Secret Service agent brutally choke slams a photographer at Trump rally

Joe Perticone, an Independent Journal reporter who recorded a second video of the incident up close, described it as a "choke slam."...
nga February 29, 2016 1368 Lexime

A photographer who was covering a Donald Trump rally in Virginia was violently thrown to the ground by a Secret Service agent, arrested and escorted out of the building.

The incident, which was captured in numerous videos, begins when the photographer, Christopher Morris, attempts to shoot a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, who disrupted the Trump rally by marching out with their hands above their heads.

He is stopped by an agent and then tells him, “Fuck you.” The agent asks, “What?”

An Instagram video posted by a spectator (and since removed) then clearly shows the agent choking the journalist and slamming him to the ground.

Joe Perticone, an Independent Journal reporter who recorded a second video of the incident up close, described it as a “choke slam.”

“Are we having a good time?” Trump reportedly asked his supporters as the incident unfolded, according to the Washington Examiner.

Morris, a war photographer who witnesses said was on assignment for TIME magazine, said he was arrested.

He was “credentialed press” and was trying to leave a press pen to photograph the protesters when he was forcefully stopped.

“I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and slammed me to the ground,” he explained in a quick interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta.

He told WSET reporter Annie Andersen that he was arrested after trying to show Trump’s press official what the agent had done. “I said he choked me, so I put my hand on him, and that’s when I was arrested,” he said.

Benjamin Lowy, a photojournalist on assignment with the Wall Street Journal who was seen on video trying to break the two men apart, told Mashable the scuffle began in a “tug of war” of sorts before escalating. “All of a sudden the agent just kind grabbed him by the neck and slammed him down into the ground,” he said.

Lowy said he told the agent he overreacted with the body slam.

“I said, ‘Dude that was way over the top. Too much. You don’t need to body slam a dude that’s in his 60s to the ground,'” he said.

The agent responded that Morris had “put his hands on me” and so he was permitted to do the takedown.

It was initially unclear if the security staffer was a member of Trump’s Secret Service detail or a member of his private security team, though a statement from the campaign cleared that up, and referred further questions to law enforcement.

We’ve reached out to TIME to confirm that the man seen in the video was indeed working for the magazine. We’ve also reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. The Secret Service’s Public Affairs office referred us to a spokesperson’s voicemail.

Trump’s campaign security has been criticized for roughing up reporters and otherwise restricting their access to his events in the past.

A Huffington Post story in January included a comment from the Secret Service that said, “Any restrictions on press movements above and beyond security related procedures are designated and enforced by staff, not by the Secret Service.”

The agency has issued a statement on Monday’s events.

nga Vedat Xhymshiti - Feb 29, 2016

nga Fitim Salihu - Mar 1, 2016

është krim të largohesh nga polemika. ...

Ndërlidhje e artikujve të ngjashëm. ...

Me mbështetjen tuaj, ne do të mund të raportojmë për ngjarjet rajonale, kombëtare dhe botërore me saktësi, pa ndikime politike dhe tregtare. Ndryshe nga shumë të tjerë, ne jemi të përkushtuar ta mbajmë gazetarinë tonë të hapur për të gjithë lexuesit. Ju lutemi, nëse mundeni, dhuroni për FRONTLINER.