CNN reporter arrested live on air while covering Minneapolis protests [video] (opens in new tab)

> I wonder what those officers were thinking, arresting a reporter on live camera.

Speaking as someone who's been to a lot of protests, ranging from "peaceful as a baby" to "as street medics we treated 1/3-1/2 of the protestors"... the same thing cops are always thinking. As an institution, they don't like the press, oversight, or public scrutiny of their actions. They react the same way to people with press credentials for less prominent organizations, and to regular humans with phone cameras who have just as much a right to record video, the same way all the time.

I think the level of impunity of "I am the law" instead of laws being laws, has taken over far too many in the police department. The level of police misconduct that's been captured in camera in the last few days is disturbing. There's always one police officer that rushes into a peaceful situation, from behind, and starts violence. This sort of assault on humans is taken to be their responsibility, apparently, and all the rest of the police stand idly by as one of those in their uniforms commits acts of violence against peaceful people.

I would not be shocked if a majority of the property crime was also police instigated. If they are willing to do this to people, it's far easier to knock out some windows.

It took quite awhile before they decided to arrest the reporter (Omar Jimenez). I suspect the decision came from higher up given the time delay (due to communication). I was watching this particular reporter late last night / early this morning and his coverage was, IMO, excellent to give some context and feel for the ongoing situation.

It was pretty surreal to watch, for me, and notice absolutely no actions from law enforcement, fire departments, or the national guard on site obviously strategically chosen by some upper leadership (governor?), likely to minimize the situation from escalating. The reporter pointed this out multiple times. It was probably the right call IMHO.

I suspect when law enforcement finally did move in afterwards, it was also strategic to minimize that escalating the situation. I wouldn't be surprised if the arrest was strategic just to minimize on-the ground coverage.

I tip my hat to Omar Jimenez and crew for the coverage they provided.

(I'm a resident of the Minneapolis suburbs)

At this point, from some of my friends in the city, it sounds like there just isn't much oversight at all---they've now been caught on video taking guns from people with valid licenses and now arresting the press. I don't think that we can effectively apply logic when the police system seems so disorganized.

The arrested reporter was black, there was another White CB reporter standing nearby that was not arrested. Perhaps it’s all coincidence. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arres...

Who gave the order is responsible for this reasonless arrest. I grew up under a dictature only to emigrate to ‘the free-est’ country in the world and see it turn into a dictature is a sad thing. And what’s to come is even worse and more dangerous.

My first hunch is the arresting officers were scrubs, brought in from other jurisdictions to staff up in response to the riots.

In the after math of the 1999 WTO riots, many of the worst abuses were committed by LEOs brought in from the outlying areas. Scrubs who didn't have the same training as the locals (and state patrol). Nor have any kind of personal regard for the city and its people.

Even so, at the time, I was really struck by the comparison between our SPD and DC Metro. DC has more crowds, riots, protests, disturbances, etc. DC Metro has a lot more experience, training, professionalism. And it shows.

From my personal experiences in Seattle, there's no way I'd risk protesting in and around the Twin Cities, and risk some noobs shooting me.

(I'd like to believe I'd never riot.)

> I wonder what those officers were thinking, arresting a reporter on live camera.

I'm guessing: "we do not want our actions in the next few minutes to be broadcast on live television"

What was the officer who murdered Floyd on live camera thinking, fully aware that Floyd was dying? Probably the same thing as these assholes. That they will get off without any punishment because of qualified immunity. The same thing every police officer in America thinks when they are about to murder or hurt another person. It's hardly a secret.

>arresting a reporter on live camera.

It's possible that they didn't know it was a live broadcast.

>I wonder what those officers were thinking, arresting a reporter on live camera.

"This man is Black, therefore he is the enemy", probably.

With a short explanation of what you were doing where, this arrest record probably couldn't hurt.

This is so true. All I could think was that Omar Jimenez and CNN are as giddy as they can be about this.

yup I think you are right, Ive always had trouble identifying situational irony.

According to CNN's timeline the police asked them to move at 5:09 AM, the reporter asked where they wanted them, at 5:11 AM the police arrested them. The reporter was not given the chance to follow directions.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/george-floyd-protest-update...

> I wouldn't call it unreasonable. They were told to clear the streets. They didn't actually clear the street. They stayed on the street. Reporters not following directions.

It was recorded, you know. You can watch it yourself. They were asked to move, they asked where they should move to, and instead of being told where to go they were arrested.

There's a girl in shorts standing around behind the police -- you're going to tell me she's an officer?

They are just trying to get the camera crew out of there.

Instructions from some random cop are not laws

> Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause.

This is simply not true. Police may not keep you detained if they do not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. However, in real life, they do this sometimes, even though it's been ruled unconstitutional.

They do occasionally face repercussions. Thousands of civil rights lawsuits are settled quietly around the country every year, and some go to court and establish precedents, such as Turner v. Driver.

They don't suffer consequences enough, though, and depend on citizens not knowing that what the police are doing is wrong. It's also difficult due to the "thin blue line" BS where cops are elevated above the rest of society.

