New Jersey state police officers wielding riot shields shoved an independent videographer to the ground while he documented an immigration protest outside the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark on May 31, even as he shouted that he was press and wore a visible credential around his neck.

David Snow, who runs the YouTube channel The Exposure Report, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that officers struck him with their shields, knocked him and his camera gear to the pavement, then boxed him inside a police kettle for roughly ten minutes. He sustained minor scrapes and bruises. When he finally got free, he discovered his car had been towed from what he maintains was a legal parking space about a mile away.

The incident raises a straightforward question that New Jersey officials have so far declined to answer: When did enforcing a curfew become a license to flatten a credentialed journalist who was already leaving?

What happened outside Delaney Hall

Protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility began on May 22, after many detainees launched a hunger strike. In the days that followed, federal officers and state police responded with chemical irritants, physical force, and arrests. Members of Congress, state and local lawmakers, and rights groups alleged dire conditions inside the facility. The Department of Homeland Security denied allegations of detainee mistreatment.

By May 31, the scene had escalated. Snow told the Press Freedom Tracker he was documenting a largely peaceful protest after demonstrators had been directed to leave Newark's curfew zone. Then law enforcement moved in from multiple directions, ICE officers, state police, and Newark police advancing together.

Officers shouted commands: "Move! Get out of the way!" Snow said he complied, calling out that he was press.

"I'm press! I'm going, I'm going."

It did not matter. Snow said the state police hit him with their shields and drove him into the pavement.

"They basically pummelled me into the floor with their shields. They were trying to get me away from my phone. I was able to retrieve it. I'm OK."

Snow was holding camera equipment and wearing a visible press credential at the time. None of that stopped the officers. He described a broader pattern of indifference toward journalists at the scene.

"There were people saying, 'I'm press,' and they said, 'I don't give a f----.'"

A supervising officer eventually announced that credentialed journalists were allowed to leave. Snow had been held inside the kettle for roughly ten minutes. He said he feared arrest the entire time.

The official response, and the silence

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport posted a statement to X on May 31 saying state police cleared the area outside Delaney Hall because a group of people refused to leave after the curfew order. She did not address the use of force against members of the press.

That silence is telling. A curfew order gives police authority to clear a public space. It does not give them authority to body-check a journalist who is visibly credentialed, already moving, and verbally identifying himself as press. Those are two very different things, and Davenport's statement treated them as one.

New Jersey state police did not respond to an emailed request for comment from the Press Freedom Tracker. No agency, not ICE, not Newark police, not the Attorney General's Office, provided comment specifically addressing the use of force against press members at the scene.

When every agency in the chain goes quiet on the same question, it is not because the question is unimportant. It is because the answer is uncomfortable.

The tow job and the bill

The indignities did not end at the kettle line. Snow later discovered his car had been towed from a spot about a mile from the protest site, a location he maintains was a legal parking space. He is now contesting an $85 parking ticket and the $250 cost of retrieving his vehicle.

Three hundred thirty-five dollars may sound like a footnote. But for an independent journalist working without a corporate legal department, it is a real cost imposed on top of scrapes, bruises, and damaged equipment. And it landed on a man whose only offense was pointing a camera at a public event.

Snow was shoved again while documenting a protest roughly a week later. The Press Freedom Tracker cataloged both incidents.

The real problem with curfew enforcement that ignores press credentials

Conservatives rightly support law and order. A curfew exists for a reason. When protesters refuse to disperse, police have the authority, and sometimes the duty, to clear the area. Nobody serious disputes that.

But the First Amendment does not clock out when a curfew begins. Courts have long recognized that the press serves a distinct function at public demonstrations, and that function does not evaporate because an officer with a riot shield finds it inconvenient. A credentialed journalist moving in the direction police ordered, shouting "I'm press, I'm going," is not a threat to public safety. He is doing his job.

When police treat journalists the same as defiant protesters, or worse, when they specifically target a man holding a camera and wearing a credential, they do not strengthen law enforcement. They undermine it. They hand every critic of immigration enforcement a ready-made grievance. They give activist lawyers fresh ammunition. And they make it harder for the public to see what actually happened, which is the one thing that protects both officers and citizens when the facts are in dispute.

Attorney General Davenport's statement justified the clearance operation but said nothing about the treatment of the press. That is not an oversight. It is a choice, and it is the wrong one. If the curfew enforcement was lawful and proportionate, officials should welcome the footage. If it was not, the public deserves to know that, too.

What remains unanswered

Several basic questions remain open. What was the specific legal basis and text of Newark's curfew order? Which officers struck Snow? Which agency ordered his car towed? Were any journalists arrested during the May 31 incident? And will any agency conduct an internal review of force used against credentialed press that day?

So far, every relevant agency has either issued a statement that dodges the press-freedom question or said nothing at all. That wall of silence does not inspire confidence that anyone in Trenton or Newark intends to hold officers accountable for conduct that, on Snow's account and his own livestream footage, looks indefensible.

A government that enforces the law should never be afraid of a camera. The moment it is, the public should start asking what it does not want filmed.