When a journalist steps beyond being a journalist and turns into an activist, of course they’re going to get arrested if they break the law. Just because someone is a journalist does not give them a pass from breaking the law.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/29/minneapolis-protest...
Watch the video and tell me how that arrest was justified.
> Police told the crew they were being detained because they were told to move and didn't, one member of the CNN crew relayed to the network.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-arres...
If you can simply not imagine the police arresting someone for no reason, or for challenging their unlawful assertion of authority, or so they can beat up protesters more effectively away from the watchful eyes of the press, no amount of evidence is going to convince you otherwise. But please, consider that police misbehaviour is at the very least a possibility.
Right, they were violating an order to disperse or a curfew. Again, being a journalist doesn't bestow some special rights that lets you ignore the police when they issue an order to disperse or set a curfew. When people are looting and burning stuff down, the law has provisions to let the police say "this is out of hand, the only way we have to restore peace is to tell everyone to get out of the area". And when people ignore those orders they're violating the law and subject to arrest. And so are CNN's journalists. Being a journalist doesn't bestow any special rights.
You can disagree with whether it was appropriate to order people disperse in this situation. But what is certain is that your previous comment was spreading falsehood: they weren't arrested for filming police, they were arrested for ignoring an order to disperse or a curfew. I'd come off as a lot less deceptive if you were transparent about the real reason for the arrest in your previous comment. It's 40 minutes old at the time of my writing this so you have at least an hour to edit it.
What "hard evidence" contradicts it? Can you provide evidence that no such dispersal order was given? Or that they were arrested prior to such order, or curfew?
In fact the source you posted doesn't even claim that they were arrested for filming. This idea that the reporter was arrested for filming seems to be entirely your own.
Your question isn't, "Why am I ready to take police's words at face value?" The question you're really asking is "why aren't I ready to take an anonymous internet commenter's claims at face value?"
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/tim-walz-apology-oma...
The CNN journalist was far from the only person arrested. If the cops were arresting people for filming, not for violating dispersal orders, why were so many other people in the area who weren't filming being arrested? Why do you insist on claiming that they were arrested for filming, when CNN's own article doesn't make this claim?
There was no causal link between filming and this man's arrest. The police ordered a crowd to disperse, and the crowd didn't. Members of the crowd did not disperse, and were arrested. A journalist was among said members that did not disperse and were arrested. He would have been arrested whether or not he was filming.
Then please edit the comment to which I originally responded to correctly state that they were arrested for violating an order to disperse.
If it's of such little effect then surely you would be fine with making this modest change, correct?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pti6ZiH7dQ
The age old crime of filming crime.
It appears that the police harmed journalists during the journalists' regular course of duty: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/journa...
There seems to be at least enough evidence of the plausibility of the latter that the assumption is far too strong to offer without evidence.
I’m entirely on the side of real journalism so it was interacting to see some people that thought a press badge meant they didn’t need to also follow police orders.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-es...
It's an intimidation tactic, and the officers face zero consequences for employing it. "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" and all that.
But, people are required to obey police commands, unlawful or not, and then seek remedy from the courts afterwards.
And, there is usually a narrow self-defense exception. One can lawfully resist if the police are unlawfully trying to kill you.
"In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job."
The professional way is to identify the instigators/leaders in the crowd and extract them one by one. Also to constantly move the crowd street by street - toward less narrow places.
> You have to leave when told to do so.
And if you don't they might arrest you. Standing there is no cause for smashing faces. They can simply grab the closest persons to the police line, bring them behind the line, arrest them. No need to lash out. This gets the message across. If the crowd starts to escalate, sure, water jets. But even that's usually completely unnecessary. Just pick up the trouble makers one-by-one, usually that means less than a dozen people.
Because if there really is an organized fanatical crowd then the police would likely withdraw, like they did in Seattle "zone".
There are exceptions related to orders to break the law, put oneself or others into danger, and so on.
For example, if you resist arrest, the underlying charge may get dropped for lack of evidence but the resisting arrest charges may remain. Though, the resisting arrest charges (or obstruction charges) may get dropped too depending on the prosecuting agency's policies.
Order someone to step to the side for public safety? Probably alright. Probably. Unless it's obvious that what they really mean is "Step so you can't see what I'm about to do."
Order someone to stop filming? Spot-check your First Amendment training and get back to me. Or give that order again, on camera.