On Sunday morning, Ali Velshi, a Canadian journalist and anchor for NBC and MSNBC, tweeted about how he experienced censorship and police brutality as a journalist in the U.S. during past week of protests.
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Here in the U.S. we are NOT accustomed to having press freedom questioned, let alone seeing journalists come into direct physical confrontation with law enforcement. A free press is enshrined in our constitution & one of the founding principles of our nation.— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) June 7, 2020
In the thread, Velshi wrote that on Tuesday night, he was near a protest in Manhattan’s Union Square. He asked a police officer why the NYPD was waiting specifically where they were and the officer threatened to arrest him if he kept asking questions.
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On Tuesday night, as I stood on the permitted side of a police line, one block west of NYC’s Union Square, I asked an officer why the line was established where it was, when there was no evident risk to anyone’s safety – the standards @NYPDnews uses to establish perimeters— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) June 7, 2020
Velshi continued to write that in another protest in Minneapolis, he was shot with rubber bullets. When he told cops that he was a member of the media, Velshi says they told him that they didn’t care and shot another round at him.
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Minutes after being struck by the rubber bullet and retreating, we encountered police another intersection. We approached slowly, with our hands in the air, announcing, “We’re media.” They heard us & responded, “We don’t care”, and opened fire again.— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) June 7, 2020
Velshi’s thread comes one week after Omar Jimenez, a Black CNN journalist, was arrested on camera even after he identified himself as a member of the media.
