Press arrests used to silence protest coverage in 2025

Via US Press Freedom Tracker

December 15, 2025

 While covering anything from protests to government meetings, journalists in 2025 were pulled from news scenes, placed in cuffs and held in custody from minutes to days — long enough for deadlines to pass and breaking news to go cold.

As of Dec. 15, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented at least 32 instances in which journalists were detained or charged just for doing their jobs. While that count is lower than the 50 documented last year, each one is a warning flare that something fundamental is shifting in how authorities police information and those who gather it. Most were released without charges or had them quickly dropped, but the impact extends far beyond the time spent in custody.

One journalist arrested while covering a protest told the Tracker his arrest stopped the news from getting out. “Talk about putting the brakes on press freedom,” he said.

Protest beat as battleground

Protests have long been where the fault lines of press freedom are most visible, and 2025 was no different. Nearly 90% of the arrests and detentions this year occurred while journalists were covering demonstrations.

They all also centered around a single issue: immigration.  --click to read full report

Fall Of Freedom

 

Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit now Online and in the Gallery November 18 - 23 of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

KUNM: Artists plan Fall of Freedom protest events around New Mexico

NPR: This weekend, artists are speaking out across the country

ArtNet: Artists Across the U.S. Are Staging Hundreds of Events to Protest Authoritarianism

France24: US artists launch nationwide ‘Fall of Freedom’ protest against rising censorship

Hyperallergic; Why I Joined the Artists Behind Fall of Freedom

NY Times: Artists Plan Nationwide Protests Against ‘Authoritarian Forces’

The Guardian: Artists plan nationwide US protests against Trump and ‘authoritarian forces'

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22

Via Fall of Freedom

Tracy Barbutes

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22 of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

View the exhibition here.

Find an event near you.

Nina Berman

F**k the KKK, New Jersey, 1990

Federal judge hands press groups wins in lawsuits against LAPD, DHS: "The First Amendment demands better”

Via USA Today

September 15, 2025 

A federal judge handed press and civil liberties groups wins in two separate cases against the Los Angeles Police Department and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over the treatment of journalists covering immigration raid protests.

U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera's preliminary injunctions bar, among other actions, the police department from arresting journalists for failing to disperse or otherwise interfering with journalists' ability to cover Los Angeles protests. The Department of Homeland Security's officers are also barred from "dispersing, threatening or assaulting" journalists who haven't "committed a crime unrelated to failing to obey a dispersal order." --click to read full article

"There's an old line in policing: We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” Adam Rose, press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, said in a news release following the rulings. “Press organizations have been trying to help LAPD for years take the easy way, just asking them to train officers and discipline offenders. They wouldn't stop resisting. LAPD failed to police themselves. Now a judge is doing it for them."

Tracy Barbutes Photographs Yosemite Protest Rally For The SF Standard

Via The San Francisco Standard

August 25, 2025

At the rally on Sunday, people sign the same trans pride flag that Joslin and others helped hang on El Cap earlier this year. | Source:Tracy Barbutes for The Standard

Protesters rally in Yosemite for ranger fired over hanging trans pride flag

The Yosemite community has been reeling since Shannon "SJ" Joslin’s firing. --Click to read full article

"...then an upside-down U.S. flag in February to protest the NPS budget cuts. None of the people who hung those flags faced consequences. That upside-down flag garnered international attention and showed the power of El Capitan as a symbol"

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

©Tracy Barbutes

Related: Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images.

Tracy Barbutes' Transgender Pride Flag Photograph Leads NY Times Article

 Via The New York Times

August 18, 2025

A transgender pride flag was unfurled by Shannon Joslin and other demonstrators on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, Calif., in May.Credit...Tracy Barbutes, via Reuters

Yosemite Biologist Who Hung Trans Pride Flag From El Capitan Is Fired

The National Park Service terminated Shannon Joslin over the May 20 demonstration, which it said took place in a prohibited area and lacked the required permits. -Click for full article

On February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service.

©Tracy Barbutes

Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

 Via Press Freedom Tracker

August 13, 2025

Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

Protests in LA began in early June in response to federal raids of workplaces and areas in and around the city where immigrant day laborers gather, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. Raids at Home Depots in early August took place seemingly in defiance of a July 11 court order temporarily prohibiting federal agents from using discriminatory profiling.

