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Police Response to Press at Black Lives Matter Protests Tests First Amendment

Eric Neugeboren

   WASHINGTON - During recent protests in Washington over the death of
   George Floyd in police custody, police in riot gear were [1]videotaped
   striking a news crew as officers cleared media and protesters from
   Lafayette Square, an area near the White House.
   The footage, captured on June 1, was of a scene repeated in cities
   across the United States during Black Lives Matter demonstrations
   following the May 25 death of the 46-year-old African American in
   Minneapolis.
   Journalists have been tear-gassed, hit by rubber bullets and detained.
   Many say they identified themselves as press or showed credentials that
   police ignored.
   These heavy-handed tactics are not the only issue to test First
   Amendment protections for the press. In Seattle and Cleveland, [2]news
   outlets were subpoenaed for unpublished footage, and Department of
   Homeland Security agents compiled intelligence reports on journalists
   in Portland, Oregon.
   U.S. Park Police in Washington placed two officers on administrative
   leave amid an investigation into the Lafayette Square incident. The
   case is one of hundreds that the [3]U.S. Press Freedom Tracker says it
   is investigating. The data research project is run as a collaboration
   between the Freedom of the Press Foundation and more than two dozen
   other press freedom organizations.
   The Tracker has received reports of at least 700 incidents involving
   media at the protests, including more than 100 arrests and at least 114
   physical attacks allegedly carried out by police. The scale of
   incidents is the highest recorded by the Tracker since it was formed in
   2017 to monitor incidents in the U.S.
   Police chiefs have said it is hard to check credentials, or that
   [4]reporters were caught up in arrests when officers cleared areas or
   imposed curfews. Some state governors responded to the incidents by
   reaffirming journalists' rights to cover events in their cities.
   'Not a few bad apples'
   Meanwhile, media experts warn the police response to journalists is in
   conflict with the First Amendment.
   "This is not a few bad apples kind of thing," James Wheaton, the
   founder and senior counsel for the [5]First Amendment Project, said,
   "This appears to be deliberate targeting of journalists." The
   California-based non-profit offers free legal service to journalists,
   artists and activists.
   Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the landmark
   Supreme Court case over the release of the Pentagon Papers, said, "The
   fact that the police are reacting, too often, overreacting, to the
   presence of the press is something as to which there is a genuine or a
   real and then I would say an enforceable First Amendment problem."

References

   1. https://wjla.com/news/local/us-park-officers-under-investigation-administrative-duty-after-attack-on-journalists
   2. https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/ohio-prosecutor-subpoenas-outlet-reporting-materials-protest/
   3. https://pressfreedomtracker.us/george-floyd-protests/
   4. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/06/18/reporters-covering-protests-arrested-detained-gannett-fights-back/3174933001/
   5. https://www.thefirstamendment.org/

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