NEW YORK — A New York journalist claims he was wrongly arrested for trespassing because the NYPD’s press office was unhappy with his coverage of the George Floyd protests, according to a notice of claim filed with the city Comptroller’s office.
Daily Beast reporter and editor-at-large Lachlan Cartwright plans to sue the city and several cops for hitting him with bogus charges on April 22, legal documents dated July 15 detail.
It was a “gross abuse of power, something you might expect to experience as a journalist in China or Russia but not in New York City,” Cartwright said.
Cartwright, 40, alleges he walked into the Players Cafe on Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village around noon and found the shop empty. He said he sent a message on the store’s Instagram page to let them know it was unattended, called the shop’s phone number, then dialed a sister store in Florida.
He said he was told the manager would be back soon, but by about 12:30 p.m., he decided to leave and placed what he wanted to buy — a card celebrating his sister’s pregnancy, some notepads, pens and clothes — in a basket behind the counter, along with a note and his business card.
But before he could go, Cartwright claims four cops arrived and detained him.
Police radio transmissions from that day indicate that the officers were responding to a call of a burglary in process, made by the store’s manager, who was on the way there.
Cartwright tried to explain what happened, but instead cops handcuffed him and took him to the 6th Precinct station house, according to his July 15 filing.
“I just kept saying, ‘Guys, I think it’s just a mixup. Please read my note, please look at my phone,’” Cartwright said. “Some bloke started filming in the window, and that sort of spooked them a bit.”
When the manager arrived, she backed up Cartwright’s story, and days later the store’s vice president wrote a letter on his behalf.
Cartwright said he identified himself as a Daily Beast reporter early on and asked to call his editor to explain why he’d be missing a deadline. Cartwright worked at the New York Daily News from 2013 to 2014.
After about two hours in custody, an officer on a cell phone in a white shirt — which signifies it’s a higher-ranking cop — asked Cartwright if he had New York Police Department-issued press credentials.
One of the arresting officers, Davine Clinton, told Cartwright that his boss was speaking with a member of the department’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Information office, or DCPI, Cartwright said.
“They know who you are,” Clinton told him, according to the notice of claim.
Cartwright later found out that one of his colleagues at The Daily Beast spoke with someone at DCPI who told him that the office knows Cartwright and he is “not a good guy,” legal papers allege.
“The DCPI member referenced a May 29, 2020 interaction Mr. Cartwright had with NYPD members near Union Square Park at a protest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd while Mr. Cartwright was reporting on the protests for The Daily Beast,” the notice reads. “During that interaction, Mr. Cartwright had words with police because he felt they were being heavy-handed with journalists who had just been doing their jobs.”
Clinton left the room, but Cartwright said he heard the officer say, ‘This is wrong,” and another voice respond, “Just do it.”
After that, Clinton told Cartwright he would be charged with criminal trespass, according to the notice.
“They were apologetic, they were sheepish during the end of the day. It was pretty clear that an order had been made above them.”
Cartwright was released with a desk appearance ticket but the Manhattan District Attorney declined to prosecute the case.
The NYPD’s media office and the city Law Department did not return messages seeking comment.
“The police had no right to arrest or put their hands on Mr. Cartwright, let alone prosecute him,” his lawyer, Gideon Oliver said. “The way they treated him although he was obviously and demonstrably innocent is further proof that no one is safe from what passes for an investigation within the New York City Police Department.”
If something like this could happen to “a white bloke with some resources,” then it could happen to anyone, the reporter Cartwright said.
“What chance does anyone else stand?”
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