Phoenix police detain Wall Street Journal reporter; investigation opened


Miguel Torres, Arizona Republic
Fri, January 6, 2023

Phoenix police opened an administrative investigation into the detainment of a Wall Street Journal reporter on Nov. 23 in north Phoenix, officials said. The investigation will be conducted by the department's Professional Standards Bureau.

Dion Rabouin, a finance reporter for the Journal, stood outside a Chase Bank at around 2:40 p.m. in north Phoenix, conducting brief interviews with people walking inside for a story about banking.

A Phoenix police officer, Caleb Zimmerman, approached Rabouin about a trespassing call he said was placed by bank employees, according to reporting by ABC 15.

In a police report filed by Zimmerman, bank employees claimed they told Rabouin to leave the property after getting complaints from customers who felt uncomfortable.

In a video provided by a concerned citizen Katelyn Parady, Rabouin told Zimmerman that no one at the bank had asked him to leave but he would if he was given a chance.

In the video, Zimmerman handcuffed Rabouin as Rabouin repeated that he would voluntarily leave.

According to the report, Zimmerman wrote that Rabouin didn’t provide identification and told him he was trespassing.

Zimmerman claimed that he had spoken with an employee at the bank and was told that the bank was willing to “aid in prosecution if Dion was unwilling to leave,” and wanted Rabouin removed from the property.

Throughout the video, Rabouin told Zimmerman that he would walk away from the property if he would uncuff him.

But Zimmerman held that he had to trespass him from the property, which involves personally removing him from the property and writing up a trespass notification that identifies Rabouin to the property owner so they can make sure he does not return.

Zimmerman pressed Rabouin into the back seat of his patrol SUV and pulled Rabouin’s ID from his pants, but Rabouin sat with his feet out of the vehicle, preventing Zimmerman from closing the door.

According to an interview with ABC 15, Rabouin was afraid of what would happen if he got into the car and Zimmerman closed the door.

“I didn’t trust what was going to happen," he told ABC15. “While the woman was recording, I thought the odds of him not doing anything to me, whether physically or anything else, are a lot higher. Once he closes that door, he could take off. He could take me somewhere. I could be placed under arrest.”

The video showed Zimmerman and Rabouin at a standstill, facing each other and stating their positions. Zimmerman claimed Rabouin refused to leave when asked to by the property owner and was trespassing, while Rabouin kept repeating he had never been asked to leave but would do it now.

Rabouin explained to Zimmerman in the video that someone at the bank had come outside and asked if he had been soliciting, and he said he wasn’t.

”They said they were going to go inside and talk to someone, and then you showed up and I said I would leave,” he told Zimmerman on the recording.

Eventually, two other officers showed up and were seen on the video watching over Rabouin as Zimmerman used Rabouin’s ID to write a trespassing notice.

Parady tried to stay close to Rabouin, but at one point, an unidentified police officer told Parady to step back, exclaiming, “Eight feet is the law,” citing a defunct Arizona law deemed unconstitutional in September.

Minutes later, Zimmerman uncuffed and let Rabouin go.

Rabouin’s Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray, wrote a letter to Phoenix police Chief Michael Sullivan, stressing his concern about how officers treated Rabouin.

“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. Such conduct is offensive to civil liberties, and also a pretty good news story,” Murray wrote.

Phoenix police spokesperson Sgt. Melissa Soliz told The Arizona Republic the department received a copy of the letter and opened an administrative investigation.

Rabouin said he got a call from a Phoenix official weeks later and was told that after reviewing the case the department found the officer did nothing wrong, according to ABC 15.

Black Wall Street Journal reporter detained, cuffed while working on bank story

TheGrio Staff
Fri, January 6, 2023

Dion Rabouin submitted an internal complaint, claiming that a few weeks after the incident, a Phoenix official called to inform him they found no evidence of police misconduct relating to his detainment on Nov. 23, 2022.

Phoenix police are conducting an administrative probe into a Black Wall Street Journal reporter’s detainment while working on a bank story.

ABC15 News reported that the Nov. 23, 2022, incident involving Dion Rabouin prompted Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray to send a letter to Phoenix Chief Michael Sullivan requesting a review and demanding they take action to protect journalists’ rights.

“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,” Murray wrote, according to ABC15.

Dion Rabouin interviews Michelle Girard of NatWest Markets during the 2018 Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit at The Times Center on Sept. 20, 2018, in New York City. Rabouin has filed an internal complaint against the Phoenix Police Department after he was detained while working on a story for The Wall Street Journal. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)More

The event prompts further accusations that Phoenix violated First Amendment rights.

Rabouin, a journalist for the Journal based in New York, visited family in Phoenix for the Thanksgiving break.

He asserted that he dressed casually when he visited a Chase Bank location in north Phoenix to conduct man-on-the-street interviews for a report about savings accounts.

While he was on the sidewalk outside the building, two employees allegedly approached Rabouin and asked what he was doing before heading back inside.

The bank allegedly never asked him to leave, and he was unaware that the sidewalk was private property.

Rabouin said he identified himself to a police officer who showed up and told them bank employees knew what was going on, to which he replied, “Well, you can’t do that.”

Officer Caleb Zimmerman reported that bank staff claimed Rabouin refused to leave, and the reporter initially declined to identify himself.

A bystander started recording on her cell phone after seeing the scene unfold. Katelyn Parady’s video starts several minutes after the exchange between Rabouin and Zimmerman begins, with the reporter being placed in handcuffs.

Rabouin claimed that he told the officer he would leave if he weren’t on public property, but the officer shifted his body to keep him from doing so.

Zimmerman noted in his incident report that he had sufficient grounds to detain Rabouin for trespassing.

Backup officers came around eight minutes into the cell phone video. After two more minutes, with other cops present as witnesses, Zimmerman releases Rabouin from his handcuffs.

Rabouin submitted an internal complaint, claiming that a few weeks later, a Phoenix official called to inform him they found no evidence of police misconduct that day.

“As journalists, we don’t really want to be the story. We want to report the story,” Rabouin said, ABC15 reported. “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.”