A broadcast reporter was pushed to the ground, handcuffed and arrested on Wednesday while covering a news conference about the derailment of a train loaded with toxic chemicals in Ohio.
News Nation posted video of reporter Evan Lambert being arrested in the gymnasium of a primary school in eastern Palestine, where the government was giving updates on the crash.
NewsNation reported that Lambert was held for about five hours before being released from jail.
“I’m doing fine now. It’s been a very long day,” Lambert said after his release. “No journalist expects to get arrested when you’re doing your job, and I think it’s really important that this doesn’t happen in our country.”
At the end of his news conference, Devine said that he did not authorize the arrests and that reporters have “every right” to report during the briefing.
“If someone was prevented from doing it, or told they couldn’t do it, it was wrong,” Devine said.
A following statement from the governor’s office said that DeWine did not see the incident because a bank of cameras blocked his view, but that he heard “a disagreement in the back of the gymnasium”.
The statement added that DeWine “has always respected the right of the media to report live before, during and after his press conferences.”
Mike Wiekira, NewsNation’s Washington bureau chief, called the arrest a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.
NewsNation said the Washington, DC-based Lambert could still face charges of disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing.
The Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office Administration said the arrest was made by officers of the East Palestine Police Department. A message seeking comment from the department was not immediately returned.
Nearly 50 train cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed in a horrific accident on the edge of eastern Palestine on Friday night. Federal investigators say a mechanical problem with the rail car axle caused the derailment.
Nearby residents in Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania were ordered to evacuate after officials decided on Monday to release and burn chemicals from five tankers filled with vinyl chloride, spewing hydrogen chloride and the toxic gas phosgene into the air.
At the news conference, officials said samples had shown the air quality in the area was safe and that residents could return home, though DeWine said some residents wanted to wait until the air inside their homes was tested. Would have happened
The news conference started more than two hours late and Devine began speaking at the exact moment Lambert was supposed to broadcast live from behind the gym, Preston Swigert, a photographer who was with Lambert, told NewsNation.
Swigert said police officers approached Lambert and told him to stop talking. Lambert finished the live report, but was then asked to leave by executives, who tried to forcibly remove her from the program, NewsNation reported.
“From his perspective, he did not follow orders,” Swigert said. “The gymnasium is kind of resonant and loud and soundy, so I’m guessing they didn’t like the fact that the sound was competing with the governor speaking, even though it was at the other end of the room.”
The anchor handling the report said she heard the reporter say, “The governor has just started speaking. I’m being told I have to drop my report” before it was cut short.
Video captured by NewsNation affiliate WKBN-TV showed Lambert on the ground in handcuffs. He was then taken outside and placed in the back of a sheriff’s patrol car.