CNN Media Member Attacked Covering Minnesota Police Riots, Protests

CNN Media Member Attacked Covering Minnesota Police Riots, Protests
People take part in a demonstration outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Brooklyn Center, Minn., on April 14, 2021. (John Minchillo/AP Photo)
Jack Phillips
4/15/2021
Updated:
4/15/2021

A CNN news crew was attacked as the network was trying to cover protests and riots following the shooting death of Daunte Wright earlier this week in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

According to video footage posted by a Washington Examiner reporter, Nick Rowan, a crew member was seen speaking to protesters when what appeared to be a frozen bottle of water was thrown at his head.

“Protesters throw a water bottle at a CNN crew member and hit him square on the head. They mock him when he falls down,” Rowan wrote. The crew member is then seen dazed and trying to walk around.

One of the protesters is heard saying: “A bottle of water knocked you out? Ha ha ha.” Another protester said that the crew member “need[s] a medic.”

Rowan wrote that later, protesters “just chased the entire CNN crew from the police precinct” building in Brooklyn Center.

Reports said that the crew member was part of CNN correspondent Miguel Marquez’s team. Marquez later appeared to confirm it in a tweet.

“We’re from CNN. We’re reporters. We are covering what’s here,” Marquez could be heard saying in the clip, adding that protesters need to “chill out.”

“My team and I are fine and I appreciate your concern. I hope for equal justice under the law and will continue to report on this vital story as it unfolds,” he wrote on Wednesday night.

The Epoch Times has contacted CNN for comment.

Rowan told Fox News that demonstrators were telling reporters to cover so-called “peaceful protesters” and not the riots in a different area and allegedly said, “It’s not representative of Minneapolis and the community.”

Rowan recalled being told by a person to “stop making Minneapolis look like Fallujah” and “like a war,” referring to the Iraqi city that saw heavy fighting during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s.

It’s not the first time that members of the media have been confronted in Brooklyn Center. On Monday, CNN reporter Sara Sidner was verbally accosted by a demonstrator.

“Y'all be twisting up the stories and [exletive],” a man walked up and said to Sidner as she was live-streaming her reporting in Brooklyn Center.

The man told her that media outlets were “doing all the extra [expletive] for the backhand [expletive] to make people look all crazier than what the [expletive] they are.” He did not elaborate.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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