Three years on, little justice for press assaulted on Jan. 6

Via Press Freedom Tracker

January 2, 2024

This Saturday marks three years since we watched, horrified, as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to halt the democratic process of counting electoral votes. Nearly 20 journalists were assaulted and thousands of dollars in news equipment was destroyed in the riot.

Three years after the failed attempt to halt the democratic process of counting electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, the Department of Justice has charged more than 1,100 people with criminal activity that day. Yet it has charged only a few of those who committed assaults on journalists, attacked as they covered the rapidly escalating events in Washington, D.C.

Nearly 20 journalists were assaulted — dragged over a wall, punched in the face or had a camera stolen. Tens of thousands of dollars in news equipment was also destroyed in the riot.

Of the six people who were charged with assaulting journalists, most were for the mob assault of Associated Press photojournalist John Minchillo, who was pushed, punched, dragged through the crowd and thrown over a wall. Four people have been charged with his assault — two pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison; two others are working their way through the justice system.

One of the men charged in the assault of photographer Minchillo was also charged in the assault of documentary journalist Nick Quested. Quested was filming the riot from the steps of the West Plaza when the man grabbed his camera and attempted to pull him down the stairs.

New York Times photographer Erin Schaff was inside the Capitol when a crowd attacked her. In her account for the outlet, Schaff wrote that when the rioters realized she worked for the Times, they became angry, stealing and breaking her equipment: “At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.” A woman was charged with inciting the assault on the photojournalist and sentenced to prison.

Schaff’s wasn’t the only news equipment targeted by rioters. She was one of four journalists who had gear like camera lenses, broadcast cameras and recording devices damaged during their assaults.

Most large-scale harm of news equipment occurred when rioters attacked a media staging area. A Reuters cameraman was filming as rioters ripped apart the staging area, breaking news equipment, piling it up and attempting to set fire to it.

A man, later charged with destroying equipment belonging to media outlets including The Associated Press and German public-service broadcaster ZDF, tackled the Reuters journalist to the ground. He subsequently pleaded guilty to two assault charges and was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release.

Five other rioters have been charged in relation to damaging news equipment; at least one has been sentenced to pay ZDF more than $30,000 in restitution.


For 15 other journalists documenting events in and around the Capitol on Jan. 6, no criminal charges have been filed in their assaults:

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for The Washington Post, was hit by crowd-control munitions fired by law enforcement multiple times.

Independent journalist Douglas Christian told the Tracker he was harassed, pursued and punched by rioters near the Russell Senate Office Building.

PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins told VICE News that someone grabbed her and tried to wrest her phone away.

Independent journalist Nate Gowdy told the Tracker he was standing on a railing photographing rioters storming the Capitol when a man threatened him and shoved him off.

Independent journalist John Harrington told the Tracker he was assaulted and harassed multiple times by rioters. He said he was hit in the head with what he believes was a fire extinguisher and also hit with a chair thrown by a rioter in a scuffle with police officers.

Slate reporter Aymann Ismail said he was pushed by a Capitol Police officer as a way to slow down the crowd of people behind him who were trying to force their way into the Capitol Building.
Reporter Vincent Jolly was livestreaming for Le Figaro when a man knocked his cellphone out of his hands, destroying it.

Photojournalist Chris Jones of 100 Days in Appalachia told the Tracker he was confronted by rioters inside the Capitol for being a journalist and was picked up and dragged out of the building. Later in the day, a flash-bang grenade fired by Capitol police exploded right next to him, damaging his camera pouch.

Christopher Lee, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for Time magazine, said rioters identified him as a journalist and started to grab and remove him from the Capitol.

CNN photojournalist Ronnie McCray was assaulted by a rioter who also smacked his camera.
Freelance journalist Christopher Morris said he was assaulted at least four times, with rioters “pushing, shoving, some kicking [and] pulling” on him.

VICE News cameraman Chris Olson and international correspondent Ben Solomon were attacked by several rioters on the steps of the Capitol. A man attempted to smash Olson’s camera, damaging the handle grip, and another gave Solomon a “good hard shove to the throat.”

Members of a WTTG television news crew were assaulted and harassed by a woman who was later arrested and charged with multiple criminal counts by the DOJ for her actions during the Jan. 6 riots. While the charging document describes the woman as “kicking two members of a news team” none of the charges filed were directly related to their assaults.

