seattle Gay News — were also hit with crowd-control devices while covering the July 25 protest, according to statements included in the ACLU suit, interviews with the Tracker and social media footage. Find all incidents from that day here.

Julie Davidow, a spokesperson for the ACLU, said in a statement to the Tracker that the August court injunction had been effective in strengthening protections for journalists, as well as legal observers and medics.

“[W]e have not seen journalists subjected to the same kinds of indiscriminate and excessive police force they faced while covering the demonstrations that took place in Seattle last summer in response to the murder of George Floyd,” Davidow said.

Seattle Police Department spokesperson Randy Huserik told the Tracker in an email that the department investigates cases of use of force or crowd control devices. Huserik confirmed that the department used pepper spray and flash-bang devices on July 25.

“If journalists covering events choose to place themselves within a crowd where those devices may be deployed, they have the potential to be exposed to these devices,” he said.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting several hundred incidents of journalists being assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd control ammunition or tear gas, or having their equipment damaged while covering these protests across the country. Find these incidents here.

According to a local news report, an unidentified broadcast cameraman was robbed at gunpoint while loading gear into a news vehicle in Berkeley, California, on Aug. 10, 2020.

CBS affiliate KPIX 5 reported that the incident took place outside Congregation Netivot Shalom. In security camera footage time-stamped 5:01 p.m. and published by KPIX, an individual can be seen approaching the journalist as he loads a camera into a news vehicle. After the individual draws a gun and points it at the journalist, the journalist attempts to hand the camera off before placing it on the ground. The individual then picks it up and runs away.

According to KPIX, the camera was valued at $25,000. The Tracker was unable to verify the identity of the journalist or station.

On Sept. 10, Berkeley police arrested a man identified as Jimmy Ray, having found items in his home that connected him to the robbery, according to a department news release. It is unclear whether the camera itself was found and, if so, in what condition it was in.

According to the news release, Ray was charged the following day on several counts, including robbery.

When contacted for comment, the Berkeley Police Department was unable to provide further details about the condition of the camera or the cameraman's identity.

Independent photojournalist John Rudoff was shoved to the ground by police while he was photographing an arrest during a protest in Portland, Oregon, late on Sept. 26, 2020.

Rudoff, whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Nation and Rolling Stone, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he hit the ground “so hard that my teeth hurt” and that his camera lens was significantly damaged.

Rudoff was documenting one of the many protests that had been ongoing for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. The Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction, barring the Portland Police Bureau from harming or impeding journalists. Rudoff is a plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit.

Earlier in the day on Sept. 26, a rally organized by the Proud Boys far-right extremist group drew some 800 people to Portland, while at least 1,000 counter-protesters gathered nearby, The Oregonian reported. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had declared a state of emergency ahead of the rally, putting officers from the Portland Police Bureau, Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office under a unified command. After those protests ended, left-leaning demonstrators gathered downtown later that night, according to The Oregonian, and police declared an “unlawful assembly” around 11:40 p.m.

Rudoff told the Tracker that he was following a crowd of protesters around 11:45 p.m. when several police officers ran up the sidewalk and tackled a demonstrator. Rudoff crossed the street and ran to document the arrest, along with several other journalists and photographers.

When Rudoff started taking photographs, standing at least 10 feet back, two officers put their hands on him and pushed him backwards, he said. He didn’t have time to put a foot back to catch his balance, and he landed on his right hip and the right side of his back. The right side of his head got slammed to the ground, he said.

“All the teeth in my mouth hurt from the impact of my helmet on the sidewalk,” he said.

Video posted on Twitter at midnight by Mike Baker of The New York Times shows officers running alongside a wall and tackling an individual to the ground. About 20 seconds into the video, Rudoff, wearing a bright yellow backpack, can be seen standing several yards back from the arrest, holding a camera up to take a photograph. Then two officers approach him, put their hands on his shoulder, and push him to the ground.

Independent journalist Alissa Azar was shoved and hit with batons by law enforcement officers while she was covering a protest in downtown Portland, Oregon, during the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2020.

The protest was among the many demonstrations that broke out in response to police violence and in support of Black Lives Matter following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland had targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The city agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not to arrest or harm any journalists or legal observers of the protests or impede their work.

On the night of Sept. 26, several hundred protesters gathered in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center for a demonstration that lasted into the early morning hours, according to local news station KGW8. After an unlawful assembly was declared around 11:30 p.m., law enforcement officers “began bull-rushing and pushing protesters, press, and legal observers,” the article said.

A little after midnight, Azar was pushed around, hit with batons and shoved to the ground by officers while covering the demonstration, she told the Tracker.

“Before we knew it, a few riot vans came in and arrested three people just for standing in the street,” she said, noting that officers from the Portland Police Bureau, Oregon State Police and Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office were working together under a unified command.

“They pushed us SO far. And by pushed I mean literally sprinting as fast as they could after us...I saw countless people get pushed and hit,” Azar tweeted at 12:25 a.m.

In a follow-up tweet, she wrote, “I got told to move and to ‘use my brain’ and ‘self accountability’ for saying I’m moving. I then got pushed to the ground, picked up by my backpack strap & pushed again then told to ‘stop flopping around.’ Wrist is already bruising and swelling & hurt my ankle.”

Windows of a WHDH 7News van were smashed while a news team from the local TV station was covering protests in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early hours of June 1, 2020.

Demonstrations in Boston began as protesters gathered in cities across the country, sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody. Thousands of people joined Boston protests on May 31 against police brutality and racial injustice. Late that night, after hours of peaceful demonstrations, protests escalated into violence as some participants smashed windows and set fires across the city, WBUR reported.

Nathalie Pozo, a reporter for 7News, posted on Twitter that her news team had covered the protests for six hours and was wrapping up its work for the night when the station’s van was attacked. Video she posted shows the vehicle driving by a group of people when the driver’s side window suddenly bursts, spraying glass into the cab. Another object hits and breaks the windshield.

A voice can be heard asking if the driver is okay, and the driver responds, “Yeah, I got glass in my eye.”

Independent photojournalist Trip Jennings was struck in his eye with a pepper ball that pierced one of the plastic lenses on his gas mask on July 26, 2020 in Portland, Oregon, while he covered civil unrest in the city.

Jennings was covering one of the many protests that broke out in Portland in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Protests have been held nightly in Portland since late May, which grew more intense in July as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in the city. Since July, both police and federal agents in the city have been under court orders not to harm journalists or otherwise impede their work.

In a Twitter thread, Jennings said he was taking photos of the police response to demonstrations at the intersection of SW 4th Avenue and SW Salmon Street near the Multnomah County Justice Center, standing among demonstrators, when authorities gave an order to disperse.

As the crowd began to disperse, federal agents fired crowd-control munitions that included pepper balls, rubber bullets and tear gas, he wrote.

Jennings wrote that he was ducking for cover behind a tree when what he believes to be a pepper ball hit him in the face, broke through one of the plastic lenses on his gas mask and cut his eye and cheek.

The journalist found medics near the scene. “‘Oh my God, that’s bad!’” one of the street medics tending to his injuries remarked, according to Jennings.

Jennings told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that three medics escorted him to a vehicle to drive him to the emergency room at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in northwest Portland. As the group drove away from the scene, federal agents fired impact munitions at the vehicle, he said.

“On the way to the hospital, we drove through clouds of teargas so windows stayed shut and the pepper spray on my clothing and bag choked us all,” Jennings tweeted.

The pepper spray still clung to Jennings after he arrived at Good Samaritan, causing the doctor who treated his injury to cough repeatedly behind a surgical mask, according to Jennings. The doctor put on a respirator mask prior to sewing eight stitches into Jennings’ eyelid and face, he told the Tracker.

The Portland Police Bureau has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation.

Journalist Tuan St. Patrick’s camera lens was broken after he was repeatedly shoved to the ground by Portland, Oregon police in the early morning hours of July 26, 2020, just hours after he and other journalists covering demonstrations say they were hit with crowd-control munitions.

