While covering the protests — and the Trump administration’s out-of-proportion response to them — in Los Angeles on Monday, CNN’s national correspondent Jason Carroll was briefly detained by LAPD live on the air without any apparent reason.
At one point during the network’s live coverage, Carroll could be heard explaining who he is to officers with his hands behind his back. Eventually one officer said, “We’re letting you go. You can’t come back. If you come back, you will be arrested.”
That at least appears to be a violation of a 2022 California law that specifically protects the rights of journalists to cover protests in areas closed by police.
Watch that moment below:
Carroll later explained, “I was walking over to the officer, tried to explain who I was, identified who I was with. He said, I’d like you to turn around. I turned around, I put my hands behind my back. They did not put me in zip ties, but they did grab both my hands as I was escorted over to the side, they said, you are being detained while we lead you out of this area, you are not allowed in this area.”
Carroll said he asked, “am I being arrested, they said ‘no you’re not being arrested, you’re being detained.’”
CNN later said two camera operators were arrested outright, though their status isn’t known at this time.
Other journalists covering the protests in Los Angeles have been injured by law enforcement actions. The situation recalls the George Floyd protests in 2020 which featured several high profile incidents of police attacking journalists. One such attack resulted in a $1 million settlement.
The post LAPD Briefly Detains CNN Reporter During Live Coverage of Protests | Video appeared first on TheWrap.