On Aug. 8, two days after an immigration raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in LA’s Westlake neighborhood, protesters gathered at the store and marched to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown. The demonstrators and the journalists covering them encountered a violent response from Los Angeles Police Department officers, violating a court order protecting the press from arrest, assault or other interference.

Gowdy, who was visiting from Seattle, Washington, said he had been photographing the Aug. 8 protest with his partner, fellow journalist Carrie Schreck. The two began documenting the demonstration as protesters started to march. The protest remained peaceful, Gowdy said, until the LAPD arrived.

“They basically lined up and without any provocation, in order to move people, started just swinging their batons indiscriminately,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Gowdy watched as one journalist, Nick Stern, waving his press badge to officers, was struck in the face with a police baton. Gowdy himself was thrown to the ground by several officers, scraping his elbow and damaging the metal connectors on the strap holding his spare camera lenses.

“They were so aggressive and wild-eyed and violent,” he said of the LAPD.

After police declared the protest an unlawful assembly, officers pushed demonstrators farther from the detention center. Gowdy and Schreck had stopped photographing and were leaving the area when they were suddenly kettled, or herded by police, along with a handful of journalists and demonstrators, just three blocks from Schreck’s apartment.

Some had press credentials, but Gowdy said officers ignored them.

“They said they didn’t care, and that everyone should have to line up against the wall,” Gowdy recalled.

The journalists’ hands were placed in zip-tie restraints. While some were released, Gowdy and Schreck remained detained for not having physical press badges. Despite carrying camera gear and being vouched for by their colleagues, the officers questioned their legitimacy and denied their requests to speak with a public information officer.

Gowdy offered to show digital credentials and suggested a quick online search to verify his work with major news outlets, but was told he’d be cited for failure to disperse. He and Schreck were taken to a nearby police station and eventually released after more than two hours in custody.

Gowdy said such traumatic encounters can discourage journalists from covering protests.

“In this case, the law was on our side,” he said. “But they didn’t seem to know the law, or they willfully disregarded it in order to intimidate and harass us.”

Gowdy said he doesn’t wear a press badge when he covers protests in Seattle, after it made him a police target. Covering the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he saw how press credentials can also attract threats from demonstrators. Still, he said this incident convinced him to carry one just in case.

The LAPD did not respond to a Tracker request for comment about the detained journalists. In a statement posted to the social platform X, the department’s Central Division wrote that an unlawful assembly was declared “due to the aggressive nature of a few demonstrators.”

“The protest went into the late night hours with people refusing to disperse,” it continued. “Central Division will continue to support 1st Amendment rights of all people. However, if violence or criminal activity occurs, laws will be enforced.”


The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to tips@pressfreedomtracker.us.

Federal Judge Tells LAPD to Stop Shooting at Journalists

 Via The New Republic

July 11, 2025

U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera blocked Los Angeles police from using less lethal munitions and other crowd control weapons against reporters—and told them to stop arresting journalists.

 A federal judge just had to remind police that they shouldn’t shoot at journalists after several violent encounters during the protests opposing the Trump administration’s disastrous ICE raids in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera blocked the Los Angeles Police Department from wrongfully preventing journalists from accessing closed off areas, detaining or arresting journalists while they’re reporting, and using less lethal munitions (LLMs) and other crowd control weapons against them.

In a 14 page-filing, Vera said that the First Amendment claims made by the Los Angeles Press Club were likely to succeed, and granted them a temporary restraining order. “Indeed, given the fundamental nature of the speech interests involved and the almost daily protests throughout Southern California drawing media coverage, the identified harm is undoubtedly imminent and concrete,” he wrote in a filing.

Vera recounted multiple instances of journalists being cordoned away from the protests or detained and arrested by officers. Documentarian and activist Anthony Orendoff was detained for four days despite telling officers he was a member of the press.

Vera also recounted many instances of violence against members of the press. In one instance, an officer appeared to aim his gun at 9News Australia’s Lauren Tomasi while she was reporting live, and fired a rubber bullet which hit her in the leg on air. Photojournalist Michael Nigro, who stood high above the protests in a press vest and helmet, heard the sound of LLMs hitting a pole by his head, and later that day was struck in the helmet by a rubber bullet. Another unidentified photojournalist with a press pass was pushed over by a police officer, and trampled by a police horse.