St. Patrick is a national correspondent for Berlin, Germany-based video news service Ruptly, whose sole shareholder is funded by the Russian government. St. Patrick was covering one of the many protests that broke out in Portland in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Protests have been held nightly in Portland since late May and grew more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement in the city increased. Since July, police and federal agents in the Rose City have been under court orders not to harm or impede journalists.

St. Patrick was covering demonstrations that began the night of July 25 around the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse and continued on into the next morning.

St. Patrick and three other journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that they were struck with crowd-control munitions just after midnight on July 26. Their account of that incident is here.

St. Patrick told the Tracker he was sprayed with a chemical irritant in that incident but continued covering the police response to the demonstrations.

He said that at about 5 a.m. on July 26, he was livestreaming while he was among protesters at the intersection of SW 4th Ave and SW Yamhill Street. Police announced an unlawful assembly for the area and dispatched officers to clear the intersection with crowd control munitions and physical force, he said.

“They start running towards us,” St. Patrick told the Tracker. “I turn around and I’m like ‘this is not so safe.’”

St. Patrick told the Tracker that he was pushed to the ground twice and shoved into a tree as officers rushed through the area. He got to his feet and found pepper-ball powder on his vest and his clothing. He was carrying a Sony A7 Mark III digital photo camera and, upon closer inspection of his gear, found that his lens had been broken.

“It was just a messy scene,” St. Patrick said.

Since July, law enforcement officers from the Portland Police Bureau and federal agencies have been barred by court rulings from arresting, harming or impeding journalists or legal observers of the protests. The orders were issued as part of a lawsuit that the American Civil LIberties Union filed on behalf of journalists who allege that law enforcement officials targeted them with arrests and physical violence.

The Portland Police Bureau has said it wouldn't comment on incidents involving journalists covering the protests, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case.

Lexis-Olivier Ray, a freelance multimedia journalist, was tackled to the ground by Los Angeles Police Department officers and beaten with batons, damaging his equipment as he documented the celebrations of the Dodgers’ World Series win in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 28, 2020.

Los Angeles and cities across the U.S. experienced protests against police brutality throughout the summer, and crowds in L.A. had clashed with police earlier in October during celebrations of the Lakers’ NBA championship win. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

USA Today reported that the Dodger celebrations in L.A. that began the night of Oct. 27 took place mainly in downtown and in Echo Park, a neighborhood near Dodger Stadium. Ray covered the event on assignment for L.A. Taco, a digital-only outlet focused on the city. Ray did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Ray told the Los Angeles Times that he was near the intersection of West 8th and Flower Streets when officers suddenly sprinted forward and pinned him against a car. Ray said that he feared being dragged underneath the car, which was slowly moving forward, if the driver accelerated.

Shortly after midnight, Ray posted a video to Twitter that shows a line of officers in riot gear rushing at him, pushing him repeatedly and ultimately knocking him to the ground. Ray can be heard identifying himself as a member of the press multiple times.

Ray told the Times that he had introduced himself to a police supervisor at the scene moments before the incident, so some of the officers who were standing with the supervisor should have known who he was.

In a subsequent tweet, Ray posted pictures of a few abrasions on his right hand and elbow, as well as damage to his video camera’s microphone and lens. “A group of LAPD officers just broke my camera mic, tackled me to the ground and beat me with their batons, after I identified myself as a journalist multiple times,” he wrote. He noted, however, that he was “OK.”

Independent photojournalist Teri Jacobs was shoved to the ground and hit several times by Portland police while covering protests in downtown Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 18, 2020, according to news reports and a legal filing.

The protests were among many demonstrations that broke out in response to police violence and in support of Black Lives Matter following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland had targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The case resulted in a temporary restraining order on July 2 barring the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists, which was extended later that summer.

Demonstrators on that Tuesday the 18th marched to the Multnomah County Justice Center, where police declared the site of a riot around 10:30 p.m., according to news reports. Portland police officers in riot gear pushed protesters toward the north, where Jacobs was documenting along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, according to The Portland Mercury.

In a video shared by Twitter user @johnthelefty, an officer uses a baton to knock Jacobs’ head and shoves her to the ground, the newspaper reported. When she rolls over to sit up, he hits her on the forehead again with the baton.

Jacobs has filed a legal complaint with the United States District Court and is represented by attorneys from the Oregon Justice Resource Center, according to the Portland Mercury. “As Ms. Jacobs was knocked to the ground, she was terrified that the officer was going to continue to attack her and she feared that she might never get up again if he continued with his violent attack,” the complaint reads, according to the article. “An entire squad of Portland Police Officers witnessed this act, failed to intervene, and allowed this officer to walk away after committing a violent crime against Ms. Jacobs.”

In an interview with Fox 12, Jacobs’ attorney Juan Chavez said she was wearing a press credential and that prior to the documented shove, she was also hit “repeatedly on the head, neck and back with a truncheon” by the officer. Chavez added that her camera was broken “when she was knocked to the ground.” According to The Portland Mercury, Jacobs is “seeking punitive damages and attorneys’ fees from the city and PPB officers involved.”

Jacobs declined to comment to the Tracker. When reached by email about this incident, the PPB declined to comment citing pending litigation.

Independent journalist Ari Taylor told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was assaulted and detained by federal officers while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on July 2, 2020.

Taylor, who was livestreaming for Halospace Community Media and filming for the Grassroots Activist International Association, was documenting one of the many protests that have been ongoing for months in Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. The Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

The Portland protests had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23. Taylor said she is participating in a separate class-action suit against federal officers and Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for using excessive force against protesters.

On the night of July 2, several hundred protesters gathered outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center, according to local news station KGW. After several demonstrators broke into the building, federal agents emerged to clear the area around 11:42, according to a Portland Police Bureau report. The Portland police declared a riot about 10 minutes later.

Taylor told the Tracker that right before the riot was declared, she was filming a glass door that had been shattered during an altercation between federal officers and a shirtless individual. According to Taylor, the officers were pushing down on the door and broke it, but the individual was arrested for the incident.

"They [officers] had shoved another member of the press with their shield, and I had gone to help him up," Taylor said. "Then they went after the shirtless individual, and I turned around to get his arrest. I had my back to the officers and was filming the crowd, and that's when they attacked me."

In a video taken by independent journalist Eric Greatwood and posted on YouTube, at about the one-minute mark, several officers can be seen pulling Taylor across the courthouse entrance and into the building amidst clouds of purple smoke and yelling from the crowd. At the 1:45 mark in another video, it is clear that Taylor is being dragged by her arm and leg. Another video shows Taylor's camera footage intercut with another individual's footage, and she can be seen being dragged up the stairs around the 0:50 mark.

Taylor said the officers pulled her across a pile of broken glass, damaging her DSLR camera and lens in the process.

Once inside the building, Taylor identified a mix of officers from the Portland police, DHS, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, based on their uniforms and badges, she told the Tracker. They brought her to a holding facility on the third floor, she said, but wouldn’t tell her what she was being charged with.

"A male officer patted me down and searched me," said Taylor. "Every hour, they'd come in and I'd ask to talk to a lawyer and they wouldn't let me."

Around 5:30 a.m., the officers released her without any paperwork or rationale as to why she was detained, said Taylor, adding that they only stated, "We may be talking later."

"They still have my gimbal," she said, referring to a mechanical stabilizer for her camera. She said the officers had confiscated all her belongings, including her backpack, gas mask and camera equipment when they searched her. "There's nothing to be held accountable. I have no paperwork to prove that I was ever in their facilities."

At the time, Taylor had press credentials stating the organizations she was affiliated with, she said. She tweeted photos of numerous bruises, cuts and scrapes sustained from the incident, and said she ended up going to the hospital for treatment of injuries to her hip, back and foot.

Photojournalist Mathieu Lewis-Rolland was hit with crowd-control munitions and tear gas fired by federal agents while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, on July 22, 2020, causing damage to his camera.

Lewis-Rolland, an independent photographer whose work has been published by the Portland Mercury, The New York Times and Reuters, was covering one of the protests that had been held in Portland almost nightly since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering Black Lives Matter protests across the country.

