CNN reporter Don Lemon said a St. Louis County police officer pushed him away from the sidewalk where he was reporting live form Ferguson, Mo. on Monday.
During a segment on “The Situation Room,” CNN cut to Lemon as he was being corralled away from the road.
“I think we’re about to be arrested because we’re standing on the sidewalk,” Lemon said as a police officer told him to move out of the way.
Only one officer physically started pushing Don Lemon back from the sidewalk.
“That’s what’s happening here. People are here. And they are standing — you can see what’s happening. We’ve been standing here all day,” Lemon said. “They told us to come here. I can’t move. I’m not resisting a police officer. I’m being pushed back.”
He said that he had been asked to move to his current location earlier in the day, and police were then moving everyone off of the sidewalk from which Lemon was reporting.
“Imagine what they are doing to people when you don’t see on national television the people that don’t have a voice like we do,” he said. “People here are feeling like they are occupied on their streets. They are intimidated by police officers.”
When he asked an officer why he needed to move, the officer said Lemon would have to ask his commander.
A police officer then told Lemon that they had traffic concerns, and that people needed to move to an empty parking lot where they wouldn’t get hit by a car. Lemon said that nobody was in the street until they were asked to relocate.
“So I think from my perspective here, the police actually created the traffic situation and the situation that’s going on,” he said.
