As unrest raged in Raleigh, journalists injured and newsrooms damaged
Journalists never set out to be the story, but sometimes, simply due to their proximity to the stories they cover, it can’t be avoided.
As reporters and photographers from across the region covered Saturday night’s protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis — a protest which began peacefully in Raleigh and then turned increasingly destructive — journalists, along with protesters, were tear-gassed and shot with rubber bullets by police officers trying to disperse the crowds.
The scene echoed those from around the nation, as reporters were arrested, tear-gassed and shot point-blank with rubber bullets on live television over the weekend. A freelance photojournalist was left blinded in one eye after being shot in the eye with a rubber bullet in Minneapolis on Friday.
Photographers for both WRAL and The News & Observer reported being shot with rubber bullets Saturday night. Both journalists continued to work after being hit.
Nearly every downtown Raleigh business sustained damage Saturday night and into Sunday morning, including media offices belonging to ABC11, INDY Week and The News & Observer.
Leigh Tauss, the Raleigh news editor for the INDY, was inside the weekly paper’s Wilmington Street office Saturday around 10 p.m. when a brick was thrown through their window. Tauss had gone to the office after being tear-gassed on the street.
‘I was terrified’
Moments after the broken window, Tauss heard someone enter the office and she heard more smashing, so she hid in the basement until they left. She tweeted that it looked like someone tried to take a large jug of water, but no computers.
“I was getting some water because my face was burning and then I heard the smash with the brick,” Tauss told The News & Observer on Sunday. “I was terrified. I sat on the ground behind a brick wall and hoped they didn’t see me, and when I could, I tried to make my way outside, but there was teargas so I went back in.”
Later in the night, looters returned to the INDY office, smashing more windows, stealing Tauss’ desktop computer and setting fire to the sofas. The remaining contents of the office were pretty much destroyed once the sprinkler system kicked in, Tauss said.
On Sunday morning, workers tried to repair some damage to the office while volunteers helped clean up broken glass and debris.
Earlier Saturday night, a little over a block away on Fayetteville Street, Joel Brown and Gloria Rodriguez were working inside the ABC11 studio when they heard smashing sounds.
“We started hearing the windows being smashed around 9,” Brown told The News & Observer on Sunday. “At first I thought someone had thrown a big rock or something. But then we realized they had used one of the street signs from Fayetteville Street to shatter, then punch out the glass. We immediately got on the phone with our managers, who told us to stay together and get out of there.
“As we were gathering what we needed to report from the streets for the rest of the night, we could hear more of our windows being smashed. And it was just this feeling that we need to get out of here right now because the only thing protecting us is this glass and the glass is shattering around us.
“I don’t think of myself (as someone) who scares easy, and we were all pretty concerned about getting to a safer location so we could just keep doing our job,” Brown said.
A video shared on Twitter Sunday morning by ABC11 reporter Bridget Condon showed all of the windows of the street-level studio were smashed.
The words “Black lives matter” were spray-painted on the bricks outside, underneath the ABC11 logo.
Farther down Fayetteville Street, the windows of The News & Observer office were smashed with a baseball bat around 9:30 p.m. while a reporter was inside, but the vandals never gained entry. Aaron Sanchez-Guerra had retreated to the N&O office after being tear-gassed while covering the protest. He recognized one of the protesters beating on the window as someone he had interviewed earlier in the night.
“I yelled at the guys — told them I worked there and that we’re journalists,” Sanchez-Guerra wrote in a note to staff. “The guy recognized me and said ‘oh ok’ and left.”
‘Tear gas is no joke’
Journalists from several media outlets were hit by tear gas Saturday night, some while broadcasting live on television.
WRAL reporter Aaron Thomas, who was on-air most of the night, tweeted a photo of himself with swollen eyes and a caption that read, “Tear gas is no joke.”
On Sunday, Thomas told The N&O that even though he got tear-gassed twice and temporarily could not see, “overall, it was fine.”
“My photographer and I at one point went to our cars to recharge our devices,” Thomas said. “We saw a mob of protesters breaking things, spray painting things. We literally had to be incognito for 10 minutes in the car for our safety. During a live report, a guy was being very rude, blocking our shot and kept yelling ‘F--- WRAL’. We had to move for our safety.”
WRAL vice president and general manager Joel Davis confirmed the tear gas encounters and rubber bullet injury to The News & Observer on Sunday.
“We had several reporters and photographers (at least 7 I am aware of) affected by the tear gas deployed downtown. Several times it was captured live on TV,” Davis said.
CBS17 teams also had a rough time on the ground Saturday.
“Two of our crews in Raleigh got caught up in tear gas,” news director Ed Trauschke told The News & Observer. “They had verbal insults hurled at them. The safety of our team is our top concern. As the situation became increasingly violent, just before midnight, we moved our crews back for their protection.”
Despite the vandalism to the ABC11 offices, WTVD news director Michelle Germano reported no one was hurt.
“Thankfully we had no injuries. Our crews are safe,” Germano said. “The front of our entire Raleigh newsroom is smashed in.”
Jason deBruyn, a reporter for WUNC public radio, said he was tear-gassed twice on Saturday. The first time was when a canister ricocheted near him and he had to pedal his bike through the smoke to get away. Thankfully, someone was nearby to spray his face with a baking soda-and-water solution to stop the stinging.
Protests remained peaceful in Durham on Saturday, but it was a different story in Fayetteville.
Reporter Paul Woolverton, sent to cover reported looting at Cross Creek Mall, was assaulted while taking photos.
“So apparently I got beat up at Cross Creek Mall when I was trying to take pictures and I really don’t remember it very well,” Woolverton tweeted around 11:30 p.m.
Sometime after 3 a.m., Woolverton tweeted a photo of his bruised face and said he had sustained a concussion: “I am told I was kicked and punched but don’t remember that.”
Woolverton was with reporter Melody Brown-Peyton when he was attacked in the parking lot of the mall. He was streaming the looting on the Fayetteville Observer’s Facebook page when a man approached and tried to take his camera. The man starting hitting and kicking Woolverton, Brown-Peyton said in an Observer news story. Woolverton was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion and checked for bleeding on his brain.
Woolverton said on Sunday that he is sore and his head hurts, but his doctor said he should be OK.
“Everything at that moment was happening so fast,” Brown-Peyton said in the Fayetteville Observer article. “We were simply there doing our jobs.”
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 2:29 PM.
