Police Sergeant Charged With Stealing Photographer’s Camera Bag From Delaney Hall Protests
A police sergeant from New Jersey has been charged with stealing a photographer’s bag after she was hit with a 2×4 and had to seek medical attention.
Photojournalist Angelina Katsanis was covering the unrest outside Delaney Hall, Newark, where immigrants are being held by ICE, on Saturday evening. The site has become a flashpoint for protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Katsanis was covering the protests for the Associated Press when she was struck by the wooden beam as police and demonstrators clashed. The photographer sought medical attention and left behind her camera bag in the melee. She later returned to the area in a wheelchair to retrieve her gear, by which time it was gone.
“I checked my Airtag and the bag was already on a highway pretty far away at that point,” Katsanis tells AP. “Right away, I had a feeling it was the police because they were the only ones with access to that area.”
Video posted to Instagram shows wheelchair-bound Katsanis pleading with a row of riot police to allow her safe passage to the medical tent. Later, while in a hospital, the AirTag showed that it was at a home in Sparta, New Jersey, an address listed to Essex County police sergeant Darryl Brown.
The attorney general’s office subsequently reviewed Brown’s body camera footage, which showed him “interacting” with Katsanis’s bag. Brown’s home was then searched, and officers recovered several of the photographer’s missing items, some of which had Katsanis’ name and phone number on them. Sergeant Brown has been suspended without pay and will appear in court charged with third-degree theft.
“It’s not yet clear when I’ll be able to get any of my equipment back, as it is evidence in the case,” Katsanis writes on Instagram. “But it’s amazing news and I feel like this could be uncovering something even bigger than my camera gear, as it seems like many people have had items stolen from the scene of Delaney.”
Katsanis says the entire incident has left her shaken, telling the AP that she has “thought a lot about how the officers are supposed to be there to uphold the law and protect us and protect property — and this is the exact opposite of that.”
A GoFundMe page was set up on Katsanis’s behalf, explaining that she also lost access to her car because her keys were in the stolen bag. The other items include a Sony Alpha 1, Sony 70-200mm, and many other camera accessories.
On Monday, PetaPixel reported that several photojournalists covering the Delaney Hall protests say they have been targeted and attacked by ICE agents.
Image credits: Photo by Will Allen-DuPraw/GoFundMe
