Phoenix bank employee's 911 call adds to questions about role of race in reporter's detention
A Chase bank employee in Phoenix, Arizona, who called 911 in November to report a person "harassing clients outside" revealed near the end of the call that the person had identified himself as a journalist.
The call led to Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin, who is Black, being detained, handcuffed and placed in the back of a Phoenix Police Department vehicle, prompting a complaint from Rabouin and the top editor at the news outlet.
Four months later, questions remain over whether the officer acted inappropriately and the role racial bias played in the encounter and its run-up. The Phoenix Police Department, which initially dismissed the matter before it became public, is conducting an internal investigation. As detentions of reporters stack up in Arizona and across the U.S., concerns arise about their long-term effect on press freedom and the role of journalists of color in government accountability.
One of the first things the bank employee says in her assessment of Rabouin, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Paste BN Network, is that he's asking personal questions.
"I have somebody that's been harassing clients outside, and asking them personal information, and we've asked them to leave the premises, and he refuses," the caller says. "Is there a way I could have an officer come out and escort him off premises?"
After being asked if the person is white, Black, Hispanic or Native, the bank employee says, "He's, like, Black. Maybe Native. I'm not sure. It's kind of hard to tell." Moments later, the bank employee corrects herself: "He's Black."
The employee goes on to say the person is wearing blue shorts, black Converse and a white shirt.
"Any weapons that you can see?" the 911 dispatcher asks.
"Not that I can see," the bank employee responds.
One minute and 40 seconds into the 2-minute, 5-second call, the bank employee tells the dispatcher that the person said he was a reporter.
"He just refuses to leave and says that he's a reporter. ... He's asking people if they have a savings account here or with money in it. He doesn't look like he's a reporter or showed us any credentials," the bank employee says.
Body cam video shows Phoenix Police Officer Caleb Zimmerman placing Rabouin in handcuffs within 1 minute and 26 seconds of approaching him on the sidewalk. In the video, obtained by The Paste BN Network, Rabouin can be seen standing on a sidewalk outside the bank when Zimmerman approaches.
The body cam video shows that the officer doesn't ask Rabouin what he is doing there. Zimmerman tells Rabouin that bank employees want him "trespassed" from the property, and explains that unless Rabouin leaves he will be arrested for trespassing.
Rabouin can be seen telling the officer that no one told him the sidewalk was private property. He tells the officer he was not asked to leave and that he hasn't done anything wrong. The body cam video shows Zimmerman putting Rabouin in handcuffs immediately after Rabouin says, "I will leave. I will walk away voluntarily."
At least five police officers responded to the scene, according to body cam videos.
Phoenix police send mixed messages on investigation into encounter
Phoenix Police Department officials said in January shortly after the encounter came to light that an administrative investigation into the detention of Rabouin would be conducted by the department's Professional Standards Bureau.
That investigation "is not yet completed," according to a statement from Donna Rossi, the Phoenix Police Department's communications director.
Rabouin has worked at The Wall Street Journal since October 2021. He is a financial markets reporter. His work has appeared in many places, including CNBC, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, ESPN, The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times.
In an interview, Rabouin declined to comment on whether he believes his race played a role in the way he was treated by Phoenix police.
Rabouin, 37, said he was interviewing people at the Chase branch for a Journal story about customers who choose to keep their money in savings accounts of the nation's five largest banks despite receiving nearly 0% in interest. He said he was visiting family in the Phoenix area over the Thanksgiving holiday.
He said he purposely chose to dress casually in shorts and a T-shirt so that customers and bank employees would not mistake him for a salesperson or solicitor. He said he carried business cards in his wallet that identified him as a Wall Street Journal reporter but at the time did not own a press badge.
He said he made an official complaint with the Phoenix Police Department immediately after the incident.
Former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray also wrote a letter dated Dec. 7 to Phoenix Interim Police Chief Michael Sullivan accusing officers of interfering with Rabouin’s "constitutional rights to engage in journalism” and demanding an investigation.
On Dec. 9, Rabouin received a voicemail from Sgt. Kelly Barnes. In the voicemail, which Rabouin shared with The Paste BN Network, Barnes says that the Phoenix Police Department had reviewed body camera video and spoken to bank employees and concluded that "there is nothing that rises to the level of employee misconduct."
Rabouin said the police department has not contacted him to ask questions about his complaint nor provided any information about the status of the investigation the department agreed to conduct after his detention was made public.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating the Phoenix Police Department for several years in relation to claims of abuse, excessive force, discrimination and retaliation against people for conduct protected by the First Amendment, which assures freedom of speech and the press.
Rabouin is one of 15 journalists nationally who were arrested or detained by police in 2022, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Of the 15, 12 — including Rabouin — were detained and then released without being processed, according to the database, which is maintained by Freedom of the Press Foundation and tracks attacks on the media.
