LAPD Arrests Reporters Covering Rousting Of Homeless Encampment

Los Angeles CA

26 March, 2021

1:09 PM

Description

LOS ANGELES, CA — Police responded Friday morning to the brief detentions of a Los Angeles Times reporter and other media members who were covering the protest in Echo Park. James Queally of the Los Angeles Times was covering the protest when he was detained along with protesters after police issued a dispersal order for the area, The Times reported. The order was issued about 8:30 p.m. at Lemoyne Street and Park Avenue, in front of Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell's district office. A designated protest zone was established on Glendale Boulevard, north of Park Avenue, and a media viewing area at the northwest corner of Glendale Boulevard and Park Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The department tweeted a short time later, "Penal Code Section 409. Every person remaining present at the place of any riot, rout or unlawful assembly, after the same has been lawfully warned to disperse, except public officers and persons assisting them in attempting to disperse the same, is guilty of a misdemeanor. "As a reminder, members of the media are also to obey the dispersal orders." Queally was later released "after inquiries by Times editors and its attorney," the paper said. "I'm not blind to the fact that crowd control situations are difficult," Queally tweeted shortly before midnight. "I'm not even mad I was initially detained. But once I was in custody, not a threat to anyone, zip tied, and displaying creds ... that should have been game over. "It wasn't. More than one officer asked why I didn't stay in the `media pen.' I went over to the media pen, by the way. Media pens are deliberately setup to keep reporters AWAY from news. Tonight was no different. It was nowhere near the protests or action in the park. "I'm a cop's kid. Policing is hard. I have a lot of respect and sympathy for officers. But the LAPD has a long history of problematic behavior with protests & crowd-control situations. This is something that desperately needs fixing, and not just because I got zip-tied for an hour." The department issued a statement shortly after midnight that said the media members were taken into custody along with protesters after "several instigators in the crowd demonstrated a willful intent to disrupt the peaceful activity and began to use strobe lights against the officers, an activity that has the potential to cause significant injury to the eyes" and an unlawful assembly was declared. With each announcement to disperse, "a request was made for each member of the media to identify themselves, remove themselves from the crowd, and walk to the pre-identified Crespo location at Park Avenue and Glendale Boulevard. "The protesters failed to disperse, requiring officers to safely establish containment and begin detaining individuals one by one." As officers learned that credentialed and non-credentialed journalists were part of the group being detained, Media Relations Division officers were called in to identify the media members "and they were released at the scene without being arrested." In addition to Queally, two reporters with Knock LA were detained and released after midnight. City News Service