View the exhibition: January 6, One Year Later

Glazer's Presents: The January 6th Insurrection in Photos with Nate Gowdy

 Via Glazer's Camera

   5:07:45 PM, January 6, 2021, US Capitol, Washington, DC

Join Nate Gowdy for an engaging visual presentation on the making of Insurrection, the only book of photojournalism dedicated to chronicling the deadly mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

As a seasoned political photographer who had already covered 30 Trump rallies, Gowdy was confident he could handle one more. However, the events that transpired were beyond anyone’s expectations.

Gowdy will share his firsthand anecdotes and insights into his creative process amidst the chaos and violence of that fateful day. Despite being “fake news” and assaulted twice for carrying professional cameras, he remained committed to capturing the truth.

This event offers attendees the opportunity to connect with the photographer and delve deeper into the stories behind his January 6th portfolio, originally shot on assignment for Rolling Stone. He will also discuss his journey in self-publishing.

Copies of Gowdy's debut monograph, Insurrection, will be available after the presentation and Q&A.

Gowdy maintains a photography studio in Seattle’s International District, and his fine art is represented at Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Gallery Photographer Nate Gowdy Interviewed on PBS New Hour for Anniversary of January 6 Insurrection

 

Via PBS News Hour

January 6, 2023

On Jan. 6, 2021, photographer Nate Gowdy was at the U.S. Capitol on assignment for Rolling Stone when what was billed as a pro-Trump rally escalated into an insurrection. He was on his way to take photos of the rally at the Ellipse when groups of people started walking toward the Capitol.

Hours later, Gowdy writes in his new book, he was “caught in a melee of war cries, adrenaline and suddenly surging bodies.”

After covering the mayhem outside the Capitol, Gowdy faced his own chaotic situation days later. His camera and computer with his Jan. 6 images were stolen from Washington’s Union Station.

“I would have sacrificed an arm or a leg to get those photos back,” he said.

Beyond capturing a shocking chapter in American political history, the images were also meant to be the conclusion to a book he had been long working on.

As friends tried to console him and help him replace his equipment, one acquaintance had a lucky, one-in-a-million break, spotting his original gear for sale online, and eventually reuniting him with his images.

“Insurrection,” a recent collection of 124 of Gowdy’s photos, offers a timeline of the day’s events through vivid portraits of the Trump supporters who broke into the complex while Congress counted Electoral College votes to confirm President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

More than 950 people have been arrested for participating in the Capitol insurrection, the Justice Department reported Wednesday — two days ahead of the attack’s two-year anniversary. Hundreds of demonstrators and law enforcement officers were physically injured. The Capitol building sustained $1.5 million in damage. Eighteen journalists were assaulted and news equipment and cameras were damaged, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Nine deaths have been connected to the attack and its aftermath.

“Almost four years prior to Jan. 6, 2021, I stood in the audience at the Inauguration Day stand and stared in disbelief as [President-elect Trump] vowed to uphold the Constitution and to end the specter of societal ‘American carnage,’” Gowdy said. “Now I found myself in the space – one historically reserved for solemn and dignified assembly – as it was flooded with true American carnage.”

Gowdy has worked since 2011 as a photographer for various editorial and commercial clients. He has also produced exhibitions and projects, including “The American Superhero Project” – a series of patriotic portraits featuring people of all stripes – and “Our Students, Their Stories: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Students, Families, and Staff,” a project commissioned by Seattle Public Schools.

Trump rallies became a focus of Gowdy’s work in recent years, he says in an attempt to better understand the movement. “I wanted to make photographs that could help us bridge this divide potentially. And now I see that because, again, we see what we want to see, they [my images] only perpetuate the divide, certainly with the climate we’re in. That’s not what I set out to do, but that’s what it’s become.”

The PBS NewsHour spoke with Gowdy by phone and email over the last few weeks about his experience covering the Jan. 6 attack and what led to his new book.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Some of the photos featured in this story are graphic.

I’m curious how you came to be on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. What led up to that?

Time magazine had reached out after I photographed a Bernie [Sanders] rally here in downtown Seattle being interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators. … And that kind of gave me the confidence to get out there and do it. … I ended up getting the Bernie Sanders cover of Time magazine in June of 2016. … At the time, I’d only had a camera for four and a half years. So that was pretty cool.

The whole time I was out there traveling, self-funding these trips to primary states, sleeping in rental cars and doing what I had to do just to get the photos while this was happening. I thought the whole Trump-MAGA thing was a blip and I thought I had to catch it then and it would be over soon. And, you know, it didn’t end…

I saw Jan. 6 as Trump’s last stand. Excuse my language, but I knew it would be a stupid day. … I didn’t anticipate it being deadly and what it was.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Some of the photos featured in this story are graphic.

