The Daily Caller Threatens to Sue Louisville PD After Arresting Two Reporters During Riots
Daily Caller attorney: “But this is not China. Those reporters flat out have a constitutionally protected role to play on our streets.”
The Daily Caller has threatened to sue the Louisville Police Department after officers arrested two of their reporters during the riots despite having press credentials.
Officers arrested Shelby Talcott and Jorge Ventura.
We are all on the ground right now and police are taking people and putting them in zip tie cuffs pic.twitter.com/eIJJF1t1Ub
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) September 24, 2020
Daily Caller Editor-In-Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll told the police Talcott and Ventura are members of the press and “exempt from curfew.” The police also did not allow the two reporters to speak to attorney Neil Patel, who is the founder of The Daily Caller.
I’ve now notified @LMPD that both @shelbytalcott and @VenturaReport were reporting for an accredited media outlet and were operating in the capacity of press. My expectation is that they will be swiftly released. https://t.co/BBa1b8yF1W
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) September 24, 2020
Another update: @LMPD tells me @ShelbyTalcott and @JorgeVentura05 will be charged with two misdemeanors related to breaking curfew & unlawful assembly for their alleged failure to comply with police orders to disperse and for press to relegate themselves to an “observation area”
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) September 24, 2020
Sorry @JorgeVentura05 is not the right guy. I meant @VenturaReport
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) September 24, 2020
From The Daily Caller:
The Louisville Department of Corrections told Ingersoll that Talcott and Ventura will be processed and face charges just like everyone else in the group. They will each face 2 misdemeanor charges due to their alleged failure to go to a press “observation area” before the arrests began. It’s unclear if the observation area was announced, where that area was, or if Talcott and Ventura were ever told to go there.
Patel responded:
“The Louisville police arrested two of our employees Wednesday night,” Daily Caller founder Neil Patel said in a statement. “We have informed the police that these are reporters who were peacefully doing their job, but they are still refusing to release them.”
“They will not even let us speak with them. Given the fact that our reporters have been repeatedly harassed, punched and even shot at during past protests, we fear for their safety in lockup with people who may want to do them harm,” Patel continued. “No other news outlet has been on the ground at more protests and riots and none have done a more balanced job of telling the public what is happening.”
“We appreciate the difficult situation that officers are in trying to balance their own safety while allowing protestors to exercise their first amendment rights,” he added. “Unlike other outlets, we have interviewed police about this and told their side of the story. But this is not China. Those reporters flat out have a constitutionally protected role to play on our streets.”
“The Louisville Police Department is going to find out all about this in the form of a lawsuit unless things start changing fast,” Patel said.
Chief Video Director at The Daily Caller posted an update:
Statement per @ShelbyTalcott from the inside:
“This is absurd. I am packed in with 28 other people in a 20×20 cell. Not all of us have masks, and there is not enough room so people are sleeping on the floor.”
— Richie?McG? (@RichieMcGinniss) September 24, 2020
Just spoke to @VenturaReport and he has been released. @ShelbyTalcott still inside but hopefully she will be out soon.
— Richie?McG? (@RichieMcGinniss) September 24, 2020
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Was any gas fired? If not, someone in the first video sounds like they have a real nice COVID cough to spread around.
Did they have cans of tuna or soup in their packs… you know… to keep continuous coverage of the “peaceful protests”? Or is this a blend of rioting and reporting as Antifa “Press” has been doing? When you act like the enemy… you are the enemy.
Do you know anything about the daily caller? You know it was founded by Tucker Carlson right?
Main thing I know about DC is that I can never go to that site since so much spyware and other mess jumps off of it and clogs up my system.
That, and, more click-bait links than actual articles.
A constitutionally protected right to be on the streets? You mean, like people defending themselves with firearms? Aw, but now it’s your ox, isn’t it?
The right to “play in the streets” is specifically enumerated in the penumbra of the dicta of the First Amendment.
FYI, I hope LMPD had their ducks in a row when they did this. Not the smartest move.
What right does a media person have to defy the police that an ordinary citizen does not?
What I’m saying is…they better be sure that the mayor explicitly told them to clear everyone and not grant exceptions to media or they will get thrown under the bus by the usual political suspects.
Well when every person at the riot has Press on their stuff, I guess the press has a problem. I think they are sueing the wrong group.