The Portland protests had grown more intense as the presence of federal law enforcement increased in early July. A temporary restraining order on July 2 that barred the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists wasn’t expanded to include federal agents until July 23. Lewis-Rolland is a plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon, that led to the ban.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who had been criticized for his handling of law enforcement during the protests, attended the demonstrations the night of July 22. Protesters confronted the mayor for tactics the city police used to crack down on demonstrators, according to local news outlet KATU, while the mayor spoke out against the presence of federal law enforcement agencies in Portland.

Lewis-Rolland was standing about six feet from the mayor outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, a focal point of the protests, when he was hit with munitions, according to a statement he provided for the ACLU case.

In a video Lewis-Rolland posted on Twitter, a crowd is seen up against the metal fence that had been set up around the courthouse. A round of shots can be heard, followed by Lewis-Rolland exclaiming, “I just got shot! I just got shot!” As he moves away from the fence, a white cloud of tear gas envelopes the crowd, including the mayor, who can be seen facing the fence and wearing a blue shirt and goggles.

“So if life could't get any stranger for me, last night I was shot with less lethal's by feds and then tear gassed all while standing next to @tedwheeler, the mayor of Portland, Oregon,” Lewis-Rolland wrote in the post.

New York City police arrested a man on criminal mischief charges for damaging a WPIX-11 crew’s equipment and throwing rocks marked with profanities at the windows of the WABC Eyewitness News studio. Both incidents occurred on Sept. 9, 2020.

The criminal charges allege that Jerry Velez, 41, pushed over a light pole that TV station WPIX set up outside Manhattan’s Hudson Yards at about 10 a.m. on Sept. 9, causing it to crash into a set of LED lights and a battery pack and causing $2,000 worth of damage, according to court papers shared by the district attorney’s office.

The New York Post reports that a reporter and a photographer were present for the attack on WPIX’s equipment.

About two hours later, Velez was allegedly caught on camera clad in a black T-shirt bearing the white skull logo for the “Punisher” comic book character as he tossed rocks at two windows of WABC’s studio in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The channel’s noon broadcast was underway at the time.

One of the rocks had “Fuck ABC 7” written on it and the other carried the message “Whore 666,” the Post reported.

Police say that the rock attack caused $40,000 worth of damage to the station’s windows, court papers state.

The attacks touched off a brief manhunt before the New York City Police Department tweeted on Sept. 10 that officers arrested Velez in connection with the incident at WABC.

According to court records, Velez told an NYPD detective that he was the culprit in both attacks. He faces three charges of second-degree criminal mischief, which is a felony charge.

Actions by Metropolitan Police Department officers led to damage of a camera used by freelancer Andrew Jasiura while he was covering protests in Washington D.C., according to the journalist.

On the night of Aug. 27, 2020, Jasiura, who has been documenting the protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement for several months, was covering demonstrations in downtown Washington D.C. Protesters were gathered in the pedestrian area outside of the White House that was renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” when a man arrived at the scene wearing blackface, Jasiura told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

When protesters started chasing the man, police officers moved to protect him, detaining a protester who allegedly assaulted the man, Jasiura said. Another protester sought to intervene and was pushed away by a police officer, according to the journalist. Jasiura had been photographing the encounter, and the officer shoved the protester in his direction, he said. “He threw that person into me and I hit a barricade. The screen on one of my cameras broke,” Jasiura told the Tracker.

Rach Wilde, an independent photojournalist working with Black Zebra Productions, told the U.S. Press freedom Tracker that she was shoved and arrested while covering protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on Sept. 7, 2020.

Wilde was documenting protests that had been ongoing for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. The Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction, barring the Portland Police Bureau from harming or impeding journalists.

In the early hours of Sept. 7, Wilde said demonstrators had moved from PPB’s North Precinct toward a nearby parking garage. According to a news report, officers blocked off certain streets from the march and created a closure area. Wilde said the crowd started to dwindle and there was not a lot going on.

“Then a rush came and a bunch of folks started getting arrested and just picked off,” Wilde told the Tracker. Along with several other journalists and legal observers, she said she followed the officers to document the arrests. Soon after, officers asked them to leave and ordered them onto the sidewalk.

“Out of nowhere, the [Portland Police] Rapid Response van arrived and they beelined [toward us],” she said. “One officer on the team had over and over again targeted me at different demonstrations. She knew exactly who I was. She would stand next to me at every demonstration and follow me specifically.”

Wilde said the officer pushed her off the sidewalk right as she was stepping onto it. Another Black Zebra journalist there repeatedly told the officer that Wilde was a member of the press; Wilde said she also had a press pass around her neck.

“I have the entire thing on camera. It was very clear that she was targeting me,” Wilde told the Tracker. Her reporting partner, whom Wilde had been “standing next to the entire time this demonstration,” was not arrested. The officer placed Wilde in temporary handcuffs, took her phone and brought her to where the demonstrators were being detained. She said she was then transported to and processed at Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office for interfering with a peace officer and disorderly conduct.

Wilde said she was released several hours later, around 6 a.m., and that when she received her phone back, the screen was destroyed. “That was the day my charges were dropped, but I didn’t find out until a month later,” she said. Wilde was contacted by a pro bono attorney, who confirmed this information. “They [Portland police] had spelt my name wrong,” she told the Tracker.

When reached for comment during ongoing protests in the fall of 2020, the PPB told the Tracker it wouldn’t be commenting on specific incidents, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case. Then in early 2021, PPB spokesperson Derek Carmon said the department is committed to upholding civil rights for all citizens, including by requiring officers to report any use of force for review. When reached by email about this incident, Carmon said he had no additional comment.

A photographer said a Seattle law enforcement officer pepper-sprayed him while he was covering protests in Seattle, Washington, on July 25, 2020.

The independent photographer, who asked to remain anonymous, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker it was clear police were aiming for his head when he was hit with pepper spray. “The entire right side of my helmet was blue,” he said.

The Washington Post reported there were approximately 2,000 people demonstrating that afternoon, the largest gathering in more than a month, as part of a response to news that federal agents had been deployed to Seattle. That morning, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best released a statement outlining that officers would carry pepper spray and blast balls, but not tear gas.

During the demonstration, the journalist said he was photographing a large gathering of protesters at the Seattle Central Community College and followed them as they began marching. He broke off from the group, he said, when another group of individuals began damaging property. He told the Tracker that he’d gotten ahead of the march when he heard a large explosion.

Seattle police later reported that a device had exploded, leaving an 8-inch hole in the side of the East Precinct at 12th Avenue and Pine Street. Not long after the explosion, a riot was declared and police began clearing people from the area.

The photographer said he was walking down Pine Street on the sidewalk after the demonstration was declared a riot with a group from Converge Media. He said they were walking away from protesters who were marching in the street when he was hit with pepper spray.

“It was pretty clear that a significant group of us were media,” the photographer said. “I had my NPPA [National Press Photographers Association] badge clearly displayed on the right side of my backpack, with press on my helmet, and a big camera.”

He told the Tracker he was most upset that he couldn’t take anymore pictures with his camera because it was covered in pepper spray.

The photographer said he knew what he was going into and that blast balls had already exploded near his feet, but that he didn’t expect to be sprayed in the face.

“I’m not sure what caused the pepper spray,” he said.

He was wearing a respirator, goggles and a helmet, so the side of his neck was the only part exposed to the chemical irritant. He said he experienced chemical burns, but did not seek medical attention. His camera, a Canon 5D Mark IV, had to be sent in for servicing, he said.

The Seattle Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A livestreamer was punched and shoved to the ground while covering a Sept. 26, 2020, rally in Portland, Oregon. The attacker was filmed kicking the journalist in the face, taking his phone and throwing it over a fence.

Journalists covering the Sept. 26 rally of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, Portland’s Delta Park, captured images of a man assaulting the livestreamer, who goes by the name Jovanni, the Daily Beast reports. The event attracted between 200 and 300 people, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Independent journalist Zack Perry told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that at one point during the rally he witnessed members of the crowd yelling at Jovanni and trying to chase him out of the event. A man clad in jeans, gray shirt and a ballcap punched Jovanni in the eye but the livestreamer managed to get away, according to Perry and a Twitter post by Jovanni.

Jovanni did not respond to the Tracker’s requests for comment.

