A photojournalist who was arrested Monday night while covering a protest over the killing of Jordan Neely is demanding her charges be dropped.
Prominent photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephanie Keith stood beside her lawyer in Lower Manhattan on Thursday and called upon the NYPD to drop a summons she was issued after she ended up in cuffs. Keith was photographing a protest that turned violent near the Broadway-Lafayette station where Neely had been choked to death.
Several demonstrators clashed with cops over the course of the night, during which the incident unfolded.
Keith states that NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell ordered her arrest after she had stepped into the roadway. A throng of officers, she said, restrained her and took her away.
Wylie Stecklow, Keith’s attorney, said that the NYPD had violated the First Amendment rights of his client and that its officers need to be schooled on how to work with journalists.
“I am angry that with decades of history of the NYPD at the highest levels, violating the First Amendment rights of journalists, the NYPD still refuses to re-examine its training of these executive officers and their working knowledge of the First Amendment rights of journalists,” Stecklow said.