I’m curious how you came to be on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. What led up to that?

Time magazine had reached out after I photographed a Bernie [Sanders] rally here in downtown Seattle being interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators. … And that kind of gave me the confidence to get out there and do it. … I ended up getting the Bernie Sanders cover of Time magazine in June of 2016. … At the time, I’d only had a camera for four and a half years. So that was pretty cool.

The whole time I was out there traveling, self-funding these trips to primary states, sleeping in rental cars and doing what I had to do just to get the photos while this was happening. I thought the whole Trump-MAGA thing was a blip and I thought I had to catch it then and it would be over soon. And, you know, it didn’t end…

I saw Jan. 6 as Trump’s last stand. Excuse my language, but I knew it would be a stupid day. … I didn’t anticipate it being deadly and what it was.

Did you ever go inside the Capitol at any point during the day?

No, I did not. … Everyone on that terrace where the inauguration platform [was on the West Front of the Capitol] had their backs to us. And so there was obviously something going on behind them. And that’s where the battle for the tunnel was. And that’s why I got to a higher elevation to have a view of it. But I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.

I didn’t have any protective gear, whereas a lot of my colleagues out there that day were militarized – wearing gas masks, goggles, helmets, boots, kneepads, you name it. But that also worked to “other” them, … whereas, I was wearing a maroon hoodie and Carhartt beanie and, besides my N95 mask and cameras othering me, a lot of people who were suspicious of me couldn’t be 100 percent certain I wasn’t a fellow “patriot” for the cause.

You were able to kind of blend in a little bit.

Yeah, I think in ways that worked to my advantage. But, that said, I was still attacked twice that day for having cameras.

How have you been since that day? How has what you saw affected you? Are you doing okay?

A lot of people care about me and ask that question a lot. And my response is that I don’t feel like I have any lingering trauma from that day. A whole lot of people do. And I’m just fine.

The trauma I experienced regarding that day didn’t have to do with the danger and the chaos or the events of Jan. 6. They had to do with on my way back to Seattle – … my camera, my computer and my photos were stolen. I’d just witnessed and photographed the most historic thing I’ve been to. And suddenly that was all gone, but for the 25 medium-res JPEGs I delivered to Rolling Stone.

Tell me about that.

This book’s photos were almost lost. On Jan. 8 at Union Station, my backpack—in it, my camera, hard drives, and laptop—were stolen. If not for the sleuthing efforts of an acquaintance, this book would not exist. Just two days after the theft, he found my camera listed on an online marketplace. I messaged the seller that it was unmistakably my Leica Q and laptop. Silence.

So close yet so far from recovering my things and particularly these images, I boarded my flight home to Seattle. Upon landing, I learned that the seller wanted me to call them. Over the phone, they claimed that they had “found” my backpack. “Praise be to God,” they exclaimed, for putting us in a position to help each other—as they attempted to extort $2,000.

Very fortunately, they agreed to return to the scene of the crime for the exchange the following day at Union Station with my friend. Amtrak Police officers went above and beyond to work with him to arrange a safe and successful sting operation. For a multitude of reasons, I didn’t press charges. The detained individual was banned from Union Station, but didn’t spend the night in jail.

What gave you the idea for a book?

I’ve been a photographer since I got a camera in 2011, and I’ve always been kind of pretty obsessed with photo books. Photography is the only thing that I let myself collect and get materialistic about. And so I’ve always kind of done long-form documentary projects in anticipation of curating the archives into books. And I’ve just never had the means to do that. And so I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. …

What spurred me to do this one was my ex-partner’s parents. When I met them, they’re very Trumpian. I love talking politics, but I tried to redirect away from politics with them. But when I mentioned, you know, I was there at the Capitol on Jan. 6 at the insurrection, her father threw a fit and made a scene at the restaurant we were at – at just me calling it an insurrection. That’s when I got the idea that, “Wow, people need to see this. They need something they can hold in their hands and point to and say, ‘Yes, this happened. Look, here it is.’”

Related: A Seattle photographer’s firsthand account of the Jan. 6 chaos | Crosscut

NY Times: Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman Recounts How He Held Off the Mob on Jan. 6.

 Via The New York Times

June 13, 2022

Ashley Gilbertson

Officer Goodman, The Stroming of the Capitol, January 6, 2020

"Officer Goodman, whose heroism was captured in widely circulated video recorded by a reporter inside the Capitol, said rioters sprayed him with what he believed to be bear spray, threw objects at him and tried to shake him and other officers off some scaffolding during the storming of the building. He also recounted throwing up in reaction to the tear gas deployed by the Metropolitan Police when they arrived to reinforce the Capitol Police, who had been overrun.

