CNN’s Omar Jimenez Describes Arrest Minutes After Release: ‘I Am Thankful That it Happened on Live TV’

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez described his time in custody following his on-camera arrest by Minnesota state police, making the perhaps unintentionally chilling observations that the cops “were not violent with me” while he was in custody, and that one officer told him they were “just following orders.”

Jimenez was arrested Friday morning — along with CNN Producer Bill Kirkos and CNN Photojournalist Leonel Mendez — in a surreal scene during which all were handcuffed after complying with and seeking direction from the cops, and the camera was left on the ground still broadcasting.

About an hour later, Jimenez was back on the air and reporting on the arrest. New Day co-anchor Alisyn Camerota asked him to describe the time between his arrest and release, and Jimenez told her that the cops were “pretty cordial,” noting that “they were not violent with me.”

He said the behavior of the police as they arrested him on clearly false pretenses was “to their credit,” which is chilling given the context.

The CNN crew is in Minneapolis covering protests and riots that sprung up in the wake of George Floyd’s death in custody, which was captured on video.

Jimenez said the cops didn’t explain why they were arrested, one of them telling him “I’m just following orders.”

In a later report, Jimenez also noted that he was glad the incident occurred on camera, so that the police’s claim they did not comply would be exposed as false.

“I am thankful that it happened on live TV, so that you are able to see it, I was able — I lived it, and people around the country were able to watch and see how it unfolded so there is no doubt as to what happened.”

As CNN commentator Bakari Sellers and others have noted, a white CNN correspondent was reporting in the same area at the time and was not arrested by police.

Watch the clip above via CNN.