{"id":176063,"date":"2020-09-14T19:18:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/14\/first-reform-the-police-need-end-impunity-for-lying\/"},"modified":"2020-09-14T19:18:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T00:18:00","slug":"first-reform-the-police-need-end-impunity-for-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/14\/first-reform-the-police-need-end-impunity-for-lying\/","title":{"rendered":"First Reform the Police Need:  End Impunity for Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 0px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 350px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https:\/\/threadreaderapp.com\/embed\/1305261859155505153.html\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"340px\"><\/iframe><br \/><i>Warning: Violence<\/i><\/div>\n<p>Josie Huang, an NPR reporter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2020\/09\/14\/la-sheriffs-josie-huang-npr\/\">was brutalized and arrested by LA Sheriffs, who then claimed that she was interfering with their actions and did not declare that she was a member of the press<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for them, she caught it all on tape, as her Twitter thread shows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">As Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s deputies tackled Josie Huang to the street on Saturday night, the reporter for NPR affiliate KPCC screamed repeatedly she was a journalist. Deputies arrested her anyway, leaving her with scrapes, bruises, a five-hour stay in custody \u2014 and an obstruction charge that carries up to a year in jail.<\/p>\n<p>Police claimed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LASDHQ\/status\/1305073750895812611?s=20\">Huang, who also reports for LAist, didn\u2019t have credentials<\/a> and ignored demands to leave the area.<\/p>\n<p>But those claims are contradicted by video Huang shared on Sunday <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josie_huang\/status\/1305265081144410112\">showing her quickly backing away<\/a> from police when ordered to do so and repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist. Huang said she also had a press badge around her neck.<\/p>\n<p>NPR executives and reporters groups condemned Huang\u2019s arrest, demanding her charges be dropped and the sheriff\u2019s department explain why officers forcefully tackled her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hold the L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Department accountable to provide answers for the excessive use of force in the detainment of our colleague,\u201d the Asian American Journalists Association <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaja\/status\/1305211468011446281\">said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThe Los Angeles chapter of AAJA demands an investigation and apology for her arrest.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>An independent monitor who oversees investigations into the sheriff\u2019s department also launched a probe into her arrest. \u201cWhat surprises me the most is that once she was identified as a reporter that they transported her, that they cited her,\u201d L.A. County Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2020-09-13\/deputies-arrest-radio-reporter-covering-protest-outside-hospital\">told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Huang said that is precisely what happened to her on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Like dozens of other reporters, she had gone to a news conference outside St. Francis Medical Center, where doctors were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/president-trump-and-biden-condemn-shooting-of-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-deputies\/2020\/09\/13\/b7b77ca8-f5d9-11ea-be57-d00bb9bc632d_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_16\">treating two officers who had been shot in the head<\/a> in an ambush earlier that night. Afterward, she was typing notes in her car in a parking garage when she heard a commotion in the street, Huang recounted in<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josie_huang\/status\/1305331513592967168\"> a Twitter thread on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>She ventured outside, with her press ID hanging around her neck, and found a few men waving flags and taunting deputies. As the police chased one man and then tackled him, she followed at a distance, filming the incident with her camera\u2019s zoom function.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, as seen<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josie_huang\/status\/1305264301104680961\"> in a video she shot<\/a>, one deputy yelled, \u201cBack up.\u201d In her next video, Huang backed quickly away as a number of officers marched toward her, and then knocked the phone from her hand and took her to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a reporter,\u201d she yelled. \u201cI\u2019m with KPCC!\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Her phone continued recording during her arrest, capturing her telling officers that they were hurting her and yelling yet again that she is a journalist. Another bystander\u2019s video shows Huang being roughly pulled to the ground while a number of officers piled on top of her.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Early on Sunday morning, the sheriff\u2019s office <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LASDHQ\/status\/1305073750895812611\">told a different story<\/a> in recounting her arrest. The department said that as officers were struggling to arrest a protester, \u201ca female adult ran towards the deputies, ignored repeated commands to stay back as they struggled with the male and interfered with the arrest.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Huang \u201cdid not identify herself as press,\u201d the department claimed, \u201cand later admitted she did not have proper press credentials on her person.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer arrest is the latest in a series of troubling interactions between our reporters and some local law enforcement officers,\u201d Herb Scannell, chief executive of Southern California Public Radio, said in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2020-09-13\/deputies-arrest-radio-reporter-covering-protest-outside-hospital\">a statement to the Times<\/a>. \u201cJournalists provide an essential service, providing fair, accurate and timely journalism and without them, our democracy is at risk.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The first step of fixing the police is to make sure that when they lie in the course of their official duties, they need to be fired, charged with a felony, and have their guns taken away forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: Violence Josie Huang, an NPR reporter was brutalized and arrested by LA Sheriffs, who then claimed that she was interfering with their actions and did not declare that she was a member of the press. Unfortunately for them, she caught it all on tape, as her Twitter thread shows: As Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[413,368,364,523,526,401],"class_list":["post-176063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-journalism","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}