Note also that 24 hours usually doesn't include Sundays and holidays, often Saturdays are excluded as well. Meaning if you get arrested before a long weekend it could be 4 days before anyone legally has to consider releasing or charging you.

> Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause.

This isn't totally true, at least not for the casual use of "cause". Cops must have "reasonable suspicion"[1][2] to detain, during that detainment they can discover more information which creates "probable cause", and probable cause allows them to arrest.

My guess is they were arrested for what is commonly called "resisting arrest"[3]. The way resisting arrest laws are unfortunately written, obstructing an officer in their duty is enough, they don't have to actually be resisting arrest. Basically of the cops told the CNN crew to get off the street, and the crew didn't, that would be "resisting arrest".

Minnesota's law:

> obstructs, resists, or interferes with a peace officer while the officer is engaged in the performance of official duties

Note that they were arrested, you can hear an officer say they are under arrest, but they haven't been charged or convicted. I doubt they will be charged. It is up to the county district attorney to press charges (the same DA who isn't pressing charges against the officer who killed George Floyd).

The press in the US are usually given a lot of freedom, and are allowed to be in places that the police don't allow regular citizens (riots areas, wildfire areas, etc.).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion

[2] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-reasonable-susp...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_arrest

That's horrifying. Why don't we change the law?

My understanding was in many states, the guideline for holding someone without a charge was generally 72 hours (where weekends and holidays can extend that period; prosecutors' right to not work weekends is more important than any of your rights ...), with a range of exceptions open for abuse (e.g. hold you for 48 hours, decide you're acting strangely and need a psychiatric hold, etc).

> That's because it's illegal for a citizen to resist arrest (even unlawful arrest),

This varies state-by-state, actually. Even in those where it is legal, it is very foolish, of course.

> As someone else said, this will probably cost the police and city in a settlement.

It probably won't cost the police anything, it'll come out of the taxpayer.

Paid for by taxes.

That's... silly. I carry a gun, too, but I don't go around arbitrarily forcing my will on others.

The difference is "qualified immunity", not weaponry.

Actually they had been filming continuously, and they had been previously told by police to stand where they were standing, and they had received no new instructions from the police since then, and there was an all-white group of reporters standing in a similar position on the other side of the police who did not get arrested. I understand the desire to come up with an explanation for what happened, I really do, but the fact of the matter is that police arrested these reporters for no reason.

There were never ordered to move, it's all captured on film in that video. When the reporter asked "why am I being arrested?" the cop refused to even answer.

Yeah, not to pile on... but you're being downvoted because what you say is simply false.

The most insightful part of the video is where the start handing all the shit to the non-black film crew, then realize how bad it'll look if they only arrest the black guy.

You can attempt to whitewash it but we all saw what happened. Sorry, but you can't will away racism

I really don't understand this argument of "they arrested a latino man, and white coworkers of the black man (last), so it can't have been racially motivated"

Hackers should be interested in this. It's clear that social media has a hand in the current state of society, however you feel about it. I have a sense that people that don't want violence are going to win politically, and soon. When they do, there will be repercussions for all social media and commenting style systems. HN won't escape this.

If people who want violence win the next set of elections, then that should also be of concern to hackers of websites. Take a look at the actions of the US president, after being called to task for breaking TOS.

With the geopolitical changes that will come about due to the coronavirus and upheaval that is beginning in the United States, it seems that social/web technology is central to geopolitics. It really stuns me that our conscientiousness to society, or lack thereof, isn't discussed far more often.

Geopolitics - ideally separated from personal politics - are a frequent subject of posts/discussion here. Particularly around freedom of speech, authoritarianism, etc. Whether or not they technically should be, it's absolutely the norm.

> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon

When's the last time you saw an American reporter being arrested on live camera?

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

Internal Affairs? While I’d like to believe the IA exists to stop the police from doing wrong, it’s more like an HR for the police.

> You're right, context is huge. The area had already been cleared of protesters. There was no imminent threat of any kind.

I'm asking if you or anyone else has video proof of that. Are national news organizations exempt from an order like this to move (I know in some cases they are, but again, the lack of contextual proof here makes me question what they were told prior to what we've seen).

This is worthy of discussion here, though. This is a confusing and excessive use of authority—the implications of which are significant and alarming.

To that point, how does this situation get fixed? Personally, this seems like a total failure of local governments. This should have been a relatively easy situation to mitigate (arrest the officer involved with the murder, even if just for show to calm folks down).

Now that it's spiraled, we're seeing signs of a police state which is very ominous. The question, though, is how calculated is this? My rational mind tells me that this level of force isn't something planned or trained for; just a reaction to the current events.

But it does set a precedent and as a country, we should be absolutely on guard and discussing this.

Why should US even be compared to those countries. It is a functional and mature democracy. Going through the thread I find it shocking that police brutality and unaccountablity is a common thing in USA.

>If there was a point in history where they somehow severed ties with their racist origins and underwent fundamental, institutional change, I've yet to learn about it.

The opposite, actually. The civil rights movement of the 60s was infiltrated, surveilled, and disrupted by secret police, and largely ended with it's greatest leaders being assassinated and mass riots.

