CNN political analyst April Ryan is under fire over a video purportedly showing a man identified as a security guard getting into a physical altercation with a local news editor who was covering an event that featured her as the keynote speaker.
Ryan reportedly told the crowd, “I don’t have news covering my speech.”
Local news editor Charlie Kratovil of New Brunswick Today attended the New Jersey Parent Summit at the Heldrich Hotel August 3 and says he covered it for hours without any issues:
On Friday 8/2, I RSVP’ed to Mr. Melli and specifically stated that I wanted to attend “Saturday’s keynote speech.” There was a full day of other stuff scheduled that day, the second day of the 3-day “summit” sponsored by a bunch of NJ groups that push for more charter schools. pic.twitter.com/CVcs0src2t
— Charlie Kratovil (@Charlie4Change) August 5, 2019
Later in the day, Joel Morris – who Kratovil identifies as Ryan’s security guard – approached the reporter, demanded to know what organization he was with, and allegedly threatened to take Kratovil’s camera down.
“I declined to acquiesce to this threat from a stranger,” Kratovil wrote.
“Just as Rep. Payne was praising Ms. Ryan for her recent @rcfp ‘Freedom of the Press’ award, the public relations people started to gather around me at my table, pressuring me to stop recording,” he continued in a Twitter thread, detailing what led up to the altercation.
“As soon as things started going south, I began recording audio of our conversation,” he added: