3 new videos of Secret Service & photographer fight at Trump event shed more light on what happened
Secret Service agent slams down photographer at Donald Trump rally https://t.co/asGaRewTOLhttps://t.co/OGViFbP8Sp
— Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) February 29, 2016
TUESDAY UPDATE
Three new videos are online showing Monday’s confrontation between a U.S. Secret Service agent and Time photographer Christopher Morris. Video 1, above, has a new angle on the choke-slam. It’s shot from the other side of the protest.
The quality of video 2, below, is not as good, but shows more of what happened before the choke-slam and seems to give more detail on the bumping that occurred.
Click here if video above fails to play
Video 3, below, appears to be the only one that shows what occurred before the chest bumping and choke-slam. Some are calling this the initial confrontation between the agent and Morris. It shows Morris shooting the protest from a point apparently outside the pen area designated by the Trump campaign for all press. The video shows the agent coming up behind Morris, grabbing him by the mid-section (not the neck) and turning him around. This video does not show the chest bumping and choke-slam that followed.
It should be noted that the USSS has said, on a number of occasions, its job is to protect Donald Trump and not enforce the rules of the Trump campaign. It’s the Trump campaign that keeps the press penned in at campaign stops. USSS made a similar point today (Tuesday) when they made it clear students at another demonstration Monday were not removed by its agents.
I stand by my assessment that both the agent and the photographer let emotion rule the day and are lucky if nothing other than some bad publicity comes out of this. It will be interesting to hear what threat a USSS credentialed photographer posed to Donald Trump (nowhere near this) that caused an agent to grab the photographer from behind and swing him around. That said, Morris is very lucky he wasn’t thrown to the ground again or jumped on by other law enforcement after he put his hands on the throat of the agent.
Here’s what Time wrote today about video 2:
New video of a Secret Service agent’s confrontation with a TIME photographer at a Donald Trump rally depicts the episode in more detail, showing the agent grab the photographer by the neck with two hands and throw him to the ground. The photographer is standing within the designated press area with his arms at his side.
MONDAY
You’ll likely see a lot of this video in the news over the next 24 hours. It shows a violent confrontation between one United States Secret Service agent and Time Magazine photographer Christopher Morris. It happened today (Monday) at a rally for Donald Trump in Radford, Virginia.
The video immediately below shows what is highlighted in this confrontation, the agent grabbing Morris by the neck and slamming him to the ground. But, as always, you need to see this from other angles and find out what happened before and after that event.
As I’ve said often, you have to be a good consumer of news these days if you want to get a real understanding of the world around you. Just look at the headlines on this incident. They’re all over the place. Breitbart, a noted conservative publication writes, “Video: Reporter grabs neck of Secret Service at Trump Rally.” At the same time, most other headlines call it a fight between the Secret Service and a photographer or say something like Mashable wrote, “Secret Service agent brutally choke slams a photographer at Trump rally.”
The two headlines are all accurate descriptions of at least a portion of what happened with this incident, but neither really tells the story.
My conclusion in looking at much of the news coverage, along with years of experience covering these type of events, is that both the Secret Service agent and the Time photographer were very wrong. It’s not because I am trying to play the middle, but rather because both men did some very stupid things. Each appeared to act out of anger and probably neither should be on the campaign trail right now. They both will be lucky if there are no serious repercussions from this event.
Rather than list all the reasons I’ve come to this conclusion, make your own judgment. Look at the various videos below and the sources I’ve provided. Let me know what you think.
News coverage of the incident: The Boston Globe, Time Magazine, Breitbart, Mashable, CNN, Fox News.
Here’s moments prior. The reporter says “f*ck you” — that’s when it got physical pic.twitter.com/h9K2wIbEWQ
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016
Secret Service agent choke slams reporter pic.twitter.com/jdsHOlylSB
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016
This is false and misleading. First example of violence came from the officer. I know, it’s my video https://t.co/tDrbKy1H2w
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016
This is how reporters are treated at Trump rallies pic.twitter.com/hMxuEoKVeG
— Gabby Morrongiello (@gabriellahope_) February 29, 2016
Time photog Chris Morris tells me how he was grabbed and taken down at Trump rally pic.twitter.com/XKDJarpXda
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) February 29, 2016
Just talked to @time magazine report Chris Morris. He says he was originally arrested but just detained. @ABC13News pic.twitter.com/QknmuAbifG
— Annie Andersen (@Annie_Andersen) February 29, 2016