“It looked like something out of medieval times, where you see one big force fighting another force,” Officer Goodman said."

Reflections of the L.A. uprising: Revisiting the photographs with David Butow

 Via The Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2022

Welcome to Los Angeles in the last few days of April 1992.

"David Butow witnessed many historical events through the lens of his camera as a freelance photojournalist, including the 1992 uprisings in L.A., the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. Most recently, he was in Ukraine shooting photographs of the war."

David Butow recalls taking photos of burning rubble just a couple blocks from his L.A. apartment in 1992.  (View these historical images overlaid on present-day 360º video in this immersive piece, and hear from the photographers themselves. Scan the QR codes using Snapchat on your smartphone to walk through an augmented reality doorway to examine the space around you.)

Opening Feb. 4 at RIT’s City Art Space, “Brink: Photographs by David Butow” features a gripping selection of images from the new book

 

Via Rochester Institute of Technology
January 14, 2022

©David Butow

January 6, 2021. Supporters of President Donald Trump retreat from tear gas during a battle with Law Enforcement officers on the west steps of the Capitol in Washington during the attack on the day of Joe Biden’s election certification by Congress

"I was most interested in making pictures that would be different from daily news coverage and that would be particularly compelling to viewers decades from now.”--David Butow

--A solo exhibition of photographs and video by David Butow, whose new book, Brink, chronicles politics in the United States from the 2016 presidential election through the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, is coming to RIT’s City Art Space.

Opening Feb. 4, “Brink: Photographs by David Butow” features a gripping selection of images from the book (Punctum Press) for which Jenn Poggi, assistant professor in RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, served as a key editor. The exhibition runs through Feb. 20. Full article here.

On January 20, 2022, the one year anniversary of President Biden’s inauguration, at 5 pm MST (4 pm PST, 6 pm CDT, 7 pm EST) David Butow will be in conversation with Steve Appleford, a contributing writer and video producer with the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and other publications. BRINK chronicles the dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Registration required, click here.

Bronx Documentary Center Exhibit "Storming of The Capitol" Includes Nina Berman's January 6 Photographs

 

Via Bronx Documentary Center

©Nina Berman: Inauguration platform breach, The Capitol, January 6, 2021

Featuring:

Nina Berman, Gabriela Bhaskar, Victor J. Blue, Balazs Gardi, Adam Gray, Shuran Huang, Christopher Lee, Luke Mogelson, Mark Peterson, and others.

On view January 29 - March 20, 2022  Bronx Documentary Center, 614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451

On January 6, 2021, for the first time in American history, an angry mob stormed the halls of Congress. Protestors destroyed federal property and assaulted police officers.  Five people died as a result and more than 150 were injured. The mob successfully halted the 2020 election certification as they rampaged through the Capitol building, searching for legislators and narrowly missing members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence as they were rushed to safety.

If the mob had nullified the popular state-by-state vote and forced the electoral process into the House of Representatives, as some planners hoped, 200 years of American democracy would be at an end.

Through photographs, video and multimedia, the Bronx Documentary Center’s exhibition, Storming of the Capitol, examines in detail the events of January 6th, 2021, seeks to put forth a historical record of events, and sheds light on the deep cleavages in our nation. 

Full details here.

Monroe Gallery exhibition "January 2021 - One Year Later"

BRINK: Virtual conversation and book signing with photographer and author David Butow

 

David Butow: January 6, 2021, Washington, DC. Supporters of President Trump battle law enforcement on the West steps of The Capitol

Santa Fe, NM -- Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to announce an exclusive event with David Butow, photographer and author of the new book “BRINK”.

On January 20, 2022, the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s inauguration, at 5 pm MST (4 pm PST, 6 pm CDT, 7 pm EST) David Butow will be in conversation with Steve Appleford, a contributing writer and video producer with the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and other publications. BRINK chronicles the dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. 

From a dingy motel room in the swing state of Michigan, to the Oval Office, BRINK chronicles dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Photographer David Butow moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C. in 2017 to document what he knew would be a chaotic time in U.S. politics. “While I expected the incompetence, I underestimated the treachery,” he says in the book’s Endnotes. 

Fine art prints and signed copies of BRINK will be available. 

January 20, 2022, 4pm PST/7 pm EST

RSVP for virtual Zoom Conversation

505.992.0800

info@monroegallery.com

Accompanying exhibitions open at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism on January 31, 2022 and RIT City Art Space in Rochester, New York on February 4, 2022.