In addition to Rabouin, three other journalists were detained by police last year in Arizona. They were all released without being booked. Those three other detentions were all on the same day, according to the database.
On June 25, photojournalist Alberto Mariani, who was working for The Arizona Republic as a Pulliam fellow, was briefly detained by Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers while documenting protests at the Arizona State Capitol after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights under Roe v. Wade, according to the database.
Jack Sorgi and Michael Gonzalez, both with LLN Arizona, which specializes in capturing video of overnight breaking news events, also were detained.
Black journalists 'don't get to relinquish their Blackness'
It's less likely that Rabouin would have been treated as he was if he had been white, said Danielle Brown, a professor of journalism, diversity and equity at the University of Minnesota.
Black people "don't get to relinquish their Blackness just because they own a press pass," Brown said. "I don't think that we ever separate our Blackness from our journalism."
After listening to the 911 recording and watching the body cam video, Brown said the incident reflects both a lack of accountability and a lack of civic education about the role of press freedom in a democracy.
"Situations like this can happen because there are relatively few meaningful consequences for individuals who call 9-1-1 and fabricate a story about someone else" or engage in racist and discriminatory behavior or lack civic education, Brown said in an email. "Not for the bank employee or the police officer or the 9-1-1 operator. Seldom are consequences imposed for this kind of behavior."
The encounter stems from statements that are accepted and passed on uncritically, Brown said.
"A woman, who has not been harassed and has not spoken to a reporter, calls 9-1-1 and provides a hearsay-at-best story to a 9-1-1 operator who believes her," Brown said. "So do police, who arrive on the scene and decide Rabouin could not be believed."
The detention or arrest by police could happen to any journalist and should raise concerns about possible First Amendment violations, Brown said.
But "the glaring issue of race" can’t be separated from this possibility, she said.
"A Black journalist's credentials can’t out-status the reality that Black people are routinely discriminated against, viewed as a threat, and overpoliced. Discriminatory behavior and lack of civic education are a dangerous combination for Black people of all occupations," Brown said.
Rabouin's encounter with Zimmerman is not surprising considering that Black people, and people of color in general, are often treated with suspicion by the police, said author and journalist Wesley Lowery, who has written extensively about race, justice and law enforcement.
"When I watch that interaction, it's hard not to see someone in Dion who's behaving completely reasonably, asking reasonable questions, trying to figure out what's going on, and an armed agent of the state refusing to engage with him in a kind of normal, human way," Lowery said.
In 2014, Lowery was arrested while reporting for The Washington Post on unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal shooting by police of Michael Brown.
"I think that Black reporters very often deal with this in part because they get treated much like Black citizens get treated," Lowery added. "I don't think this is a racial issue in totality, but as a Black reporter who's been out in the field any number of times, we understand that we are not necessarily going to receive this professional courtesy or benefit of the doubt at times that some of our other colleagues might."
Rabouin may have been the victim of unconscious bias by bank employees, who mistook him for a suspicious person because he is Black, and the police officer, who apparently refused to believe at first that he was a journalist, said Maya Ford, founder of FordMomentum!, a communications firm that advocates for communities of color.
She said Rabouin's treatment underscores the need for more training so institutions, including the police, are more culturally informed about the people and communities they serve.
"You need to have people who are actually educated on various concepts of being amongst different types of people," Ford said.
Chase Bank apologized to Rabouin, the bank said in a written statement.
Black journalists, government accountability and the First Amendment
In February, another Black journalist was detained in a high-profile incident.
NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert was pinned to the ground and arrested while covering Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s press conference about the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.
Charges of resisting arrest and criminal trespass against Lambert were later dismissed, and Ohio Attorney General David Yost said Lambert was "lawfully present and doing his job as a reporter," NewsNation reported.
Black reporters are only a small share of U.S. journalists. In the mid-2010s, Black journalists made up about 7% of newsroom employees, even though 11% of U.S. workers at the time were Black, according to Pew Research Center analysis of 2013-2017 census data.
Being a person of color adds an additional layer of complexity to a journalist's job of holding government actors accountable, Lowery said.
"Our job as reporters are to hold the government accountable, and the government doesn't always like that. It doesn't always like when someone stands in front of them and asks questions or pushes back or demands answers," Lowery said. "I think the unique challenge for reporters of color is that they're not only reporters, but they're also people of color. And too often, as we've seen time and time again, people of color aren't treated particularly well by our government, our law enforcement systems."
Brown, the journalism professor, said the targeting of protesters and journalists by police should both be of concern because it can be seen as a suppression of free speech or press freedom.
"The First Amendment is broader than the press and we have seen policing act in ways that have suppressed people's voices for a very long time and journalists are finding themselves in that space as well," Brown said. "And I think that if it happens to one it could happen to all, and that is the threat of not curtailing these power abuses that we have in the United States."
Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. For tips reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-8312. Follow him on Twitter @azdangonzalez.
Reporter Miguel Torres contributed.