The Wall Street Journal is urging Phoenix police to investigate after one of its black reporters was handcuffed and detained while working an assignment on the city’s North Side.
Phoenix police officials told NBC News Thursday that the department agreed to an investigation after editor-in-chief Matt Murray wrote a letter dated Dec. 7 to Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan «expressing concerns.» regarding the incident. On November 23, Dion Rabouin, who covers finance for the Wall Street Journal, was stopped in a police car while conducting interviews outside a Chase Bank. An officer accused the reporter of trespassing and arrested him.
“We are deeply concerned that Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin was detained, handcuffed and placed in the back of a police vehicle while reporting,” a Journal spokesperson said in a statement. «No journalist should be detained simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.»
Rabouin was interviewing passersby for a story about savings accounts when a couple of employees approached him, asked what he was doing and went back inside, he told ABC affiliate KNXV. He said the employees did not ask him to leave. Soon, police officer Caleb Zimmerman came up and told Rabouin that he was trespassing, he said.
“I saw a police car stop. And the officer came out, went into the branch, after about five minutes he came out and spoke to me,” Rabouin recalled to KNXV, adding that he told the officer that he didn’t know the sidewalk was private property. “He asked me what he was doing. I identified myself. I told him: ‘I am Dion Rabouin. I’m a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. I’m working on a story. I told the people at the branch what was happening. And he said, ‘Well, you can’t do that.’
Rabouin told KNXV that Zimmerman would not look at his credentials and told the officer he would leave, but Zimmerman blocked him when he tried to walk away.
“After we talked a little more, he said, ‘I’m done with this,’” Rabouin recalled. “And he started grabbing me. Grabbing my arms And I was a little nervous and backed off. And he said, ‘This could be bad for you if you don’t comply and you don’t do what I say.’ So he grabs my arms and really twists them behind my back and proceeds to put the handcuffs on me.»
Katelyn Parady, a bystander, said she saw the situation unfold and began recording on her cell phone. The footage showed Rabouin talking to the officer while he was stopped in the patrol car with his hands behind his back.
A spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department told NBC News that bank staff called police after customers complained that Rabouin would approach them and ask personal questions. Zimmerman wrote in a police report that Rabouin had refused to leave the property or show him identification.
Rabouin was finally let go.
A Chase Bank spokesman said the officials apologized directly to Rabouin, but did not comment on the employees’ actions.