At least three journalists arrested while covering DNC protests in Chicago

Photojournalist Josh Pacheco recalled a hectic scene after a mob of Chicago police officers ordered a crowd of protesters and journalists to disperse a march outside the Israeli consulate on Tuesday.

“Nobody understood the order to disperse, nobody knew exactly where to go,” Pacheco told The Intercept, adding that they walked away and tried to leave the area with other journalists. “And then I was arrested, they dragged me off the sidewalk.”

Pacheco – a freelance journalist who has worked for The New York Times, PBS and Forbes – was one of at least three accredited journalists arrested during protests on the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

Pacheco, who was wearing their photo equipment and press passes around his neck, said they identified themselves as journalists to officers when they were arrested. But Pacheco said an officer then snatched their passes.

“I pointed out to them that I was part of the press,” Pacheco recalled. “It was clear that I had my press pass with me.”

Pacheco spent the next nine hours in police custody. Photojournalists Sinna Nasseri and Olga Federova were also arrested during the same march. They announced on social media that they had been released early Wednesday morning.

Nasseri, whose photographs have appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, wrote on Instagram that he was arrested while “documenting the protests tonight from a public sidewalk.” He shared a video of himself standing handcuffed next to several police officers, his camera still hanging around his neck.

Police accused the three journalists of improper conduct, said Steven Baron, the Chicago-based attorney representing the journalists. He declined to provide details of their cases but claimed the city violated the journalists' rights under the First Amendment.

“The journalists were charged … simply for doing their jobs as reporters,” Baron said in an emailed statement. “We are disappointed that the City of Chicago has chosen to sweep the First Amendment under the rug with its harsh tactics against working journalists.”

Chicago Police Chief Larry Snelling confirmed the three arrests in a press conference on Wednesday morning and criticized the behavior of journalists at the demonstration.

“If you do not move and follow our instructions at this time, you may be breaking the law yourself,” Snelling said, accusing journalists of getting “so close” to the protesters, which had hindered officers' freedom of movement.

Snelling refused to recognize Tuesday's rally as a demonstration, saying attendees “had the intention to fight with police, destroy things, and burn flags.” Snelling offered no evidence to support the alleged intentions of those attending the rally, but vaguely mentioned verbal threats against police officers.

“Last night was not a protest – to call it a protest would be disrespectful to the people who were actually protesting for things that were moving society forward across the country,” Garien Gatewood, deputy mayor for public safety, said at the news conference. “We had people come to town to cause damage, to cause chaos.”

Chicago police did not respond to requests for comment.

Police said they arrested about 50 people on Tuesday, but the National Lawyers Guild Chicago, a nonprofit legal aid organization, reported the arrest of at least 70 protesters. The lawyers' union said the tally was incomplete because lawyers had difficulty locating arrested protesters in police custody.

During the march, a small group of protesters gathered outside the consulate in downtown Chicago as Democratic officials took the main stage of the convention at the United Center, carrying signs reading “Democrats Drop Bombs and False Promises” and a large banner reading “Shut Down the DNC for Gaza.”

After a series of speeches in which organizers expressed solidarity with the Palestinians, protesters marched from the consulate toward Madison Street, where they encountered several lines of police who immediately stopped the march and pushed the group back, according to videos posted on social media and live broadcasts of the rally.

The lawyers' union said in a statement that police “provoked confrontations, agitated the crowd, indiscriminately arrested people on the sidewalk and lured groups into a trap to carry out mass arrests.”

Pacheco was released from police custody around 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. They returned to work that evening and covered a much larger pro-Palestinian demonstration in Union Park, which included former presidential candidate Jill Stein as a speaker. Pacheco posted footage on social media showing a large police presence around the park, with officers on bicycles and carrying batons.

Within an hour, they released another video, this time showing a group of Chicago police officers on a train platform arresting two women who were participating in the march.