Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally was briefly detained by the Los Angeles Police Department while covering a protest in Echo Park on Thursday night, according to a video of his arrest posted on social media.
Queally was reporting the protest to The Times when he was arrested. Protesters were also detained by the police, who issued a dispersion order in the area.
After investigations by the editors of the Times and his lawyer, Queally was released. It was not clear why he was arrested, but the police had issued a statement earlier saying that reporters were subject to orders to disperse in the area.
The Times’ editor in chief, Kimi Yoshino, said the newspaper was outraged that Queally was arrested simply for doing his job. The Times immediately protested to the authorities and he was released without charge.
Captain Stacy Spell, a spokesman for the LAPD, said she was sending a communications supervisor to the scene to speak with commanders there.
Prior to Queally’s release, Spell had said that if Queally – an award-winning reporter for The Times – had done “nothing out of the ordinary” during the protest, then he would probably pick up “a dust” and be released.
“I wouldn’t expect James to do anything outside of the character, but we have to make sure that that was not the case,” said Spell.
Matt Pearce, president of The Times ’employees’ union, demanded Queally’s immediate release.
“Journalism is not a crime, @LAPDHQ,” Pearce said in a statement. “Stop making excuses to arrest our journalists. You know who they are and you know they are there in the name of the public. “
It really helped to write a recent story about the LAPD accusing another LA reporter, Lexis-Olivier Ray from LA Taco, for not dispersing from a protest scene. On Thursday, Ray tweeted a video of Queally’s arrest, alerting other reporters and editors to the Times.