Perry, Jovanni and two other journalists tried to walk out of the event as a group, but Jovanni’s assailant “kept stalking us and berating us, blaming us for killing Jay Bishop and for burning down the city of Portland,” Perry said.

“Jay Bishop” is an alias for Aaron Danielson, a “friend and supporter” of the right-wing, Vancouver, Washington-based Patriot Prayer group who was shot and killed on Aug. 29, 2020, during a clash of left-wing groups and supporters of President Donald Trump in downtown Portland, the Oregonian reports.

“He pushed me very aggressively multiple times and punched me in the back of the head on two separate occasions but we just kept walking,” Perry said. After Perry was struck, the journalist said he stepped away in order to get “some distance to see if I could capture footage of him fucking with us better.”

The Tracker documented the assaults of Perry and independent journalist Justin Katigbak here.

At that point, Perry said, the assailant who had punched Jovanni earlier assaulted him a second time, throwing him into a fence and kicking him in the face.

Portland Tribune reporter Zane Sparling posted a video on Twitter of the attack at about 4 p.m. in which the man is seen kicking Jovanni in the face, snatching his phone from his hand and throwing the device over the fence. The assailant then falls to the ground himself.

Perry said that both journalists and rally attendees then moved to separate the assailant from Jovanni and that he and other journalists took the livestreamer to be seen by medics on hand at a nearby Black Lives Matter protest.

Jovanni tweeted on Sept. 27 that he went to the hospital and learned that he suffered a concussion from the attack. He said that he was unable to recover his phone but that a “homie got me a temporary.”

The Portland Police Bureau tweeted that the department was investigating the on-camera assault and called on witnesses to come forward. But a department spokesperson told the Tracker that investigators were unable to get in touch with Jovanni to look into the matter further.

“I have not been notified that there has been any change to that case. As far as I can tell it remains inactive,” Portland Police Sgt. Kevin Allen told the Tracker on Feb. 1, 2021.

Independent videographer Nicholas Lee said a police officer pushed him and smashed his phone on the street while he was covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 18, 2020.

The protest was one of many that have broken out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The ACLU suit led to the city agreeing to a preliminary injunction in July to not arrest, harm or impede the work of journalists or legal observers of the protests.

Around 8 p.m., protesters gathered in Colonel Summers Park, in southeast Portland, and about an hour later marched nearly a mile to the Multnomah Building, the county seat of government, on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. Some protesters started fires in dumpsters and inside the building, according to The Oregonian, prompting the Portland Police Bureau to declare the gathering a riot around 10:30 p.m.

Lee arrived at the protest around that time and witnessed police officers pushing demonstrators away from the Multnomah Building and making several arrests, he told the Tracker.

About an hour later, while Lee was covering some protesters several blocks away from the building, he said, Portland police officers told protesters and press to remain on the sidewalk.

“There were several cops there. I’m on the sidewalk with other members of the press. They’re like, ‘Move! Move!’ pushing us back,” said Lee.

At one point during the crush on the sidewalk, a police officer took his phone, he said.

”I was holding it, and it had a tether attached to it and it was around my wrist. [The officer] grabbed my phone and tried to wrench it away from me,” Lee told the Tracker. “He pulled on it so hard he got it out of my hand and then smashed it on the street.”

The police officer damaged his phone when he threw it on the street, said Lee. “It wasn’t broken, just cracked. There wasn’t significant damage, but I had to replace the screen protector,” he said.

Later in the night, after midnight, Lee was shoved again by an officer, he said. The Tracker documented the Aug. 19 incident here.

When reached for comment during ongoing protests in the fall of 2020, the PPB told the Tracker it wouldn’t be commenting on specific incidents, citing continuing litigation in the ACLU case. Then in early 2021, PPB spokesman Derek Carmon said the department is committed to upholding civil rights for all citizens, including by requiring officers to report any use of force for review. The PPB wasn't available for comment on this incident.

Independent journalist Mason Lake said he was shot three separate times with crowd-control munitions by federal law enforcement officers while he was covering a protest outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon, in the early hours of Oct. 29, 2020. The pepper balls also damaged his video camera, he said.

Lake, a videographer, was covering one of the many Portland protests against law enforcement violence that first erupted after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the outbreak of the demonstrations, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. The case resulted in a temporary restraining order on July 2 barring the Portland police from harming or impeding journalists, which was expanded to include federal agents later that month.

The protest began late on Oct. 28, as demonstrators rallied at Elizabeth Carruthers Park, in the South Waterfront district of Portland, and stretched past midnight. The protesters marched several blocks south to the ICE building, chanting against the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including the separation of children from parents that took place from 2017 to 2018 and the lack of progress in reuniting all of the families.

When demonstrators arrived outside the ICE building shortly before midnight, federal officers warned them they were trespassing and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, according to the local news station KOIN.

Lake, who was marked as press on a helmet and a vest and carried his press identification with him, was shot three separate times with crowd-control munitions after midnight and caught them all on video that he later posted on YouTube. He said he believes he was targeted by the federal agents because he was filming them.

In the first incident, at around 1:27 a.m., Lake captured federal officers advancing down the street in a cloud of tear gas and shooting crowd-control munitions. At about seven seconds in, Lake is heard cursing after being shot with what he believes were pepper balls.

“I was shot in the back of my thigh when we were backing up from the line they were pushing us from,” Lake told the Tracker. “It also hit my back.”

In the second incident, at around 1:34 a.m., Lake approached a tear gas canister on the ground, and was then fired at. He responded by cursing at the federal agents.

“They shot me in the chest with the pepper rounds, and then my camera got hit with a pepper round, got hit with a pellet, and then another pepper round. And the mic itself got hit with a pepper round,” Lake told the Tracker.

His Canon EOS 6D Mark II camera was damaged, with the audio connection and hot shoe needing cleaning and maintenance. The mic also needed work after being hit with a pepper ball.

“I had to send in the camera for work. The camera took some damage, though thankfully not too much,” he said.

In the third incident, at 1:58 a.m., Lake is hit with crowd-control munitions as he walks towards federal officers stationed outside the ICE facility. At about six seconds in, Lake can be heard yelling that he was shot in the face. He then turns his camera to show where a mark was left on his helmet.

Lake told the Tracker it was a pepper round that hit him that time as well.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment on the incidents.

Austin-based independent videojournalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia was assaulted and had his equipment damaged while covering a protest in Texas’ capital city on Oct. 24, 2020, according to social media posts.

At approximately 6:40 p.m., Garcia — who posts his livestreams and interviews on Facebook and his website — was documenting a march against police brutality organized to mark the six-month anniversary of the death of Mike Ramos, an unarmed Black and Hispanic man who’d been fatally shot by an Austin police officer on April 24.

The protest was also part of a national movement against police brutality that had swept across the country over the summer. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented hundreds of incidents of journalists assaulted, arrested, struck by crowd-control ammunition or tear gas, or had their equipment damaged while covering protests in 2020. Find all of these cases here.

In his livestream of the Austin march, Garcia identifies a group of demonstrators he believed were affiliated with the Mike Ramos Brigade, which had organized after Ramos’ death to seek “justice for Mike and all victims of police violence.” The MRB had come to be seen by some in the community as militant, and Ramos’ mother, Brenda Ramos, had distanced herself from the group, KXAN News reported.

“The Mike Ramos Brigade — if it is the Mike Ramos Brigade — is not very friendly with me,” Garcia says in the footage, as some two dozen individuals advanced down South Pleasant Valley Road toward the intersection with East Riverside Drive.

Shortly thereafter, Garcia can be seen crossing the street to document the group more closely after confirming that the group did include members of the MRB.

As soon as Garcia gets a few yards ahead of the group, an individual can be seen breaking away, running up to the journalist and holding a sign in front of his camera in order to prevent him from filming. Multiple other individuals can be heard yelling at Garcia, “Fuck you, Hiram!”

Addressing the animosity, Garcia says in his stream, “Specifically, they’re more concerned that I don’t take really extreme measures to blur out their faces or edit footage afterwards. Obviously this is not what the stream is about.”

“As far as the disagreement between MRB and the platform is simply that, one, I’m unbiased—” Garcia says, before a demonstrator interrupts him, saying, “and two, you’re a fucking snitch!”

