While protests at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Chicago heated up on Friday night, one CBS reporter was caught in the chaos and police arrested him while, he says, he was documenting the action.
Sopan Deb appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning to recount an experience that he called “unprecedented. There had been other groups of coordinated protests at past rallies, but nothing as massive as what I saw last night.”
Deb said, “there were countless student groups there and that this was a coordinated effort going back weeks as soon as they heard that Donald Trump was coming here.” He went on to say, “it’s unclear how many groups were protesting, but there were certainly a whole bunch of different chants going on including ‘black lives matter,’ and vulgar chants in multiple different languages. It was certainly a diverse group.”
The event, however, soon turned to chaos, as “mini scuffles … broke out” within a crowd of thousands of reporters, and then an announcement was made that the event was being postponed over security concerns.
“There was total pandemonium inside the arena — lots of cursing, lots of people pushing and shoving, you know on both sides — both Trump supporters and Trump protesters,” Deb recalled.
The reporter went outside to shoot the arrest of a man with blood coming from his head and another scuffle.
“And before I knew it a police officer — at least one police officer, maybe multiple — pulled me down from the back of my hoodie and threw me to the ground and bashed my face into the street,” Deb said. “And then this police officer put his boot to my neck and cuffed me. I am continuously identifying myself as press, I said, ‘I have credentials. I can show you. I have credentials.’ But they are not listening to me.”
Deb said was handcuffed and taken to the police station where he was charged for resisting arrest.
Watch the video of his interview above.