In today’s episode we discuss the abuse suffered by credentialed media at the hands of local police forces. While police actions responding to protests have always been called in to question the ferociousness behind the abuse by municipal police departments across the county to local and national news outlets sure seemed different this time around.
Today CJP Executive Director Tracy Siska and Beachwood Reporter Founder and Editor Steve Rhodes discuss these issues around the police abuse of the media.
In the protests that spread nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police Office Derek Chauvin there are multiple allegations and videos of police from numerous agencies directly targeting media outlets covering the protests. One of the unusual characteristics of the targeting of the media outlets this time around was that their blatant disregard for being caught on video and whether or not their conduct would be broadcast across the world on live television.
Here are a couple videos demonstrating the abuse at the hands of officers that we discuss in today’s show. This incident takes place in Minneapolis, MN live on CNN.
Here is another incident in Louisville, KY, which is also live on the air of the local NBC affiliate.
We close the show discussing the culture of coverup within the Chicago Police Department at site a video from TMZ of all outlets. (Correction: we sited in the podcast that the video came from TMZ but they cited Fox 32 but the video embed below is actually from the Sun-Times. We are unsure who first reported it).
This one show a Chicago Police Department officer attack a protestor for no reason, known the protestor to the ground, and without any justification throw several very energetic punches on to the body of the protestor. What did the other officers on the scene do, they created circle around the officer and expanded outward to stop anyone from seeing the abuse and recording it. Too bad for them the video did catch them all in the act.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:22 — 34.7MB) | Embed