Then Nixon launched the War on Drugs in the 70s and mass incarceration began.

In the 80s we saw Democrats and Republicans further ramping up the war on drugs, with the passage of laws such as the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986, while at the same time it was soon revealed that the CIA was helping their Nicaraguan Contra friends raise money by importing billions of dollars of cocaine into inner cities as a part of the Iran Contra conspiracy, initializing the crack epidemic. The investigations into these wrong doings was quickly shut down, the investigative journalist leading the charge was suicided, and the government officials responsible were pardoned.

Fast forward 30 years, and the mass incarceration levels have been holding steady and communities are even weaker by some metrics than they were before the civil rights movement, though perhaps we've made some marginal improvements in states where cannabis has been legalized, but we've still got a lot more to do: namely, ending the tyrannical and racist war on drugs at the Federal level.

Thank you for Trumpsplaining that one. Boy, I need to get better at hearing it like it is.

The mayor told the police to do the one thing that could’ve stopped all of this: arrest the murderer.

100% of this is happening because police continue to refuse to arrest police.

Frey's actual power over the police and the Hennepin County Attorney is relatively limited.

The mayor doesn't have authority over the police.

> He lambasted the riots, but has allowed it to continue

How, exactly? I mean, it's not like the rioters are following his orders (or maybe you're saying they are?!). If you're just saying it's his responsibility, then sure, but he's not the only one. Aren't community leaders, the police, the governor and the president likewise "allowing" the riots to continue simply because they haven't stopped them?

I mean, Trump literally evoked an image of shooting rioters. Did anyone else do anything similar?

Yes, extrajudicial murder to protect physical property, that's justice.

When you care more about stuff than you do about actual human lives, your evil is showing.

Trump was talking literally about directing the military to shoot looters (it's right there in the tweet!), not expressing an abstract right of people to defend their own property.

So no, downvoting you isn't anything to do with the constitution.

It looked like they were hauling people off one-by-one, which could reasonably be standard procedure for riot situations. Isolate individuals from the group and handle them separately - that sort of thing.

Moreover, they started with the reporter, since he seemed to be the leader of the group (e.g. he was the one doing the talking).

If it were only the reporter arrested, I could believe it was racism. Since the other two were arrested, not so much. It also helps that they seemed to have been the only camera in the area. I have been unable to find any other video of the arrest.

A Black reporter is more likely to be filming people similar to himself peacefully protesting, rather than focusing on the damages caused by agents provocateurs (there is video of the windows of Autozone being smashed by a dude who is definitely not a protestor).

Heck at this point the police probably have facial recognition cameras that identify a reporter and assign them a score based on how friendly their past coverage has been.

Bingo.

What source claims the other crew to be only a block away?

If it was because the reporters here were 'too close' then that does kind of fit the narrative the cops gave, except they should have told them where they should go instead of arresting them of course.

Still, does not make it racism. Plenty of cops make bad decisions, it doesn't make them all racist.

> doing there job We have zero context for why they were being detained. We can assume they did nothing wrong, but it's just an assumption. It would be great if CNN released the video that preceded the detainment.

Thanks for the book recommendation.

> How does nakedness justify escalating the situation to voilence? "The law is the law" is just an excuse.

Are you suggesting every person to decide what's allowed and what's not to the best of their judgment? I agree not all illegal activities are equal. If you use common sense then indeed you should try your best to avoid violence in illegal activities that don't put anyone in danger. But at the end of the day, when all fail and the person in front of you is not cooperating and refusing to put cloths on, then the police has no choice and arrest the person against their will. (If you disagree that nakedness should be illegal that's a different story and has nothing to do with the police)

Anecdotal of course, but I was discussing this with someone who told me their cousin, despite being bipolar (although currently treated) and a raging racist online was being recruited by local police offices.

Yes because they would leave the police force quickly. Training officers takes time and money.

Most businesses will try to avoid hiring someone that is going to leave right away.

That's true but I'm not sure it would've been the same if a woman did that. The main difference is how the public would react.

Additionally, there was another CNN crew within sight of this one that was approached, handled the situation in the same way with the same answers, and was told that they're good to stay where they are. That one was led by a white reporter.

Whether they are charged with a crime is up to the governor, ultimately.

But, the state police -- if they order a street closed -- are well within their rights to CLEAR the street. If the person won't budge, they can forcibly remove them. Which they did. That is being 'arrested.' There are no exceptions for reporters.

Of course I agree, but it reminds me of a situation many years back where I live.

There was a big protest and people started throwing rocks at the police, and the media were in the middle of the police at that moment. It actually made the police's response much slower and dangerous because they first protected the media and escorted them out from the protesters range, before charging and arresting people.

I'm sure they have trained some protocol to how to control mobs, and throwing innocent civilians in the mix wrecks the whole thing.

The grounds to arrest me are me not obeying a direct order, not asking "why".

Police officers have the authority to make quick judgement calls in many situations. Obviously we are all human and I could ask why and try to plead my case, but I should also expect that after some time of non-compliancy I may be detained. The felony is called something like "failure to obey a police officer".

And it's in the laws of the nation.