A TV photographer was arrested during a pro-Palestine protest held Wednesday on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
The Austin protest was one of several that took place across college campuses in Texas, including UTSA, as well as California and Massachusetts.
Earlier this week, U.S. senators voted 79-18 to approve a $95 billion war aid package that would directly benefit Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. Approximately $26 billion would go to “Israel and humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Before the arrest in Austin, video shows multiple Texas Department of Public Safety troopers armed with helmets and batons attempting to move protesters back.
A trooper off-camera can be heard saying, “Get on the ground! Lay down!”
“I was moving!” the photographer was heard saying to the trooper.
The photographer was handcuffed. An unidentified person held onto the photographer’s camera and walked alongside him as it continued to roll.
After the arrest, local reporters already at the protest caught up with the photographer. He identified himself as “Carlos” and said he worked at KTBC Fox 7, a TV station in Austin.
This man says he is a member of the press. An officer said his camera hit an officer. The man claims it was not on purpose. @KXAN_News pic.twitter.com/mZUcTSNJuZ
— Nabil Brent Remadna KXAN (@RemadnaKXAN) April 24, 2024
“They were pushing me, and they said that I hit an officer,” the photographer told KXAN reporter Nabil Brent Remadna. “I didn’t hit an officer. They were pushing me.”
The photographer told reporters that he had never experienced something like this before.
“I told them I was the press,” the photographer said.
It isn’t immediately clear what charges he may be facing.
KXAN also reported that Texas DPS sent Houston-based troopers to Austin ahead of Wednesday’s protest on the UT campus.
NEW: Sources tell @KXAN_News Texas DPS sent state troopers from Houston to Austin to handle the UT protest.
A long line of them heading towards the city:@hueyjayd pic.twitter.com/51wnM7F5MP
— Ryan Chandler (@RyanChandlerTV) April 24, 2024
The DPS response to the protest drew the ire of District 19 state Senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde in addition to other areas along the Texas-Mexico border.
“The Department of Public Safety has pulled out all the stops to harass innocent college students, but wouldn’t lift a finger to help the victims in the Uvalde massacre,” state Sen. Gutierrez said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Our broken state moved troopers all the way from Houston to Austin so they could quash students’ first amendment rights.
“The very force that you see beating and arresting these college students are the same ones that, for 77 long minutes, stood by as a lone teenage shooter massacred 21 precious lives in an elementary school. We live in a broken state where actual violence is met with fear and trepidation from those meant to protect and serve, and where exercising our rights is seen as a threat.
“I am demanding accountability for the actions carried out by DPS at the University of Texas today.”
At least 20 protesters were taken into custody during Wednesday’s protest in Austin, the Associated Press reported.
KSAT reached out to DPS on Wednesday evening. So far, we have not heard back.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
