The Minnesota State Patrol released a statement on Friday morning after a CNN team was bafflingly arrested live on the air — but the network is hitting back against it as "not accurate."
Minnesota police on Friday arrested CNN's Omar Jimenez and his camera crew while he was live on the air reporting on the Minneapolis protests against the death of George Floyd, drawing widespread criticism and an apology from the state's governor. They were soon released from custody.
On Twitter, the Minnesota State Patrol weighed in on the incident, saying the reporters were released "once they were confirmed to be members of the media," implying that wasn't previously clear — even though the video shows Jimenez identified himself as a CNN reporter who was broadcasting live on the network and showed his CNN badge.
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The State Patrol's explanation immediately drew criticism and mockery from reporters, with CNN's Jim Sciutto noting "he showed his press credentials before he was arrested" and The New York Times' Maggie Haberman writing, "They were carrying cameras and had IDs. Couldn't have been that hard to crack the code."
CNN also described the statement as "not accurate," seeing as "our CNN crew identified themselves, on live television, immediately as journalists."
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