February 29, 2016

A Journalist Was Just Manhandled and Detained at a Trump Rally

Time photographer Chris Morris was put in a chokehold and thrown to the ground by a member of Trump’s security team.

Steve Helber/AP

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Videos posted on Twitter earlier this afternoon show a photographer for Time magazine being violently thrown to the ground by a member of Donald Trump’s security team, possibly a US Secret Service agent. Morris, an award-winning photojournalist who has covered war zones, struggles back to his feet and is led away by several other security team members.

It’s not clear what precipitated the incident, which happened at a Trump rally at Virginia’s Radford University, but the confrontation appears to have occurred inside the enclosure usually reserved for members of the press.

A uniformed police offer and other men in suits can be seen leading Morris away from the scene.

Another video shows the journalist being handcuffed by uniformed police offers. Morris says he was briefly detained and then released.

Gabby Morrongiello, a reporter for the Washington Examiner who was covering the rally, tweeted that the incident occurred when the Time photographer attempted to leave the press corral to take photos of protesters.

A spokesman for the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment about the episode.

Update: Another perspective on the takedown.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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