Protests at the Democratic National Conference were peaceful. That didn’t stop officers from making arrests.
Police body camera footage has revealed potential police misconduct and possible First Amendment violations at a pro-Palestine protest during August’s Democratic National Convention. What began as a peaceful protest ended in the police arresting 59 people, including three journalists, and resulted in two hospitalizations.
On Tuesday, Aug. 20, a small crowd of roughly 100 protesters gathered outside of the Israeli Consulate. They planned to march down West Madison Street, but arrived to find the area already occupied by an even larger crowd: roughly 300 police officers.
“Before the protestors even got there, every street within a four block radius was lined with police,” says Josh Pacheco, a photojournalist whose work has been published in the New York Times, PBS and Forbes, and who was arrested while covering the protest.
According to Ben Meyer, a member of the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a mass arrest was declared around 30 minutes after the protest began, suggesting that it had been planned in advance. “Premeditated arrests are illegal,” said Meyer.
Chicago police utilized kettling methods – also known as “trap and detain” – to contain protestors, and then issued dispersal orders. These methods involve blocking all possible exits from an area, such that no one can leave, and then moving in towards the crowd to contain individuals in a tighter area.
On Tuesday, Pacheco says, police gave conflicting orders, leaving protesters unsure of how to exit. “It was extremely hard to understand what was going on [and] extremely confusing to everyone on the ground.” Pacheco said. Police left little room for protesters to move, Pacheco said, sandwiching press between officers and protesters. “Protestors want to march, police want to arrest protestors, and photographers want to stay alive, but also get their shot.”
Michael, a member of one of the organizations behind the protest whose last name has been redacted to protect his privacy, said that police gave dispersal orders, then kettled protestors and began arresting people when they didn’t comply. This member witnessed protestors approaching police and telling them that they were trying to leave and get to the nearest train-station, and police refusing to let people out.
Police body camera videos show the violent arrest of Sinna Nasseri, an Iranian-American photojournalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times. In the video, Nasseri can be seen and heard saying that he is credentialed press and showing his press ID. Nasseri tells police that there was no way for him to leave when they started making arrests; he is told he “should have listened earlier when they told all the press to move.”
Police demanding that journalists vacate a protest before arresting protesters is a “questionable practice under the First Amendment,” according to Meyer. “In my opinion, that tactic tends to chill freedom of speech and expression.”
Clearing out the press prevents journalists from documenting arrests and police behavior. Meyer confirmed that police also used this tactic at a protest the previous night.
Police Superintendent Larry Snelling doubled down on this decision in an interview, saying, “There are times where we’re calling a mass arrest, or we’re attempting to move in—we need you guys to step to the side.”
Police also threatened to confiscate journalists’ press credentials, badges that are issued to protect their safety and grant them access to restricted locations, if they did not leave, and ultimately did so, according to Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“Tom Ahern, deputy director of news affairs, took [my credentials] while I was cuffed [and did not return them],” confirmed Pacheco.
“It could be argued that taking the press credentials was a form of prior restraint and a violation of the First Amendment,” noted Meyer. “Or at least an attempt at prior restraint.”
Prior restraint is government-enacted censorship, generally with the goal preventing the publication of certain materials or censoring their content prior to release. This kind of targeting of the press – as was seen during the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death in 2020, and has resulted in many journalists’ deaths in Gaza – is generally considered an infringement upon the First Amendment.
Journalists, as well as protesters, were also subject to police violence during the mass arrest.
“Police slammed their bikes into anybody — and purposefully. For sure [in]to protestors, but as soon as there were any amount of press there to document, they would focus in on press,” said Pacheco, who was ultimately charged with disorderly conduct. Pacheco described being pulled from behind, cuffed with zip-ties and having their press pass confiscated.
“I was completely blindsided,” Pacheco said. “I’m not told what I’m being charged with [even though I asked]. I’m not read my Miranda rights. My press pass is confiscated, and now I have the whole world with eyes on me.”
Pacheco was put into an arrest vehicle with ten other people and heard that they were being charged with failure to disperse from a mass arrest. They were held for around 9 hours, from roughly 9 p.m. until 6:30 a.m.. the following morning. “There was a point where we were sitting in a hot car for almost an hour,” Pacheco said. “An hour beforehand, we had been begging to use the restroom. It felt like psychological torture.”
According to Michael, some people were detained until 7 p.m. the following day in the Belmont & Western station and courthouse–a detainment center that was opened and staffed especially for mass arrests during the DNC. Some individuals held there were also interrogated, according to Meyer.
Michael said that it was difficult to get information from CPD about when and where to go, even for individuals’ lawyers, who also had to argue with CPD to even be let into the building under their legal right to observe.
“People were held for a long time without access to lawyers, phone calls, not much medical attention given, [and] general neglect and mistreatment,” said the organizer.
Yusuf, a pre-K teacher whose last name has also been redacted due to privacy and safety concerns, was arrested during the protest and held for nearly 24 hours. The only food Yusuf and other Muslim detainees were offered contained pork, despite them communicating their religious beliefs and food restrictions to officers.
Yusuf and others were also only offered water from the holding cell’s spigot, with no containers to drink from and no soap to wash their hands. Arrestees were not offered phone calls and conflicting information was given about when they would be released, according to Yusuf.
Nasseri and Olga Federova, a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in EPA Images, were also charged “with misdemeanor disorderly conduct for simply doing their jobs as reporters,” said Steven Baron of the Baron-Harris-Healy Law Firm, Federova’s lawyer. “We are disappointed that the City of Chicago chose to sweep the First Amendment under the rug with its heavy-handed tactics against working journalists.”
Pacheco described the treatment he experienced as “humiliating.” “I don’t want to beg police for human decency,” Pacheco said. “How commonplace is it now for journalists’ free speech rights to be infringed upon?”
According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, in under half a year 2024 became the highest in more than two years for the amount of journalists arrested and detained – namely at pro-Palestine protests around the country. Journalists have also been assaulted at protests and had their equipment seized or damaged. The very conflict that individuals were protesting on Aug. 20 has been the deadliest period for journalists since the 1990s, and the deadliest war yet for journalists – with 116 killed, 35 injured, 2 missing and 54 arrested. In Israel’s assault on Palestine, journalists have also been assaulted, threatened, censored, harassed, attacked online and more.
Correction: This piece previously misstated when the mass arrest was declared by police. We regret the error.