In the wee morning on Sunday, rioting took place at the Wendy's in Atlanta where Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by a police officer. Brooks was passed out in the drive-thru line when police approached him. He was suspected of driving under the influence. When police attempted to apprehend him, he fled, at which point Officer Garrett Rolfe fired his gun.
A CNN crew attempted to film what was taking place but rioters quickly attacked them. Someone even went as far as breaking the TV camera.
"A photojournalist, our producer, and I were trying to get a video of what was happening and there were protesters very angry that we were recording this and tried to block our cameras, to block us,” CNN's Natasha Chen described to Wolfe Blitzer on air. “So, the journalist’s camera and to block my cell phone from taking video. And at that point they got aggressive and our camera, our CNN camera, was broken. And so we as a crew decided to step out of that area so right now, you know, we’ve left the immediate area but that [inaudible] and I could see there were other people in the crowd asking, 'Why are they doing this?' while others were egging them on.”
A CNN news crew was assaulted by Antifa in Atlanta. You won’t see this getting too much coverage. pic.twitter.com/s7RdNsM74N
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 14, 2020
Chen posted videos of the crew's encounter on Twitter:
This is when people started breaking the glass at Wendy’s. You can hear “block the camera” being shouted at my colleagues, while another person tried to block my cell phone video. The people blocking our photojournalists ending up taking a skateboard to that camera. pic.twitter.com/A5Oipl6Gfz
— Natasha Chen (@NatashaChenCNN) June 14, 2020
More from the moments right after that, when people had broken in. pic.twitter.com/H3N5yLz5MT
— Natasha Chen (@NatashaChenCNN) June 14, 2020
And there’s someone trying to light the patio umbrella on fire. pic.twitter.com/2z3rg7z64i
— Natasha Chen (@NatashaChenCNN) June 14, 2020