A few nuggets re my story yesterday about how feds decided a Secret Service agent's choke-slam of a veteran Time magazine photographer at a 2016 Trump rally was A-OK. politico.com/news/2020/09/1…
One of Washington's top champions of photographers, @SenatorLeahy was deeply disappointed in the @DHSOIG endorsement of the agent's action. "Journalists and photographers should not be confined to ‘press pens’ for widely attended public events," Leahy said.
Leahy also said the body slam seemed to be part of "a disturbing pattern" of violence against journalists, including in recent protesters in Portland & elsewhere. The photog, Chris Morris, told me he thinks the agent was keyed up by Trump's anti-press enemy of the people talk.
Morris acknowledges dropping the f-bomb at the agent a couple times, but says that was after the agent grabbed him physically when a more polite request would've done the trick. He also says normal practice for USSS is to deescalate, not to pick a guy up & throw him over a table.
Another concern Morris & other press advocates raised: @DHSOIG and @TheJusticeDept seem to have accepted claims that Morris' possession of a camera made him more of a threat. But this could be a license for violence against any photographer or videographer.
One side note: Morris certainly doesn't seem like he was looking for a fight. Although the report refers to him as part of the press pool, he was actually set to photograph Trump on his personal plane.
In fact, Morris had his 'portrait' lights with him at the press platform, so he obviously wasn't expecting to get thrown out. In fact, he wasn't even really there to shoot the event but decided to make some pictures once a Black Lives Matter protest erupted.
One of the key issues the report doesn't really get into is what the security reason is for confining press to the press pen. (At some Trump rallies, it may be for the security of the press, but that should really be for the journalists to decide.)
There's also some background on the agent, William Figueroa. Seems like he spent time in Iraq transferring planeloads of prisoners. And he'd never been assigned to press duty before. So when he was told no one comes off the platform, he may have taken that like a military order.
Anyway, Morris says he's glad the agent wasn't fired. But would be more satisfied if it appeared the Secret Service adjusted its procedures to avoid an incident like this in the future. But there's no sign that happened. Indeed, if it did, the Service won't talk about it. ENDS
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