Minnesota police aggressively arrested a CNN producer and assaulted multiple other members of the press covering protests over the police shooting of Daunte Wright last week, according to an attorney representing dozens of news outlets.
More than 100 people have been arrested at protests in Brooklyn Center since Wright was shot and killed on April 11 by a police officer during a traffic stop. Some journalists have also reported being harassed, intimidated and detained by police while covering the unrest.
Attorney Leita Walker wrote on behalf of nearly 30 journalism and news organizations to Gov. Tim Walz (D) detailing multiple such examples.
In one case, CNN producer Carolyn Sung was grabbed by her backpack and thrown to the ground by state troopers while she was trying to comply with a dispersal order on Tuesday. She did not resist, showed her credentials and repeatedly identified herself as press, but was nonetheless arrested, the letter said.
Despite hearing Sung, who is Asian American, identifying herself and saying that the zip ties on her wrists were too tight, one trooper yelled at her, “Do you speak English?”
The male security agent hired by CNN to work with her was also briefly detained but was released when he showed his credentials. Sung was taken to Hennepin County Jail in a prisoner transport bus.
“She was patted down and searched by a female officer who put her hands down Sung’s pants and in her bra, fingerprinted, electronically body-scanned, and ordered to strip and put on an orange uniform before attorneys working on her behalf were able to locate her and secure her release, a process that took more than two hours,” the letter said.
The mistreatment of the press at the protests has been condemned online by numerous media organizations. CNN anchors Brian Stelter and Jake Tapper called out Sung’s incident in particular.
On the same night, a New York Times journalist was repeatedly hit by police who surrounded a car he was in with several other people, according to the letter; police also tried to break his camera.
In a separate incident, freelance photographer Tim Evans said an officer punched him in the face and tore off his press badge, and another officer subsequently smashed his head into the ground. He was cuffed before a third officer freed him.
The letter was sent to Walz after he held a phone conference with the attorney and law enforcement officials on Saturday.
“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,” Walz tweeted after the call.
A U.S. District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday that prohibited police from arresting, threatening to arrest or using physical force against journalists.
Following that order and the governor’s intervention, the Minnesota State Patrol acknowledged in a press release Saturday that journalists covering the protests are exempt from dispersal orders and that the use of chemical spray against them was banned.