On Friday Minnesota police arrested Omar Jimenez. He is a TV reporter working for CNN. The camera crew was also arrested along with Jimenez. They were trying to cover CNN’s morning program called New Day. This incident was followed by a lot of protest and criticism against the Minnesota State Police. It was termed as the outright mishandling of the people by the uniformed men.
The fact becomes very clear that the police practice racism when they arrested Omar who is a Hispanic black man. A couple of hours later, Jimenez along with the other crew members was released. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) took the initiative to step into the matter after immediate protests started taking place.
It caused more chaos when CNN telecasted the entire episode in which reporter Omar was arrested. The other crew members had filmed the incident. The footage shows that the police are unable to state a proper reason for the sudden arrest. Other reporters who filmed this incident were around mostly to cover other protests. The chaos around followed the murder of George Floyd by a policeman. A similar incident or mishandling of Hispanic men showed another incident of sheer racism.
Governor Walz expressed shame regarding the same and also apologized to everyone on behalf of Minnesota police. One of the policemen came to handcuff Jimenez saying that he was under arrest. The latter asked why he was being arrested and that he was just at work. When no one paid heed to the matter, another reporter spoke up. He could be heard saying that they were from CNN and that they are covering the entire incident too.
Minnesota Police racism revealed
After Omar’s arrest, the chaos and protests became stronger and there was a justification expressed from the side of Minnesota State Police. According to them, they had arrested the reporter and his crew on grounds of disobedience. A policeman involved in the arrest case said that the CNN crew denied moving when they were asked to which led to the arrest.
The entire explanation of the actions was posted on Twitter on behalf of the Police department. The post says that the police and State Patrol troopers were trying to clear the Snelling Avenue and Lake Street. While doing so four people were arrested which included three members of the CNN network. However, the police released all three of them just when they got to know that they were from the media.
CNN did not waste much time giving a befitting reply to this tweet. They replied saying that the police were already aware that the people were from CNN when they were arrested. Two more anchors from CNN criticized the police for this incident on AIR. They pointed out at Omar Jimenez stating that he is a journalist and how he is being mishandled by the policemen.