Exhibition Details:

January 31, 2022 – March 31, 2022

UC Berkeley School of Journalism

121 North Gate Hall

Berkeley, California 94708

February 4, 2022 – February 20, 2022

RIT City Art Space

280 East Main Street, Sibley Tower, First Floor

Rochester, New York 14604

For further information, please call: 505.992.0800; E-mail: info@monroegallery.com

January 1, 2022 Lead Editorial in The New York Times Features Nina Berman Photograph

 

Nina Berman/Redux

The January 1, 2022 New York Times editorial features am image by Nina Berman from the January 6, 2021 insurrection. "Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now" -  Full article here.

NY Times Year In Pictures Includes Ashley Gilbertson's January 6 Insurrection Photographs

 Via The New York Times

December 15, 2021

The Year In Pictures

While many people, fearing the virus, continued to stay close to home, photographers traveled the world, documenting turmoil and triumphs.

 ©Ashley Gilbertson

"For Ashley Gilbertson, this photograph captured the intensity of the moment when a single man stood firm against a massive mob overrunning the United States Capitol."

"As they turned a corner, the mob paused. A lone policeman was shouting at them to stop and turn back. Men in QAnon shirts shouted back, and another waved a Confederate flag in front of the officer. He drew his baton to fight them back, but it fell to the ground in the chaos. He unclipped the holster of his pistol and put his hand on the grip, and I put a rioter between me and him as a shield. But the officer never drew his sidearm.

His name, I would later learn, was Eugene Goodman. He acted as a diversion to draw rioters away from the Senate chamber. There weren’t many moments that we can be proud of as a nation from Jan. 6, 2021, but this is one of them."

Photographer Ashley Gilbertson in the HBO Documentary "Four Hours at the Capitol"

 VIA HBO

On Demand - Available until November 25, 2021

Photographer Ashley Gilbertson, who captured the iconic image of Officer Goodman on January 6, recounts his observations in the documentary. Three of Gilbertson's photographs from that day were in the Monroe Gallery exhibit "Present Tense". 

 

Four Hours At The Capitol - Watch the HBO Original Documentary | HBO

Four Hours at the Capitol is an immersive chronicle of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when thousands of American citizens from across the country gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election, many with the intent of disrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency. The documentary film is executive produced by Dan Reed (HBO’s Leaving Neverland, Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks, Terror at the Mall) and directed by Jamie Roberts.

‌‌Tightly focused on the facts of the day itself, the documentary features never-before-seen footage and vivid first-hand accounts from lawmakers, staffers, police officers, protesters, and rioters who stormed the Capitol building where the electoral votes were being counted. The film details how the violence quickly escalated, leaving Capitol security forces outnumbered and overwhelmed, and highlights the high-stakes standoff between police and rioters. Four Hours at the Capitol presents an unfiltered look at the insurrection, standing both as an intimate recollection as well as a stark reminder of the wider ramifications of the events of that unprecedented day, which ended with the deaths of five people and more than 140 police officers injured.

Three of Gilbertson's photographs from that day were in the Monroe Gallery exhibit "Present Tense". 

Ashley Gilbertson's Photographs of January 6 Insurrection Featured in NY Times and Monroe Gallery Exhibit

Via The New York Times

January 10, 2021

Photographer Ashley Gilbertson witnessed the events of January 6, 2021 that will be cemented into US history while on assignment for the New York Times. See the full series of photographs with an important essay by Timothy Snyder here.

Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photojournalist with the VII Photo Agency living in New York. Gilbertson has covered migration and conflict internationally for over 20 years.

Gilbertson's photographs are included in the current exhibition "History Now".

Video Shows Oakland Police Shooting Photographer

 Via PDN Pulse:

Video Shows Oakland Police Shooting Photographer

Yesterday we posted a story suggesting that the police are under pressure to respect constitutional rights, now that so many people are photographing their activities (especially at protests.)

But along comes this video of an Oakland policeman shooting the photographer for no obvious reason. The photographer, identified by the San Jose Mercury News as Oakland resident Scott Campbell, was filming the line of riot police last Thursday from a distance of about 50 feet. The police had moved in after Occupy Oakland protesters had defaced a nearby building, but the scene photographed by Campbell appears mostly calm.

As Campbell walked parallel to the line of police, the camera’s audio recorder picks up his voice asking, “Is this OK?” After about 30 seconds, one of the police fires a non-lethal projectile at Campbell, hitting him. As he falls, he cries out in pain and then says, “He shot me!” before the video cuts off.

Read more here.

Via San Jose Mercury News:  Experts in police use of force shocked by Oakland video