Vera barred officers from “prohibiting a journalist from entering or remaining in the closed areas.” The judge also prohibited officers from “intentionally assaulting, interfering with, or obstructing any journalist” who is “gathering, “receiving, or processing information for communication to the public.”

He also barred officers from “citing, detaining, or arresting a journalist who is in a closed area for failure to disperse, curfew violation, or obstruction of a law enforcement officer for gathering, receiving, or processing information,” or using LLMs, like rubber bullets, and other crowd control measures like flash-bangs and chemical irritants like tear gas.

A hearing for a preliminary injunction was set for July 24.

Related: Via Poynter As police face lawsuits over attacks on journalists during LA protests, experts warn press safety is disappearing across the US

"Yet these cases expose a deeper national crisis: Even in states with explicit legal protections for journalists, law enforcement often disregards those safeguards with impunity during high-tension protests, revealing the fragility of press freedoms in the face of unchecked police power."

Reporting under fire: Protests and press freedom in Los Angeles, a virtual webinar event with Freedom of the Press Foundation

 Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation

Wednesday, July 9, 3 p.m. EDT/12 p.m. PDT

Webinar Registration - Zoom

Journalists covering recent demonstrations in California have been assaulted, detained, shot with crowd-control munitions, and had their equipment searched — simply for doing their jobs.

Freelance and independent reporters are especially vulnerable, yet they continue to document how immigration raids impact communities and how law enforcement responds to civil unrest. Some of the journalists joining us are also plaintiffs in lawsuits pushing back against police actions that threaten press freedom and violate the First Amendment. 

Join us to hear their firsthand accounts and learn what it means to uphold the public’s right to know in the streets and on the front lines. 

If you cannot attend, help protect the rights of these journalists and defend press freedom everywhere by making a donation to support our work at this link.

On July 9th, we’ll be joined by:

- Adam Rose, Press rights chair and secretary at LA Press Club

- Ben Camacho, Journalist and co-founder of The Southlander

- Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, Independent videographer

- Tina-Desiree Berg, Journalist for Status Coup and other outlets

- Caitlin Vogus, Freedom of the Press Foundation senior adviser

Flag Day, 2025

 

Flag Day is a holiday celebrated on June 14 in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.

Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images. 

Joe Rosenthal/©AP

Perhaps the most iconic of all flag photos is Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of six U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was taken on Friday, February 23, 1945, five days after the Marines landed on the island. Almost instantly, the image came to symbolize American courage, resilience, and unity in the face of adversity, becoming a powerful emblem of the nation's resolve during World War II.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Thomas E. Franklin documented three New York firefighters raising the American flag amid the wreckage of the fallen World Trade Center towers. Like Rosenthal’s photo, it was universally embraced, an uplifting photo that defined resilience and unity.

Thomas Franklin/©Bergen Record

The weaponization of the flag has similarly produced iconic photographs. In 1976, Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting an African American attorney with the American flag. “The photo shocked Boston” made front pages across the U.S. and also won a Pulitzer Prize. Captioned “The Soiling of Old Glory”, to this day it offers a dramatic window onto the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.

©Stanley Forman

Nearly fifty years later, on January 6, 2021, a weaponized American flag was documented once again. David Butow’s unsettling photo of Trump supporters attacking police from the steps of the Capitol is a modern echo of Forman’s Soiling of Old Glory.

©David Butow

And most recently, on February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”

©Tracy Barbutes

©Ron Haviv

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to results on election night, 2024 Washington D.C

©Mark Peterson

Ku Klux Klan New Member Meeting, Kentucky, May, 2025

Journalists are injured while covering the LA protests

 

June 9, 2025

Law enforcement injure at least 4 journalists covering protests in California amid federal crackdown

Several journalists have been injured while covering the protests in Los Angeles, including a television reporter who was struck when a law enforcement officer fired a nonlethal projectile while she was on the air

British photographer injured by 'plastic bullet' in LA protests

Australian journalist hit by 'rubber bullet' while reporting from LA

Chinese journalist hit by rubber bullet amid the Los Angeles conflict: report

Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park

 April 10, 2025

Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park

©Tracy Barbutes

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

On February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”

"Heading to Yosemite that Saturday, I had been told there might be some form of protest at El Capitan (Tu-tok-ah-nu-lah), the park’s iconic 3,000-foot granite monolith.

 There were unconfirmed reports that at least one recently-fired park employee would rappel with an American flag to protest his firing, as well as to protest the thousands of federal jobs lost due to the Trump administration/Elon Musk DOGE cuts. 

 The event would likely happen near Horsetail Fall, during “firefall” – a natural phenomenon that draws thousands of spectators each February. 

 I stood under El Cap, something I’ve done hundreds of times, and as I documented the unfurling of that upside down American flag, an act signaling distress, I couldn’t help but think of the paradox of the overall situation as we were gathered on colonized Indigenous land. 

 There wasn’t an immediate or overwhelming reaction from the crowd, though there was no missing the event. While intent on capturing a series of images, I was mindful that I was documenting a bold, courageous, historic act.

 It wasn’t until later that night and the next morning as the image went viral that I began to understand what those actions, and the image, meant. Did Nate Vance, the fired park employee behind the flag protest, and his cohorts, shake people out of a collective stupor and spark a movement of resistance." --  Tracy Barbutes

Barbutes is a photojournalist, writer, and wildfire photographer based near Yosemite.

This photograph will be on exhibit in the Monroe Gallery booth C8 at The Photography Show presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD)

Bing Guan Photograph Headlines NY Times Article "Columbia Campus Occupation Could Have Ended Without Police, Report Says"

 Via The New York Times

April 2, 2025

Guan's photograph was originally published in the NY Times May 1, 2024 edition.

Bing Guan

New York Police officers in riot gear enter Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, New York, May 1, 2024

Columbia University’s move to use police force to clear demonstrators from a campus building last spring could potentially have been avoided, as some students were urgently asking if they could leave voluntarily, according to a report released Tuesday by the university’s senate. --full article

Monroe Gallery will exhibit this photograph and other examples of Guan’s work at the 2025 Photography Show presented by AIPAD in booth #C8, April 23 – 27 at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

Ryan Vizzions' Iconic Standing Rock Photograph Featured in The Daly Climate Article on Greenpeace Verdict

 

Credit

Ryan Vizzions: "Defend The Sacred": Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, North Dakota, 2016

Via The Daily Climate

March 20, 2025

Greenpeace faces massive financial blow in pipeline lawsuit

EHN Curators


Greenpeace has been ordered to pay $667 million to the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline after a North Dakota jury found the environmental group defamed the company, a verdict that could have sweeping consequences for advocacy and free speech.

Anna Phillips reports for The Washington Post.

In short:The lawsuit stemmed from Greenpeace’s involvement in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, where Energy Transfer accused the group of inciting violence and damaging its reputation. Greenpeace denies these claims and plans to appeal.

Environmentalists warn the ruling could stifle activism, making groups wary of challenging fossil fuel projects. Experts say it sends a chilling message to climate protests that disrupt infrastructure.
The case is seen as part of a broader trend of corporations using strategic lawsuits (SLAPPs) to silence critics. Unlike more than 30 other states, North Dakota lacks laws discouraging such lawsuits.

Key quote:

“We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech.”

— Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA

Why this matters:

Beyond the courtroom, the stakes are high. This case isn’t just about Greenpeace — it’s about the future of environmental protest in an era of escalating climate crisis. If the ruling stands, the next time a pipeline spills or a fossil fuel project threatens communities, who will dare to sound the alarm?

Read more:Fossil fuel companies ramp up lawsuits to silence climate activists in Europe
Governments and corporations are intensifying pressure on environmental defenders
Sacred Water: Environmental justice in Indian Country

More in The New York Times

Winona LaDuke: DAPL Pipeline Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Aims to Silence Indigenous Protests, Too

 

Via Democracy Now!

As the oil company Energy Transfer sues Greenpeace over the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, we speak with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke, who took part in that historic uprising. LaDuke is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe who lives and works on the White Earth Nation Reservation and was among the thousands of people who joined the protests in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protect water and Indigenous lands in North Dakota. She highlights the close links between North Dakota’s government and Energy Transfer and says that while the lawsuit targets Greenpeace, Indigenous water and land defenders are also on trial. “North Dakota has really been trying to squash any kind of resistance,” says LaDuke. “If they can try to shut down Greenpeace, they’re going to shut down everybody.”