In the footage, Garcia continues to follow and attempt to film the group as it crosses the street, with participants consistently holding their signs in front of their faces, cursing him and demanding that he leave.

“Hiram, I don’t know why you’re here!” a participant says through a megaphone. “You’re not here for Black lives. You’re here for yourself.”

Someone then grabs for his camera, which flips the point of view of the footage upside down. It is unclear what transpired after that point, though it appears Garcia was pushed back toward the road and his equipment was knocked out of his hands. Within seconds, the stream abruptly stops.

A post to Garcia’s Facebook page said, “Today during our broadcast Hiram was assaulted and had all of his equipment destroyed and taken (not confirmed), police and EMS were dispatched to the scene and asked Hiram if he wanted to go to the hospital to get checked out, to which he agreed and went with EMS to the Hospital.”

The post went on to condemn the attack on Garcia, but also asked that his subscribers not retaliate against the Mike Ramos Brigade or “seek vigilante justice.”

“Please we only want to bring you information about what is happening around you and report as accurately as possible what is happening, so you all have a better source to make decisions from.”

On Oct. 26 an update was posted to Garcia’s page noting that he was “resting at home and going through standard concussion protocol.”

“[Garcia] suffered from a concussion according to the ER, along with a black eye and some other scrapes and bruises,” the post reads. “Again we continue to denounce any violence of any kind, our mission is truth, Justice, and Honor, we will continue on that path.”

In an emailed comment, a representative for Garcia said, “Our comments will always be the same. We are not the story, our mission is simply to show people who are not down on the streets or at events what is happening in their community as the events happen.”

The representative did not respond to requests for elaboration on the number and type of equipment damaged or whether Garcia has filed or plans to file a police report.

Rach Wilde, an independent photojournalist working for Black Zebra Productions, says she was shoved to the ground by a federal officer while covering protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on July 22, 2020.

Team members from Black Zebra Productions, a community-based storytelling production crew, were documenting protests that have been ongoing for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. In mid-July, federal agents were dispatched to the city, increasing tensions and drawing backlash.

On the night of July 21, protesters had gathered outside the Multnomah County Justice Center. By 10:30 p.m., the situation had escalated, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency coordinating the federal presence in Portland. Around 12:30 a.m., Wilde told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was looking toward the side of the building, where officers were shooting impact munitions from a window.

“Out of nowhere, I heard a slight commotion. They [federal agents] just popped up and were right next to me,” she said. “Right as I turned around, one of the federal officers was beelining straight toward me.”

Wilde said the officer shoved her “as hard as he could” and kept running past her. In a livestream shared on Facebook by Black Zebra, federal officers can be seen running toward a crowd of people at 1:24:03.

Wilde, who was dressed in all black with a helmet and gas mask on, said she was pushed straight into a tree. “I hit my knee and my shoulder really bad,” she told the Tracker. She said her shoulder still hurts if she does certain movements and her knee will occasionally act up. The body of her camera was also damaged, as it hit the ground first, according to Wilde.

“It was clearly a pocket of press,” she said. “All of us had cameras. Majority had press presses.”

Wilde said she was wearing a press pass issued by Black Zebra Productions around her neck. After she left the scene, she regrouped with her team and they continued documenting until 2 a.m.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Rach Wilde, an independent photojournalist working for Black Zebra Productions, says she was shoved to the ground by a federal officer while covering protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on July 22, 2020.

Team members from Black Zebra Productions, a community-based storytelling production crew, were documenting protests that have been ongoing for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. In mid-July, federal agents were dispatched to the city, increasing tensions and drawing backlash.

On the night of July 21, protesters had gathered outside the Multnomah County Justice Center. By 10:30 p.m., the situation had escalated, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency coordinating the federal presence in Portland. Around 12:30 a.m., Wilde told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was looking toward the side of the building, where officers were shooting impact munitions from a window.

“Out of nowhere, I heard a slight commotion. They [federal agents] just popped up and were right next to me,” she said. “Right as I turned around, one of the federal officers was beelining straight toward me.”

Wilde said the officer shoved her “as hard as he could” and kept running past her. In a livestream shared on Facebook by Black Zebra, federal officers can be seen running toward a crowd of people at 1:24:03.

Wilde, who was dressed in all black with a helmet and gas mask on, said she was pushed straight into a tree. “I hit my knee and my shoulder really bad,” she told the Tracker. She said her shoulder still hurts if she does certain movements and her knee will occasionally act up. The body of her camera was also damaged, as it hit the ground first, according to Wilde.

“It was clearly a pocket of press,” she said. “All of us had cameras. Majority had press presses.”

Wilde said she was wearing a press pass issued by Black Zebra Productions around her neck. After she left the scene, she regrouped with her team and they continued documenting until 2 a.m.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Photojournalist Ringo Chiu, a member of the National Press Photographers Association, was struck with a rubber bullet and had his camera damaged while documenting protests in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, California, on May 30, 2020.

The protests in Los Angeles were sparked by a video showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Demonstrations against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been held across the United States since the end of May.

In a post initially to Facebook and later shared with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Chiu wrote that officers fired a rubber bullet that would have struck him in the upper body had it not been for his camera, which took the brunt of the hit. The lens hood of his Leica Q camera was damaged, as seen in photos posted to his social media accounts.

Yuliya Olkhovskaya, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Russia’s Channel One, said that she and Channel One cameraman Viacheslav Arkhipov were assaulted by federal agents while covering protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on July 21, 2020.

Protests continued for months in downtown Portland in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. On the evening of July 21, demonstrators gathered outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. courthouse, where protesters held signs and sang songs, according to Olkhovskaya. The gathering remained peaceful, she told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, until some new arrivals began to agitate the crowd. A Department of Homeland Security report about the evening describes several hours of violence, including attempts to set fire to the courthouse and break into its entrance.

Olkhovskaya said that as she observed the courthouse scene about 9 p.m., she felt a kick from behind. "It was completely unexpected because there had been no officers around. They came from the back doors," she told the Tracker. "One of them pushed me to the ground and I dropped my phone.”

Olkhovskaya said she and Arkhipov both had State Department-issued press badges visibly displayed and had a camera on a tripod nearby. “It was obvious we were a professional crew,” she said.

"One of them hit my right wrist with the baton. The second federal agent grabbed my backpack from behind and pushed me to the ground," Arkhipov said. "Two agents snatched the camera out of my hands and threw it on the ground. Then one of the agents kicked the camera with his boot."

Olkhovskaya said that she repeatedly yelled she was press, but the officers never acknowledged that. She said one officer grabbed her helmet, threw it to the ground and pushed her away. After the officers left the area, she regrouped with her cameraman and they returned to the courthouse area, only to find a few remnants of the camera and no helmet.

"They destroyed it completely and intentionally," Olkhovskaya said. "I still don't understand why they broke our camera."

Olkhovskaya said she got scratches on her hands, while her cameraman had several bruises afterwards. She said they were able to recover the camera’s memory card so they could still file a story about the protest and their encounter with what the story described as “extremely aggressive” security forces.

According to an Izvestia news report, the Russian Federation sent official complaints to the United States about the Portland attack and another assault on Channel One journalists in Philadelphia in October. The Dec. 15, 2020, story said there had been no response from the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a Tracker request for comment on the two Channel One incidents.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Federal officers struck Black Zebra videographer Johnny Lynch multiple times and dragged him to the ground as Lynch covered protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on July 22, 2020.

Black Zebra Productions, based in Sacramento, California, is a video production company that has drawn thousands of views for its livestreams at Black Lives Matter protests across Sacramento. Company videographer Lynch was in Portland covering one of the many protests that continued for months in that city following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

On the night of July 21, protesters gathered outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center in downtown Portland. A report issued by the Department of Homeland Security said that about 2,000 people had gathered by 10:30 p.m., when “rioters started to launch mortar-style fireworks over the fence at the federal courthouse and officers.” The DHS report also said protesters attacked a fence put up around the courthouse. In response, federal officers deployed tear gas, flash bang grenades and other crowd control munitions for several hours to break up the crowd, according to news reports.

In an interview with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Lynch said federal officers rushed protesters numerous times to disperse the group and deployed crowd control munitions, including tear gas and pepper balls.

"There was tear gas everywhere," Lynch told the Tracker. “I got my gas mask back on and went out to the Justice Center and that's when the rush happened."

In a live stream shared on Facebook by Black Zebra Productions, federal officers can be seen running towards a crowd of people at 1:24:03 into the video. Lynch said the rush began shortly after midnight July 22. Lynch, who is wearing an orange helmet, is caught in the commotion and pushed to the ground. A few seconds later he can be seen running away from the officers and smoke that is enveloping the crowd. Another video posted by Black Zebra shows, in split screen, the attack as seen from the livestream alongside footage from Lynch’s camera. In Lynch's perspective, which is in the top frame of the video, a federal officer's baton can be seen slamming down towards the camera.

"They said move, I turned around, and then they hit me," Lynch told the Tracker. "They hit me a couple of times [and] dragged me into a cloud of tear gas that had just started to go off." He said another officer hit him while he was being dragged on the ground.

"This was very obviously a group of camera people," Lynch said. "That officer was standing there next to me for at least long enough to have seen my camera.”

Lynch said he had been wearing press passes issued by The Sacramento Bee and Black Zebra Productions. He said he lost his lens hood, sustained several bruises across his body and suffered nausea from the tear gas. After he left the scene, he said he regrouped with his team and they continued documenting till 2 a.m. on July 22.

DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment on the incidents.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country. The Tracker documented a previous incident involving Black Zebra here.

Photojournalist Chris Jones, who covers right-wing extremism for 100 Days in Appalachia through a partnership with Report for America, was assaulted and had his camera pouch damaged while covering the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The violent storming of the Capitol came after President Donald Trump had spoken at a rally in front of the White House in which he promoted false claims of election fraud and called for his supporters to march to the legislative seat of the U.S. government, where lawmakers were certifying the victory of President-elect Joe Biden, reported the New York Times.

Jones told the Tracker that he’d followed a group of demonstrators as they took the building but was stymied at the entrance, first due to the debilitating presence of tear gas and flash-bang grenades and then because rioters impeded his movement.

“Any time I went in, I got very quickly identified as press and it just got bad,” he told the Tracker. At one point, he said, he was no more than 20 feet inside the building when a rioter yelled repeatedly, “Are you press?” before picking him up and dragging him backward. Another then grabbed his legs. “The three of us clumsily made our way to the door,” Jones said.

At around 2 p.m., he said, a Capitol Police officer threw a flash-bang grenade right next to him and the heat tore through his camera pouch.

As Jones maneuvered among the crowd throughout the day, he said that many approached him with “We’re going to get you” and “You need to move on.” As with several journalists that day, such threats and harassment were common. The Tracker has documented such incidents, including one in which Jones was told he “deserved to be shot,” here.

“There was very clearly an intent and willingness. When they said, ‘Don’t stick around,’ they meant it,” he told the Tracker. He said he encountered younger teens who would show that they carried knives and one man who “flashed a pistol,” claiming, “I’m not here to fuck around.”

The Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country. Find election-related coverage here.

WLNE-TV ABC 6 cameraman Paul Duddy had his camera kicked by an individual during a protest in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sept. 25, 2020, according to social media posts by station employees.

An ABC 6 news crew had been following a protest march against the Sept. 23 announcement that a Kentucky grand jury would not be filing charges against police officers for the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old unarmed Black woman who was shot and killed during a botched police raid on her Louisville apartment on March 13. The announcement rekindled racial justice protests across the country, including in Providence.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting arrests, assaults and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

At 10:11 p.m., ABC 6 reporter Brittany Comak tweeted a video showing an individual in white sneakers breaking off from the march, running toward the lens of a camera as it filmed the scene and kicking it.

“Many of the protesters were hostile to the media. This happened walking the Brown University Campus. We are okay. Please remember we are just trying to do our jobs,” she wrote.

VICE News international correspondent Ben Solomon and cameraman Chris Olson were attacked by several rioters as they covered the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Demonstrators attempted to smash Olson’s camera, damaging the handle.

President Donald Trump spoke at a noon rally that day in front of the White House, promoting false claims of election fraud and calling for his supporters to march to the Capitol where lawmakers were certifying the victory of President-elect Joe Biden, reported the New York Times. Following the rally, pro-Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol, disrupting congressional action and occupying several areas within the building.

In a video Solomon posted on Instagram, demonstrators can be seen confronting the VICE journalists, shouting, "Get the fuck out of here!" and asking, "Who are you with? Is it CNN? Better not be CNN."

"Chris [Olson] had a broken handle grip and that guy in forest camo gave me a good hard shove to the throat," Solomon wrote in a caption with the Instagram post.

In Solomon’s VICE video story posted to Youtube, the camera is hit at 1:23 and Solomon's voice can be heard, "They tried to smash our camera."

"We were lucky to get away with minimal damage," Solomon wrote on Instagram. "To hear how many colleagues had it worse that day, I consider myself lucky."

As of press time, Olson had not responded to a U.S. Press Freedom Tracker request for comment. The Tracker documented Solomon’s incident here.

The Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country. Find election-related coverage here.

Chris Phillips, an independent filmmaker, was hit in the face with pepper spray at close range while he covered a protest in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9, 2020.

The demonstration was held on the sixth anniversary of the day Michael Brown, a Black teenager, was shot and killed by police in 2014. Mass protests against police violence and racial injustice were held across the U.S. for months in 2020, fueled by the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, among others.

Phillips, a resident of the same complex where Brown lived, made a documentary, Ferguson 365, about the movement that followed Brown’s killing, and has been documenting the aftermath of Brown’s killing ever since. Phillips runs the production company Maverick Media Group and said his work has been published by outlets including the Associated Press and CBS.

Phillips said he arrived at the police department at night, where protesters and police had been in a standoff. However, he said, about an hour after he arrived, the atmosphere seemed relaxed. He remembered filming a scene of a woman sitting in a lawn chair in the police department parking lot, chatting with officers.

He went to pick up a camera battery he had left charging on the opposite side of the street from the police department. As he pulled the plug from the outlet, he said he heard screaming and turned to see police rush into the crowd.

Phillips said he grabbed his camera and started toward the confrontation to film it. His camera was still powering up, he said, and he was getting positioned to film two police officers who were throwing someone to the ground. Suddenly, he said, a different police officer fired pepper spray into his face from less than 10 feet away. Phillips said there were no protesters close to him at the time.

“For me to get sprayed like that — that was a deliberate act,” he said.

Phillips said the spray was very painful and temporarily blinded him. He said he turned around and tripped, slamming his camera into the pavement.

Protesters came to his aid and helped him to a medical station, where they tried to neutralize the impact of the spray with milk and water, he said. His eyes and face hurt for two days after he was sprayed, he said.

Broadcast equipment belonging to German public-service broadcaster ZDF and worth approximately 30,000 euros was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

ZDF reporter Elmar Thevessen and his team were reporting alongside journalists from The Associated Press when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding them, according to a tweet posted by Thevessen.

Broadcast equipment belonging to German public-service broadcaster ZDF and worth approximately 30,000 euros was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

ZDF reporter Elmar Thevessen and his team were reporting alongside journalists from The Associated Press when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding them, according to a tweet posted by Thevessen.

Broadcast equipment belonging to German public-service broadcaster ZDF and worth approximately 30,000 euros was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

ZDF reporter Elmar Thevessen and his team were reporting alongside journalists from The Associated Press when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding them, according to a tweet posted by Thevessen.

Broadcast equipment belonging to The Associated Press was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

Elmar Thevessen, a reporter for German public-service broadcaster ZDF, wrote on Twitter that he and his team were reporting alongside journalists from the AP when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding the journalists and their equipment.

Broadcast equipment belonging to The Associated Press was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

Elmar Thevessen, a reporter for German public-service broadcaster ZDF, wrote on Twitter that he and his team were reporting alongside journalists from the AP when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding the journalists and their equipment.

Broadcast equipment belonging to The Associated Press was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

Elmar Thevessen, a reporter for German public-service broadcaster ZDF, wrote on Twitter that he and his team were reporting alongside journalists from the AP when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding the journalists and their equipment.

