Reporter Arrested After Broadcast at Ohio Governor’s Press Conference: ‘He Was Doing His Job’
According to the news outlet, reporter Evan Lambert was arrested by the East Palestine Police Department after being told to be quiet by officers while Gov. Mike DeWine spoke about the incident, which prompted evacuations due to the toxic chemicals involved.
Lambert had been waiting for the conference to start at 3 p.m. local time but it was delayed until 5 p.m., which overlapped with his scheduled live shot, according to NewsNation, which reported he was arrested after finishing his live report.
Officials from the Columbiana County Jail told ABC News that Lambert, who was released from jail later that night, faces criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct charges.
Local officials did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment.
In an interview with NewsNation, Lambert said he didn’t expect to be arrested while performing the duties of his job.
“I’m doing fine right now. It’s been an extremely long day,” Lambert said after being released. “No journalist expects to be arrested when you’re doing your job, and I think that’s really important that that doesn’t happen in our country.”
NewsNation’s Washington Bureau Chief Mike Viqueira said in a statement that “as you see from the videos, he was doing his job – what hundreds of journalists do without incident – reporting to the public on a matter of urgent, critical interest to our audience.”
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The governor later expressed concern about the arrest and said it was wrong to stop reporters from speaking.
“It has always been my practice that if I’m doing a press conference, someone wants to report out there and they want to be talking back to the people back on channel, whatever, they have every right to do that,” DeWine said, as reported by The Washington Post.
DeWine also mentioned that he did not request the arrest and would not want to see it happen again, per the outlet.
He added: “If someone was stopped from doing that, or told they could not do that, that was wrong. It was nothing that I authorized.”
Per ABC News, DeWine’s press conference covered the derailment of a train that led to the evacuation of nearly half of East Palestine’s 5,000 residents.
On Wednesday, officials said that residents could return to their homes after air quality samples indicated safe levels of contaminants in the area.