Especially since the Antifa and Black Live crowd is tell them they can’t film. Several of the lives streamer were shut down last night.
If the freedom of the Press is the cry, they should be crying at BLM and Antifa.
Maybe the Daily Caller can sue about this also.
BREAKING
FBI Finds Military Mail-In Ballots Discarded in Pennsylvania – All Ballots Cast for President Trump…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/09/24/fbi-finds-military-mail-in-ballots-discarded-in-pennsylvania-all-ballots-cast-for-president-trump/
Donald J. Trump
@
Very important that, in order to watch that ALL are following the Rules & Regulations, you become an Election Official at your local Polling Place. Go sign up NOW!!!
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1308768869432033281
There’s no protected category for “press”. Everyone has the same rights. The US is kinda cool that way.
If they were doing the same things others were doing, being “press” is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. If the arrests of others there were legitimate, and if the DC reporters were doing the same thing, then their arrest would also be legitimate.
Yep. “Press” is a thing we all have the right to do, not a class of people who have special privileges.
I have not stayed on top of First Amendment jurisprudence recently and particularly with respect to cases on the media’s right of access and right to report on matters of urgent public interest.
Have the courts recently addressed time, place, and manner restrictions and the govt.’s consequent ability to relegate them to observation areas? Have the federal courts or Kentucky courts narrowed the govt.’s use of time, manner, and place restrictions on anyone including media?
If the cops have appreciable powers over time, place, and manner, particularly when a curfew is in effect to control rioting and safety, and the reporters failed to comply with instructions consistent with TMP strictures, the reporters may have committed misdemeanors and have no case under the First or the KY constitution.
Is Prof. Jacobson checking in from time to time on First Amendment issues?
Word I’ve had from police in these situations is that antifa types are in possession of press credentials and trying to use them to avoid police restrictions. This means if press is outside area designated, they operate as if all people, press credentials or not, are part if the illegal assembly and arrest accordingly. One told me that what has happened is that genuine press is usually released shortly thereaftee with no charges and a request to please not be in the place they are clearing out in the future.
Not ideal, but if theyre to be believed, I can understand why. Antifa just wants to get behind the police so they can brain someone with a brick.
Many people in the Antifa and BLM claim to be press in order to get close to action. Given the lies and distortions of the truth that has become nearly the normal for the press, I am not so sure the whole “story” of this is being pushed.
Many of those “press” members in Portland were part of the riots, and many in the press have caused the escalation of violence through their distortions of what happened in almost every single issue highlighted by BLM.
Seems to me that the press is more like propagandists than reporters these days. Credentialed or not.
I have no idea what alternate space/time continuum the press live in, but members of the press have to obey the law just like everyone else. There is no niche carved out for them to ignore the law. A member of the press has to obey a lawful curfew order, unless there is a specific exception in order to remain on the streets.
Those reporters flat out have a constitutionally protected role to play on our streets.
I don’t recall anything about “reporters” or “curfews” in the Constitution. “Freedom of the Press” is mentioned, but implies no special rights above or beyond those guaranteed to anyone else. Perhaps I missed something. A citation would give the statement a bit more weight.
In many cases, “reporters” are actively rioting. They do not have this right as “press”.
Just like almost every other “accredited media outlet” The Daily Caller exists primarily to sell advertising. Don’t be misled by the fact that they sell to a largely conservative audience.
No, they don’t. This is false when the leftist news outlets claim it, and it’s just as false when rightist ones do. They’re all the same business, and it suits them all to claim for themselves a special constitutional role and status, but it just isn’t so.
“The freedom of speech or of the press” is simply the right to say or print anything you like. It has nothing specific to do with news; the freedom is the same whether you’re printing a newspaper, or a textbook on basket-weaving, or a trashy novel. Reporters are not “the press” in this context, any more than professional lecturers are “the speech”, or devout churchgoers are “the religion”.
A professional lecturer could not get away with breaking a generally applicable law by claiming to have been researching her next speech; nor could a clergyman do so by claiming to have been preparing his next sermon. So why do reporters think they have a special exemption for gathering news?
These jackasses need to shut the **** up.
If they were arrested unlawfully, great, sue the crap out of them.
