When Jeremy Segal was arrested outside the Milo Yiannopoulos event at DePaul University, he was taking a stand for everyone’s First Amendment rights.
The video journalist and filmmaker who goes by the name Rebel Pundit tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that while he probably could’ve chosen to back down and stop filming the angry mob of protesters preparing to break up the event hosted by the Campus Republican Club, he chose to stand his ground because he wasn’t doing anything illegal and did not want to bow to the demands of the anti-free speech leftist students and faculty trying to stop his reporting.
Segal, who is currently working on a longer project about the left’s current attack on free speech and press across the country, went to the small event expecting some fireworks but didn’t know he would end up spending the night in jail “on cold concrete, eating two bologna sandwiches.”
Segal began to cover the protesters as they formed a “circle of love” before a planned March to the Milo event. The student group was a mixture of protesters including Black Lives Matter activists and members of Students for Justice for Palestine.
Segal, who has covered protests for years and whose video work was a favorite of Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart, began to ask protesters if any “special snowflakes would like to explain white privilege” to him.
Asking the protesters questions enraged them, said Rebel Pundit. “For a group that said that Milo’s language would cause them damage, it was interesting that my words made them want to cause me actual damage.”
One thing that struck Segal was that many of the protesters did not even know what they were protesting. “I heard one person say that they had no idea who Milo was or what he thought, but that it didn’t really matter.”
The student marchers used a number of techniques that Segal has seen before, such as walking right up to Segal’s camera and then yelling at him to get out of their face.
Eventually an administrator for the school began walking with the students. They then assembled outside the hall where Milo would be speaking. At that point a security guard was brought over and Segal was told he was on private property and not allowed to film.
When he explained that he had both been given a credential to film the event and had spoken to the University’s vice president of media relations and been told he could film, the student leaders and administration were not satisfied.
“I asked where I was allowed to stand, where was public property, and they gave me a small space near the building. I continued to ask the protesters questions, which is of course my right. This lead to even more of a frenzy, and one of the protesters from Students for Justice for Palestine tried to get their hands on my camera.”
When Segal went inside the building, he was told by an administrator that he would not be allowed to go into the event. When Rebel Pundit reiterated that he both had permission from the group and had spoken to the vice president of media relations, the administrator who was protecting the students told him that this did not matter.
At that point, two police officers who had been called asked Segal to leave the building. Segal told them that since he was not doing anything wrong he would continue filming or face arrest. Police told him that the security guard had said he would sign a complaint against him, although Segal believes that the guard was being pressured by administration and students to file a complaint.
Police told him that he would face arrest for criminal trespass, his equipment would be confiscated for a few hours, and he would be sent to jail. Segal indicated he understood and then was arrested and led out of the building as students cheered.
Segal will be posting footage of the events that led to his arrest on his website RebelPundit.com.
Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan.
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