An Orange County, California, man was arrested after threatening a KTTV Channel 11 cameraman covering a protest of the lockdown restrictions spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.
Christien Petersen, who is believed to be a lawyer, was allegedly intoxicated and agitated when he approached the unnamed camera operator and asked that he refrain from filming him on Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
When the cameraman refused, Petersen, 36, reportedly pulled out a small pocketknife and forced the cameraman into his live truck to delete the video footage, according to KTTV. A Fox journalist on assignment alerted authorities, who arrived at the scene to find Petersen still in the van with the knife pointed at the cameraman.
Petersen, of Costa Mesa, was taken into custody Friday night for exhibiting a "deadly weapon other than [a] firearm" and for kidnapping, the Times reported. He is being held on $100,000 bond.
No injuries were reported. Fox spokeswoman Erica Keane said the reporter and cameraman were both "pretty shaken up" but are "thankfully OK."
The incident took place at Huntington Beach, where more than 100 people had gathered to protest California's stay-at-home order. There have been several other protests in state capitals where demonstrators fed up with COVID-19 restrictions are calling for an end to lockdowns.
Speaking at a rally outside the state capitol in Austin, Texas, Christian Yingling, a former commanding officer of the Pennsylvania Light Foot militia, said the protest action was an "acceptable risk," the BBC reported.
"I'm gonna do what I got to do to feed my family," he said. "If it means I got to risk my health then so be it … and yes, even potentially the health of others. My mortgage payments are late, my truck payment is late, and if I lose either of those I'm dead in the water."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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