Broadcast equipment belonging to The Associated Press was reportedly destroyed as rioters swarmed a group of broadcast journalists covering the unrest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a rally in front of the White House earlier that day, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest at the Capitol as Congress confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Following Trump’s speech, which included unfounded claims of election fraud and calls to “fight” the outcome, hundreds then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside, Reuters reported.

Elmar Thevessen, a reporter for German public-service broadcaster ZDF, wrote on Twitter that he and his team were reporting alongside journalists from the AP when a crowd of rioters stormed them and broke through the barricades surrounding the journalists and their equipment.

A multimedia journalist for FreedomNews TV, was assaulted by individuals and had her camera smashed while covering a pro-law enforcement “Back the Blue” rally in the Brooklyn borough of New York on July 11, 2020. The rally was a response to continuing Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests sparked by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The journalist, who publishes under the name Oliya Scootercaster, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in an interview that she had been walking in the neighborhood of Dyker Heights with two other photographers when a man from the rally approached and asked, “Why does the media show fake information?” Moments later, she said, another person shoved her into a tree causing abrasions to her left elbow. She tweeted a photo of the wound.

Capital Public Radio state government reporter Scott Rodd was consistently blocked while covering protests against police violence in Sacramento, California, on July 25, 2020. In the early hours of the next morning, he tweeted that an individual in the crowd had cut his charging cable. Rodd eventually removed himself from the scene to report from afar.

Rodd was documenting a solidarity march in downtown Sacramento in support of the protesters in Portland and the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

On the afternoon of July 25, protesters had gathered at Cesar Chavez Plaza to march toward the Capitol, according to news reports at the time. A press release from the Sacramento Police Department stated that a second group of people in black clothing and protective gear arrived later in the evening and escalated tensions among what had been a peaceful demonstration.

“Different vibe than previous protests. Guy in helmet tried to grab my phone when I took this photo,” Rodd tweeted at 11:25 p.m. “I’m now surrounded by 3 people with umbrellas intended to block my view.” Rodd declined to comment further on the incident.

Throughout the night, Rodd tweeted several more photos and updates about his limited access and the frustration protesters were directing toward him.

“Sensing lots of hostility I removed myself from the crowd to report from the edge of the park,” he tweeted a little after midnight. He also mentioned that someone had cut his charging cable while he’d been surrounded in the park.

KATU ABC 2 reporter Genevieve Reaume was assaulted and had her phone smashed by individuals participating in an eviction protest in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 8, 2020.

Reaume and KATU ABC 2 photojournalist Ric Peavyhouse were covering a protest against the feared eviction of a Black and Indigenous family from their foreclosed home in North Portland. Activists had been camping out at the property on North Mississippi Avenue — known as the “Red House” — for months when law enforcement came in on the morning of Dec. 8 to try to take control of the house. As more protesters poured into the area, there were clashes with law enforcement before officers withdrew. Protesters ultimately built barricades blocking streets in the area.

Speaking to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Reaume says she and Peavyhouse had spent an hour in the early afternoon of Dec. 8 interviewing people in the neighborhood before deciding to enter the barricaded zone. As they came upon a barricade, Reaume says they were approached by protesters trying to block their cameras with umbrellas and telling them they could not film there. After they walked away and let the situation calm down, they decided once more to enter the area.

“Immediately somebody started yelling, ‘Film crew,’” Reaume said. “That’s when a dozen or so, a dozen and a half people started coming over towards us, surrounding Ric’s camera with their umbrellas and their bodies.”

Aware that Peavyhouse’s camera was blocked by protesters, Reaume pulled out her cellphone and began to record video. As she attempted to film, she says a man kept pushing her and trying to grab her phone. When he succeeded in knocking it out of her hand, he then smashed it on the ground and pushed her away again as she tried to retrieve it.

“I finally was able to get my hand onto it and he just stomped on my hand,” she told the Tracker.

Reaume’s left middle finger was cut open, an injury that she had to have glued shut at an urgent care. The incident left her work phone inoperable and with a cracked screen.

Vincent Jolly, a reporter for the weekly magazine of French newspaper Le Figaro, had his phone destroyed during a live report about the riots at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

Protests organized around Congress’s confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory devolved into a riot earlier that day, Reuters reported. At a rally in front of the White House, President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest the vote on the basis of unfounded claims of election fraud. Hoards of his supporters then marched to the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside.

In a clip posted to Twitter by Figaro Live Editor in Chief Vincent Roux, Jolly can be heard at the very beginning giving a live report on the riot at the Capitol while filming a crowd of individuals walking away from the building. Jolly tells the host that they were waiting to hear responses to the violence from the Republican Party and Biden.

New York Times reporter Erin Schaff wrote that she was assaulted, one of her cameras stolen and the lens of a second broken by rioters as they stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

A riot broke out as supporters of President Donald Trump marched on the Capitol, swarmed the building and broke inside in an attempt to disrupt the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Reuters reported. At a noon rally held in front of the White House, Trump called on his supporters to protest the vote on the basis of unfounded claims of election fraud. According to Reuters, the building was breached at approximately 2:15 p.m.

Schaff, who did not respond to a request for comment, wrote in an account published by the Times that she followed the noise of protesters on the first floor of the Senate side of the building.

Schaff recounted that the single Capitol Police officer guarding the ceremonial doors to the Rotunda was rushed by the crowd, forcing open the door.

“I ran upstairs to be out of the way of the crowd, and to get a better vantage point to document what was happening. Suddenly, two or three men in black surrounded me and demanded to know who I worked for,” Schaff wrote.

“Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry. They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.”

Schaff’s congressional press credentials were also stolen in the attack.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting multiple assaults, detainments and equipment damages from Jan. 6 events. Find those here.

Freelance photojournalist Lee Smith said he was hit with crowd-control munitions shot by federal agents while he covered protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, on July 24, 2020.

Smith was documenting protests that continued for months in downtown Portland and across the U.S. in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests.

On the evening of July 23, demonstrators gathered outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse where law enforcement had constructed a fence around the perimeter. According to news reports, federal officers occasionally warned protesters when they shook or hit the fence. The officers later fired pepper balls at the protesters. At 12:30 a.m. on July 24, Portland Police declared an unlawful assembly after firework mortars and other objects had been launched over the fence, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security.

Smith told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker federal agents had conducted numerous pushes throughout the night to disperse the protesters, but mostly stayed behind the fence, deploying tear gas, pepper balls and other crowd-control munitions. Officers also positioned themselves on top of the courthouse with long-range flashlights that would emit green lasers, which Smith said law enforcement was using to point out particular individuals.

“They kept singling me and a couple of people out, targeting specific press and activists,” he said. Smith said he had distinct “press” markings on his helmet and backpack and wore a press pass issued by Raindrop Works, a Portland-based site that has covered the protests there. “Eventually that person was either arrested or shot with munitions,” he said, of those picked out by the green lasers.

In a video Smith tweeted later that morning, there is a loud bang at 0:48 and the camera jerks. He can be heard saying, “They just hit me again.” Smith said his press pass had been hit by a canister that exploded and shattered the case.

Independent videojournalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia was arrested and his equipment seized while covering protests in Austin, Texas, on July 17, 2020.

Garcia, who posts his livestreams and interviews on Facebook and his website, was documenting protests against police brutality in front of the Austin Police Department Headquarters downtown when officers tackled him to the ground and punched him, KXAN News reported. Garcia’s livestream from that evening can be seen here.

According to an affidavit obtained by KXAN, Austin Police Department officers were arresting another man and had warned Garcia to get back when the videojournalist began reaching between the officers. An officer then pushed Garcia back, the affidavit alleges, and Garcia attempted to turn and run into the crowd. Officers then took Garcia to the ground in the APD parking garage and placed him under arrest, according to the affidavit.

In Garcia’s footage from that night, he appears to be filming the arrest of a protester when an officer repeatedly pushes him back from the individual under arrest. The officer then points at Garcia and can be heard saying, “Grab him!”