Displaying ‘press credentials’ is NOT some magical get out of jail free card, you jackasses. ESPECIALLY because your so-called ‘credentials’ are laughably easy to fake, and a huge number of ‘protestors’ wave them around in people’s faces trying to not get arrested.
You were arrested because you were with a group of people doing crap worthy of getting arrested. Don’t like it? Don’t hang out with them.
The “press” doesn’t have a secret, special, right that allows them to disobey lawful orders from the police when they’re trying to clear an area. Freedom of the press, like freedom of speech, is a brake on government. One protects the right to speak, the other, the right to disseminate it. Each and every one of us has freedom speech and of the press. There’s no government restriction on any of us creating a platform to practice journalism. They’re not special.
It’s not even about journalism. Journalism is no more special than plumbing or cutting hair. The freedom of the press is the freedom to print anything; newspapers are no more privileged than trashy novels, or fashion blogs — or even, pace the Supreme Court, advertising. There’s nothing in the constitution or its history to justify the Supreme Court’s decision that commercial speech gets less protection than any other kind.
If these people believe that being “press” means they are exempt from the law, then they seriously misunderstand the nature of both the law, and the Constitution.
Or, maybe they don’t misunderstand anything. Maybe they’re just jerks who think they can whine their way into a free pass.
Yeah the ‘press’ is every Citizen not just those employed by a media company.
On the other hand these guys from the Daily Caller have been doing straight reporting, not propaganda. They are, in essence doing for the riots what old time ‘police reporters’ used to do; cover the police beat.
The reporters are in a tough spot, their job is to view what is happening, interview participants etc. The PD as well, they can’t be expected to know every jackleg with a ‘press’ card.
I could see some accommodation being made for a handful of folks who are honestly reporting on a consistent basis. If we looked at that idea similar to the ‘press pool’ days where only one camera covered WH events but access to the footage was shared out then maybe.
It still doesn’t take us beyond the fact that ‘journalists’ are all of us and not a privileged few comprised of employees of media companies. On the other hand I doubt I will be receiving a WH press pass anytime soon.
“The press” is not every citizen, it’s an inanimate method of communication that anybody can use. Just as the freedom of speech isn’t a freedom that belongs to speech, nor are we all speech, but we all have the right to use speech, so the freedom of the press isn’t a freedom that belongs to press, nor are we all press, but we all have the right to use a press.
And no, “journalists” are not all of us, any more than “plumbers” are all of us, or “street cleaners” are all of us. The point is not that we are journalists, but that there’s nothing special about being one.
Milhouse,
I think your making a distinction without a difference. We seem to agree at least that everyone, regardless of how they earn their living, has the same 1st amendment rights.
There is no ‘secret squirrel’ privilege conveyed upon an individual by virtue of employment by a ‘media’ organization. A blogger has the same legal status as a paid employee of the MSM.
This is especially so in our digital age. Anyone with a cellphone can conduct interviews, record events, edit, write articles and the publish them to Twitter, Facebook or their own website.
The financial cost, barriers of entry into the marketplace have been eliminated. Everyone can, if they chose, decide to perform ‘journalism’ in ways that were only theoretical but are now practical because of technology.
My point is that there is no special constitutional status for “journalism”, no matter who conducts it. Bloggers have no special rights, and neither do newspaper reporters or TV personalities. It’s not that there’s a special privilege for journalism but anyone can exercise it, it’s that there is no such privilege at all. The USA doesn’t even have three estates, let alone a fourth one. The “freedom of the press” in the first amendment does not refer to newspapers but to all printed matter equally. It simply means the freedom to print whatever you like, and is exactly equal to the freedom of speech, which means the freedom to say whatever you like.
It doesn’t give them the right to disobey a lawful order from a leo. Keep them in cages for as long as possible…now that would be a great story. Oh the humanity!
Lolz. Legal Insurrection readers have this right. Ain’t no special privileges for corporate reporters in the Constitution. I feel bad for two arrested because they do good work, but the law’s the law. Good luck with the lawsuit!
Can we start a pool, like a football pool and put money in escrow to buy the Louisville PD bagels, donuts, Mickey Ds, steak, whatever? I like the cut of their jib.
OK, when I saw this I changed my mind.
“1-833-KYSAFER (597-2337)
This statewide phone number can be used to report businesses violating orders to close due to COVID-19.”
Oh. We’re obeying orders now.