EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Campus Reform correspondent arrested while covering BLM protests speaks out

As protests and riots have continued to occupy streets across the nation, many independent journalists have taken the responsibility of covering these events. 

Campus Reform Correspondent Blair Nelson recently attended a protest in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin as an independent student journalist. 

However, Nelson soon found himself in police custody after being arrested for violating curfew under an emergency order. 

“We were out filming a bunch of people getting arrested, and the cops came after us and arrested us,” Nelson said.

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Documentation of Nelson’s arrests, along with the arrests of Daily Caller reporters, was posted on Twitter, including a video of the moment they were detained by police.

.@WISN_Caroline captured part of our detainment (picks up sort of after @RichieMcGinniss’s video, it seems). The person being tossed from the passenger side is @BGOnTheScene, who is still — to my knowledge — in jail. https://t.co/MNu6h8iGcS

— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) October 9, 2020

According to Nelson, upon releasing him from the local county jail, police never apologized or admitted they were wrong in arresting a member of the press. 

“On their Twitter, they tried to claim that only two members of the press were arrested, rather than four,” Nelson said. “And the reason they’re claiming that it’s because we didn’t show credentials at the time, which I’ve spoken to some attorneys and they’ve said credentials don’t mean anything.”

3. FICTION: Four members of the credentialed media were arrested.
FACT: Two individuals were arrested and they showed no press credentials at the time of their arrest.

— Wauwatosa Police (WI) (@WauwatosaPD) October 9, 2020

As someone who has been in the midst of some of these protests and riots, Nelson said there are two sides to these events.

“What the people need to know is that BLM: sometimes they’re right about some situations, and sometimes the police are right about some situations. There’s two sides to every story,” he said. “I think what you see on social media is often one-sided. But a lot of these protests, in some way, they do have violence in them, they do have property damage...and a lot of people don’t see that.”

This isn’t the first time Nelson has been suppressed as a journalist. Nelson encountered some issues with his university for some of his work as a student journalist on campus. 

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He said these experiences helped him prepare for the night he got arrested. 

“A lot of these people have firearms, they’re committing crimes, and you’re trying to record them doing this,” Nelson said. “It’s really taught me to remain calm, because I’ve been in a lot of these stressful situations before with a hostile crowd around me.”

Nelson told Campus Reform that he still faces one active charge of failure to follow an emergency order. His next court date is in December. 

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @opheliejacobson