Police arrested a New York City independent journalist this afternoon, August 6, for reportedly filming the vandalism of several Brooklyn Museum leaders’ homes in mid-June, the New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed to Hyperallergic.
Samuel Seligson, a 32-year-old videographer who claims to have published work in Reuters, ABC, and the New York Post, according to his social media, was taken into custody in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and faces two counts of felony hate crime and criminal mischief charges.
He is the second individual to be arrested in connection with the incident, which involved the painting of anti-Zionist graffiti on the residences of four Brooklyn Museum leaders including Director Anne Pasternak. Last week, authorities arrested 28-year-old illustrator Taylor Pelton, who allegedly participated in the vandalism, on similar charges.
Photos of the action showed red paint splattered on Pasternak’s front porch, where a white banner display with red handprints read “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White-Supremacist Zionist.” Her windows were also tagged with upside-down red triangles.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Seligson did not participate himself but is accused of traveling in a car with the activists and entering private property with them. Police are still investigating the incident, NYPD told Hyperallergic.
Seligson’s attorney Leena Widdi told AP that NYPD officers raided her client’s Brooklyn apartment on two occasions in the past week before he turned himself in today. She called the arrest and charges “appalling.”
Hyperallergic has contacted Seligson, Widdi, and the Brooklyn Museum for comment.
Seligson’s arrest may be among the first of its kind in the United States, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker, which has not recorded any other incidents of journalists being charged with hate crimes.
“It’s really important for authorities in the broader public to understand and differentiate the difference between protesters and journalists,” Katherine Jacobsen, who leads the Committee to Protect Journalists’s US program, told Hyperallergic.
Jacobsen further described Seligson’s arrest as “a way to discourage reporters from going out and covering protest movements” and a “very direct form of censorship” that follows both a domestic and international trend.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation also characterized Seligson’s arrest as “alarming” and an attempt to “criminalize journalism” in a brief statement on X.
The vandalism incident targeting Pasternak and other museum leaders followed a heavily policed pro-Palestine protest at the Brooklyn Museum on May 31 during which officers arrested dozens of demonstrators. The institution said it did not call the police.
Anonymous activists involved in the June 12 vandalism said the graffiti action was a response to the museum’s sources of funding, alleged ties to Israeli military interests, and police presence at the May 31 protest. However, public officials including NYC Mayor Eric Adams and President Joe Biden denounced the action as “antisemitic,” drawing criticism from activists who called for a distinction to be made between antisemitic and anti-Zionist gestures.
