The New York Police Department wants to leave its options open when it comes to arresting journalists for doing their job.
That's the upshot of new court filings in the long-running legal battle that arose out of the NYPD's violent and unconstitutional suppression of the George Floyd protests in 2020. The raft of federal civil rights lawsuits filed against the City by protesters and the New York Attorney General's office finally resolved when the City signed onto to a wide-ranging settlement agreement, enforceable by the court, in which the NYPD committed to reform the way that it polices protests.
One part of the settlement terms that the NYPD agreed to concern the way it treats journalists. The department pledged to change its policy and training such that random cops can't just arrest journalists for minor offenses and cart them off to be processed, thereby preventing them from doing their job and covering official police actions.
Instead, if police want to arrest a journalist for a so-called "red-light" offense—jaywalking, unlawful assembly, trespassing, disorderly conduct, obstruction of governmental administration, and the like—they need to get permission to do so from an incident commander or someone from the NYPD's press shop. And if that permission is granted and the reporter is arrested, they should be issued a summons on the spot, not taken in custody somewhere else to have their arrest processed.