MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi has covered conflict zones around the world throughout his lengthy career in broadcast journalism, but he never expected one of those places to be Minneapolis, Minnesota.
That’s where Velshi was shot by a rubber bullet on Saturday night while covering the protests stemming from the killing of George Floyd.
“I have never prior to this assignment worn my ballistic vest in the United States,” he said. “I’ve never carried a gas mask in the United States.”
Velshi, who relocated from Minnesota to Chicago on Monday before heading back to New York, talked to The Hollywood Reporter about being targeted by the police and the larger climate of anti-press violence around the country.
Because I’m an anchor and a reporter, I’m constantly in conversation with my immediate supervisors and those who cover the news. So we had started talking on Tuesday about the fact that even though my primary responsibilities tend to be later into the week, I thought it would make sense if I went, and the bosses thought it would make sense if I went as well. So, I deployed on Thursday to Minneapolis.
We did stay at a hotel downtown, and not only were things normally closed for coronavirus, but the restaurants, for instance, that were offering service or the hotel that had some food, that was suspended as well because of the protests. It was surreal. No one was in the streets. The hotel was offering no services. We literally slept there, and then spent our time out in the streets with the protesters.
We had had some people on the ground. One of the good things about NBC is we’ve got affiliate relationships as well. So we had a very good sense of what was happening in Minneapolis, including with our own reporters. So I went right to the scene of the Third Precinct police station, which is where most of the protests had been centered. The crowd had been gathering there. By Thursday evening, even prior to my getting there, it had been fairly tense and fairly hot. By 9 p.m. ET that night, it was clear that the protestors were going to defy the barriers and try to get to the police station.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter