This is not okay: Oakland protesters assault KTVU cameraman

[Gravitycollapse]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oakland-protesters-angered-by-zimmerman-acquittal-rough-up-news-photographers-20130715,0,3507597.story

OAKLAND -- Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in San Francisco and Oakland on Sunday night to express outrage at the Florida acquittal of George Zimmerman, who admitted to shooting unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin but claimed he had feared for his life.

Both protests were largely peaceful but a small number of Oakland demonstrators -- some hiding their faces with bandanas, as demonstrators did during the Occupy Oakland melees -- turned violent late Sunday, setting upon an Oakland Tribune photographer and KTVU cameraman with kicks and punches.

“I'm OK, but protesters had our photog on the ground,” Bay Area News Group reporter Natalie Neysa Alund tweeted a little before 11:30 p.m. Sunday. “I tried to get them off him. An #SFgate photog came to the rescue -- 1 camera is destroyed.”

Shortly afterward, another reporter with the news group -- which publishes the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News -- followed up: “Just patched up my assailed colleague. He's shaken but not stirred. Should be ok. Senseless.”

A KTVU tweet said that news agency’s cameraman was also “attacked by masked protesters.”

Let me tell you something. Those who are willing to go out into the field and document your protest are not the ones you should be angry at. Period. There is absolutely no justification for this kind of violence.

[leftstreet]

1. Meh. Smells like bullshit n/t

[Horse with no Name]

2. There is a long history of folks that "pretend" to be part of the gang protesting

but are there simply to stir shit.

I'm gonna guess this is probably one of those.

[ananda]

11. That's what I was thinking.

They sound like pretend protesters planted to make the real
protesters look bad.

[ucrdem]

3. Agents provocateurs.

That's why they wear bandanas. Sometimes they don't bother. They always turn out when there's a highly publicized protest, like ants at a picnic. I've seen them in action and they're impressive dudes, also easy to spot.

[LeftyMom]

8. Check the shoes!

Brand new and purchased for their protest costume, or service boots if they're stupid and lazy.

Not that the cop hair and no neck look aren't giveaways.

[reusrename]

4. Does paid agitator qualify as "justification?"

Nothing smells right about the story.

[JI7]

5. "masked protestors" , i think they went there intentionally to cause trouble

and take away from the message of the peaceful protestors.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Meh.

If it had been real, it would have been real bad. An isolated incident, possibly a set up, not worth the press.

[Jesus Malverde]

7. sad is that the Oakland news stations have had to hire armed guards because the crews

were getting robbed in the field. Mostly equipment. One crew was robbed on air.

A KPIX news cameraman was punched and robbed during a live broadcast outside an Oakland high school, the latest in a spate of holdups targeting the media, police said Thursday.

Reporter Anne Makovec and cameraman Gregg Welk were on the air shortly after noon Wednesday outside Oakland Technical High School near the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway. They were at the school to do a story on the passage of Proposition 30, the tax measure preventing deep cuts to education.

As Makovec was finishing her report, police said, five men rushed up and grabbed a $6,000 camera from the tripod. Viewers saw the live picture being jarred and turned sideways for about two seconds.

One of the assailants punched Welk in the mouth before the group fled in a Mercedes-Benz, which apparently was accompanied by a Lexus, police said. Welk declined treatment by paramedics but saw his doctor.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-robbers-attack-TV-cameraman-4020757.php

In recent months, journalists covering crime and other stories here have themselves become victims of crime, robbed of expensive cameras, sometimes at gunpoint.


In less than a year, every major television news station in the Bay Area has been a victim, some more than once. One experienced newspaper photographer has lost five cameras.

In the most brazen episode, a group of men punched a KPIX-TV cameraman last November while he was filming at midday in front of an Oakland high school. The robbers fled with his camera while it was still recording. Viewers saw the reporter sign off and then an inexplicably wobbly image.

obberies and assaults are changing the way journalists report in Oakland. Armed, plainclothes security guards sometimes accompany news crews on pieces, even mundane ones. Some camera crew members are refusing to take assignments in Oakland at night. And while crime provides the daily drama for much of the local television news, reporters are spending less time on the street and more time at the Oakland police department. Once the police leave a crime scene, television crews depart as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/business/media/photojournalists-in-oakland-face-epidemic-of-camera-robberies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Earth_First]

9. While I tend to believe this is bullshit...

A personal experience of mine when OccupyRochester was in its infancy, I remember being first accused and then confronted by a group as being a UC cop for RPD.

The cause for suspicion? I carry a large body prosumer Canon dslr...

If. Even IF this is true, the level of paranoia among younger 'bloc' activists is appaling.

To this day, I still feel unwelcomed by several Take Back the Land activists...

[mwrguy]

10. False Flag

by Zimmerman-loving cops.