stLouISTThe LAPD attacked reporters, despite a court order. Then it lied about it
Last Friday, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department beat, shoved, detained, and jailed journalists covering a protest over the previous detention of a community activist who had been documenting immigration officers.
It was a brutal and shocking attack on the press, even by the LAPD’s standards. Even before scores of journalists were attacked and detained at recent immigration raid protests, the force had one of the most atrocious track records when it comes to press freedom.
The LAPD is also subject to a court order prohibiting it from interfering with journalists covering protests, which it appears to have wantonly violated. The Los Angeles Press Club, which sued the LAPD over its recent treatment of journalists at protests, has asked the court to hold the LAPD in contempt for violating its order and impose new restrictions.
What’s almost as shocking is how little attention these recent attacks have drawn from the mainstream media. Even five days later, the hometown Los Angeles Times, for instance, hadn’t yet written about Friday’s attack on the press. Thankfully, an out-of-town columnist, Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Inquirer, published an article strongly condemning the LAPD’s actions.
But even worse than ignoring the attacks on the press is reporting false information about them spread by the LAPD. Unfortunately, California station KABC-TV appears to have done just that, by reporting uncritically on claims by the LAPD that two people were detained at the protest for “pretending to be media.”
The two were, in fact, journalists, according to reporter Mel Buer, who was at the protest and was also detained, and Adam Rose, who’s been exhaustively tracking the recent attacks for the LA Press Club. Rose’s tracking spreadsheet identifies the detained journalists as Nate Gowdy and Carrie Schreck.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reported that LAPD officers detained Gowdy and Schreck, who were working together to report on the protest, because they didn’t have physical press badges.
A lack of physical press credentials isn’t a good enough reason to stop a journalist from reporting under the First Amendment, and it certainly isn’t a good enough reason under the order entered by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit by the Los Angeles Press Club restraining the LAPD’s mistreatment of journalists covering protests. Even guidance from the LAPD’s chief of police says that a lack of credentials isn’t enough to justify a detention.
Instead, officers should have considered all the evidence that Gowdy and Schreck were at the protest to gather the news, like the statements from other credentialed reporters who vouched for them, their camera equipment, and Gowdy’s offer to show digital credentials or prove through a quick Google search that he and Schreck were journalists. And if they were still in doubt, officers were required to grant Gowdy and Schreck’s requests to speak to a supervisor.
KABC-TV, which calls itself the “West Coast flagship” of Disney’s ABC-owned TV station group, also should have known better than to simply repeat a statement from the LAPD that people were arrested for “pretending” to be press.
The government often makes this claim and uses it as a justification for why it “can’t” respect the First Amendment rights of journalists and simply must continue to beat and terrorize them along with protesters. But research has shown that protesters or others claiming to be press is rare. Any time government officials make this claim, journalists should be skeptical and investigate it before reporting it.
Journalists must bring a healthy dose of skepticism to any statements by the LAPD about its treatment of the press. The LAPD knows that it violates the First Amendment and California law to detain or otherwise interfere with journalists covering protests, but it continues to do so anyway.
It seems to prefer to risk contempt of court or massive settlements rather than respect the First Amendment, and it apparently has no compunction about making false statements to the press about its actions.
The only response available to journalists — other than suing to enforce their rights — is to report, accurately, on every single First Amendment violation by the LAPD. If they do, perhaps the citizens of Los Angeles will make clear to elected officials and law enforcement leaders that they won’t tolerate their police force acting in such a lawless manner.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated Aug. 14 to include new information about the contempt motion filed by the Los Angeles Press Club.