Media petition North Dakota Supreme Court for expanded access to Greenpeace trial

A Tough Start for Greenpeace in Court Fight With Pipeline Giant

John Olsen's "Women's March" Photo Featured In NY Times Magazine Essay

 Via The New York Times

November 2, 2024

 John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection: A 1970 march in New York City on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, August 26, 1970

How Will White Women Vote? It’s a Question With a Fraught History.

White and Black women have joined together to power progressive causes — from abolition to civil rights — but it’s a tenuous alliance. --Click for full article

This photograph is featured in the current Monroe Gallery exhibition "The Best of Us".

Nina Berman Guided Tour Through Her Exhibition "We The People" At The Capa Space

Via The Capa Space

October 10, 2024

 

ARTIST TALK - Photographer Nina Berman will do a guided tour through her We The People exhibition for an inside look at the protest photographs she has been taking for over thirty years.  She will talk about what inspired her to turn her lens on protest in America and what she has learned about the people who organize and assert their right to protest. Sunday, October 20th 2024 @ 4pm. Suggested donation $10. 

 Click here to RSVP

WE THE PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY NINA BERMAN

We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. September 8th - November 24th, 2024

At protests, police are increasingly arresting members of the press—especially those with cameras.

 

Via Columbia Journalism Review

October 7, 2024

Since the violence of last October 7—as the conflict between Israel and Palestine has grown deadlier, and spread more widely in the Middle East—it has also been, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker, a nonpartisan database of press freedom violations, a “protest year.” The visual journalists who cover demonstrations across America—photographers, videographers—are at the center of the action. “We have to get creative, go on the floor, shoot through cops’ legs, just to get that visual,” Madison Swart—a photojournalist in New York whose work has been published in Out and Cosmopolitan, among other places—told me. In May, while covering a pro-Palestinian protest, Swart was briefly detained by police officers—one of forty-three journalists who have been arrested in the past year, triple the previous number. According to Stephanie Sugars, a reporter for the US Press Freedom Tracker, “it has felt that the predominant number of incidents, at least since the protests started, are against people who are documenting visually in some capacity.”

--full article here.

WE THE PEOPLE, Photographs by Nina Berman

 Via The Capa Space

September 2, 2024

Nina Berman

The Fight for 15 protest in Long Island, NY 2016. 

We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. 

September 8th - November 24th, 2024

Opening Reception, Sunday September 8th, 4-6pm

THE CAPA SPACE

2467 Quaker Church Road

 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

Des Moines city manager says free press is important as part of protest lawsuit settlement

 Via The Des Moines Register

August 27, 2024

The Des Moines city manager acknowledged the importance of the free press in a statement Tuesday on the heels of the city's settlement in a lawsuit brought by a news photographer whom police tackled and arrested during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Des Moines leaders agreed to a mid-trial settlement last week with Mark "Ted" Nieters, a photojournalist who has covered conflict zones around the world. As part of the settlement, Nieters is set to receive $100,000, and City Manager Scott Sanders and Des Moines police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Parizek are required to issue statements about the importance of the free press.

Nieters' case stemmed from his arrest on June 1, 2020, when he was working as a freelance news photographer covering a large protest outside the Iowa Capitol. Police eventually ordered members of the crowd to leave and dispersed those who didn't, using tear gas.

Shortly afterward, as Nieters was walking away from the Capitol on Locust Street, Des Moines police officer Brandon Holtan tackled and detained him, despite Nieters telling him he was a journalist and showing him his press card, according to the lawsuit Nieters later filed against Holtan and the city.

Sanders fulfilled his requirement in a statement Tuesday, which reads:

"The City is grateful to the jury and the federal court for their time in a recent case they helped bring to a resolution. While the City Council will vote to approve the proposed settlement at its September 16 meeting, we are happy to put this case behind us and continue our important work moving the Des Moines Police Department forward in our continuing pursuit of excellence. The City acknowledges the importance of free press for our community, and the value and appreciation that the City has for the work the press does."

Link to article with video and photographs.