Wall Street Journal accuses Phoenix police of violating reporter's 1st amendment rights after paper says he was detained on assignment

• A reporter for the Wall Street Journal was detained by the Phoenix Police Department.
• The finance reporter, Dion Rabouin, was interviewing sources outside of Chase bank for a story.

The Wall Street Journal is accusing the Phoenix Police Department of violating a finance reporter's first amendment right, claiming that police detained him while he was interviewing sources outside of a Chase bank on November 23, 2022.

A video of the incident taken by a bystander shows police detaining Dion Rabouin, a Black finance reporter who was wearing his afro and a white tee on the day of the incident, despite telling officers he was simply doing his job, local outlet ABC 15 reported Thursday.

Rabouin recalled two Chase employees asking him what he was doing outside of the bank, to which he replied by saying he was interviewing sources for a story, according to the local outlet. Rabouin told ABC 15 that no one had asked him to leave the premises, but police arrived shortly thereafter.

Rabouin told ABC 15 that he identified himself to the police as a WSJ journalist, but they told him he wasn't allowed to work in the area.

"'If this isn't public property and I don't have a legal right to be here, if you're telling me that's not what this is, fine, I'll move,"' he recalled telling the police officer, per ABC 15. "And he literally, kind of, shifted his body to keep me from moving or going anywhere. And after we talked a little more, he said, 'I'm done with this.' And he started grabbing me. Grabbing at my arms. And I was kind of flustered and drew back. And he was like, 'This could get bad for you if you don't comply and don't do what I say.' So he grabs my arms and really wrenches them behind my back and proceeds to put me in handcuffs."

The Phoenix Police Department and the Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Rabouin declined to comment.

The Phoenix Police Department confirmed in a statement to ABC 15 that they received a letter from the WSJ Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray on December 7 urging an investigation of the incident involving Rabouin's detaining.

"This letter was shared with our Professional Standard Bureau for review and they are conducting an administrative investigation. Once the administrative investigation is complete, it will be made available as part of a public records request," the statement said. The department also claimed that the incident "took place on private property." An incident report obtained by the channel stated that the offense was "criminal trespassing" on private property.

But Murray claimed in his letter that the incident occurred in a public location, not private property.

"I am appalled and concerned that officers at your department would attempt to interfere with Mr. Rabouin's constitutional right to engage in journalism and purport to limit anyone's presence in a public location," Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray wrote in a letter to the Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan obtained by ABC 15.

The Committee to Protect Journalists took notice of the incident, issuing their own statement and claiming that the incident took place on public property.

"We are deeply concerned by the Phoenix Police Department's treatment of Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin. Detaining and handcuffing a journalist—who was gathering news in a public place—is a flagrant violation of his First Amendment rights," said CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen in a Thursday report. "The police department should conduct a thorough investigation into Rabouin's treatment, and undertake reforms to make sure this kind of incident is not repeated."

Rabouin told ABC 15 that the Phoenix Police Department is already under heavy scrutiny and that he'd hoped not to be part of a story, just to do his job as a reporter.

"As journalists, we don't really want to be the story. We want to report the story," Rabouin said. "I think it's important to talk about. This is a department that's under DOJ investigation for excessive force, under investigation for the way they operate and handle business, and despite that, they continue to operate this way."