Teargassed, beaten up, arrested: what freedom of the press looks like in the US right now

[Judi Lynn]

Poppy Noor 1 hr ago

Caught in the middle of a scrum covering protests in Minneapolis on Saturday, photojournalist Ed Ou could feel his hands and face were wet. For a long time, he didn’t know if it was teargas, pepper spray, or blood – in the end, it turned out to be a combination of all three.

Sheltered behind a wall in a pack of journalists, Ou had not seen the attack coming. He has documented civil unrest in the Middle East, Ukraine and Iraq, where he learned a few things: never get in the police’s way, find shelter, stick together and make sure you are clearly identifiable as press. So when the curfew hit and police fired teargas into the crowd of protesters, Ou stood steady, out of the way, documenting. And then the unexpected happened.

“They literally started throwing concussive grenades in our direction, in the middle of the journalists,” he says. The police approached Ou directly and maced him in the face, spraying his camera, too. What ensued was a prolonged attack that involved being hit at with batons, being teargassed, dodging concussive grenades and begging for help.

The account has been corroborated by several other journalists on the ground, including the Los Angeles Times’ Carolyn Cole, who incurred an eye injury, and Molly Hennesy-Fiske, who was shot with rubber bullets several times in the leg. They describe the journalists as having been “completely against the wall, in an alcove, at least 15ft off the road to allow the police line to pass”.

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teargassed-beaten-up-arrested-what-freedom-of-the-press-looks-like-in-the-us-right-now/ar-BB1579Lu

[sop]

1. This is the result of Trump's rhetoric, calling the press "the enemy of the peope," expressing his

hatred for members of the media at all his rallies and press conferences, and tacitly giving the police permission to ride roughshod over anyone they don't like.

[Harker]

2. And his request to police...

"please don't be too nice."

[Blue_Tires]

3. Greenwald and Snowden were unavailable for comment...