A video of Garcia’s arrest was posted on Facebook that night. In the video, multiple officers can be seen wrestling Garcia to the ground while individuals can be heard shouting “Get off of him” and “Give us Hiram back!” Approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds into the video, Garcia appears to free his right arm before officers immediately restrain him again. An officer can be seen punching Garcia twice in the stomach before other officers block the view.

The affidavit said officers “kept telling Hiram he was under arrest and to place his hands behind his back, but Hiram would not comply and kept tensing his arms in an attempt to not be placed in handcuffs.”

A post to Garcia’s Facebook page at approximately 11:30 p.m. alerted his followers to the arrest.

“Hiram was taken into police custody tonight during his stream. We are dealing with it, and appreciate all your help and concern,” the post reads.

Garcia was booked at the Travis County Jail at 12:16 a.m. and released at 11:45 p.m. on July 18, according to booking information shared with the Tracker. A post to Garcia’s Facebook page announced his release on bond at 1:20 a.m. on July 19.

KXAN reported Garica was arrested on charges of interfering with public duties and resisting arrest.

Garcia posted on July 21 that his equipment — which included a “GoPro, light, monopod, microphone, battery pack, adapters and other important accessories” — was not returned to him upon his release, and that he would not be able to retrieve it until the following day.

When the equipment was returned, Garcia posted that his microphone was broken and a cord was missing.

“Overall, my equipment was obviously not handled with care,” Garcia wrote.

In a statement to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker emailed from Garcia’s account, a representative for Garcia said, “We have no comment on the arrest as that is not our position or job. We are there to show what is happening as it happens. In this case we were targeted and arrested as you can see on the video by the very police we had been interviewing for months.”

The representative also stated that the charges against Garcia have since been dropped.

APD and the Travis County Jail did not respond to requests for comment.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect booking information shared with the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in compliance with a Texas Public Information Act request.

Freelance photojournalist Clementson Supriyadi was assaulted and arrested by Oregon State Police while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 5, 2020.

In Portland, protests had been held on almost a nightly basis since late May in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

At around 8 p.m., Supriyadi arrived at a demonstration at Arbor Lodge Park in North Portland, where protesters had gathered to call for cuts to the Portland Police Bureau’s budget.

Protestors first marched to the home of Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan, who had voted against cutting the police budget, and vandalized his property. By the time they began marching towards the Portland Police Association office, the protest had been declared an “unlawful assembly.”

When Supriyadi started following a group of protesters across a street, OSP officers pulled up in a van beside him, got out of the vehicle and told him he was under arrest, he said.

“Their van and truck snuck up on everyone,” Supriyadihe told the Tracker. “I was in the middle of the street trying to catch up.”

In a video of the arrest posted on Twitter by independent journalist Garrison Davis, people can be heard yelling that Supriyadi is press.

Freelance photojournalist Clementson Supriyadi was assaulted and arrested by Oregon State Police while covering a protest in Portland, Oregon, on Nov. 5, 2020.

In Portland, protests had been held on almost a nightly basis since late May in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

At around 8 p.m., Supriyadi arrived at a demonstration at Arbor Lodge Park in North Portland, where protesters had gathered to call for cuts to the Portland Police Bureau’s budget.

Protestors first marched to the home of Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan, who had voted against cutting the police budget, and vandalized his property. By the time they began marching towards the Portland Police Association office, the protest had been declared an “unlawful assembly.”

When Supriyadi started following a group of protesters across a street, OSP officers pulled up in a van beside him, got out of the vehicle and told him he was under arrest, he said.

“Their van and truck snuck up on everyone,” Supriyadihe told the Tracker. “I was in the middle of the street trying to catch up.”

In a video of the arrest posted on Twitter by independent journalist Garrison Davis, people can be heard yelling that Supriyadi is press.

Freelance journalist Justin Yau was arrested on July 1, 2020, while filming the arrest of a protester in northeast Portland, Oregon.

Yau, a student at the University of Portland whose work has been featured by the Daily Mail and The New York Times, was covering one of the many protests that had broken out across the U.S. in response to police violence and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is documenting assaults, arrests and other incidents involving journalists covering protests across the country.

Law enforcement officers in Portland have targeted journalists since the start of nightly demonstrations in late May, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon. Yau is a plaintiff in the suit, which led to a U.S. District Court judge issuing a temporary restraining order the day after his arrest that barred police from arresting or harming journalists. The city later agreed to a preliminary injunction in July to not arrest, harm or impede the work of journalists or legal observers of the protests.

In the early hours of July 1, Yau was following a group of protesters moving toward the North Precinct of the Portland Police Bureau. The police had earlier declared a riot and dispersed the protesters shortly after 10 p.m., and the group had reassembled.

Yau told the Tracker that the crowd he was following made visual contact with a police riot line at around 12:45 a.m. at the intersection of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Northeast Killingsworth Street. Police pushed the crowd westward. “I was about like 30 feet away from the police line and I was walking away following instructions and I was on the sidewalk matching their pace,” said Yau.

As they moved down Killingsworth toward Northeast Mallory Avenue, Yau observed a protester walking slowly with their hands up. Then he heard police warn the protester to get out of the street faster, followed by an order to arrest them. He began to film the arrest on his cell phone. But when the police charged forward, Yau didn’t initially realize they were taking him into custody as well.

Yau was tackled from his right side and fell on his left side on top of his camera and the gimbal he used to stabilize it. His phone flew out of his hands and was permanently damaged, though still working. “I just went limp and didn’t say anything,” he told the Tracker.

Freelance photojournalist Alex Milan Tracy captured video of Yau’s arrest. The video shows Yau being cuffed on the ground. “The person that you are arresting clearly is identified as press from his helmet,” Tracy could be heard telling the officers, who didn’t respond. “Why are you arresting a member of the press?”

Independent videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was arrested while filming election-related protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 4, 2020.

Beckner-Carmitchel told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that protesters had planned to march from City Hall downtown to Pershing Square a little less than a mile away. By approximately 7 p.m., most of the crowd had dispersed and Beckner-Carmitchel said he thought he could head out for the night.

A few unmarked police cars moved in on the crowd, and when protesters began taunting them the officers called for backup. Officers then began hemming in the crowd and multiple journalists using a police maneuver called kettling.

“I asked the police where there was a ‘First Amendment Zone,’ as they hadn’t announced one,” Beckner-Carmitchel said, referring to the media staging areas the Los Angeles Police Department have been setting up during protests in recent months.

The officer directed him to the sidewalk and stairs leading up into the square. Beckner-Carmitchel tweeted that while in that press area, officers advanced forward through the intersection and he moved with them to continue his coverage. Officers then directed both him and another videographer, Vishal Singh, toward the middle of the road.

In a video posted by Beckner-Carmitchel of the moments before his arrest shortly after 7:30 p.m., an officer appears to point at the videographer and can be heard saying, “Start with that guy.”

Portland police assaulted and arrested Independent photojournalist Maranie Staab as she covered protests in downtown Portland on Aug. 6, 2020, according to Staab. Staab, whose photos of the 2020 protests in Portland have been published by Reuters, The New Yorker and Agence France-Presse, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was held overnight at the Multnomah County Detention Center and released the next morning. Her charges of harassment and interfering with a police officer have been dropped.

On the night of Aug. 6, Staab said she was near the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct station. Shortly before 10 p.m., police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly due to vandalism and property destruction. The night before, police had declared a protest there a riot. During the Aug. 6 protest, Staab said Portland police officers had formed a line and started to run towards the protesters. According to Staab, some journalists were caught up with the protestors as officers rushed toward them. Along with other members of the press, Staab said, she was being pushed along on the sidewalk.

Staab said that while walking backwards with a camera in each hand, she was pushed to the ground by a police officer. Staab said she had “press” written on her front and back in white text.

“I tried to get up, he pushed me down a second time,” Staab told the Tracker. When she tried to get up again, Staab said, “He pushed me down a third time and then pulled me off of the sidewalk into the street.” Staab said that the officer then handcuffed and arrested her.

In a video shared in a tweet by freelance journalist Justin Yau, police officers can be seen physically blocking the area and using flashlights to prevent other journalists and legal observers from clearly filming Staab’s arrest. According to Yau’s tweet, the arrest took place at 10:20 p.m.