Crusading journalist, 12, stands firm amid jail threat

Marshal rails against ‘freedom of press stuff ’

When a small-town Arizona officer stopped a 12-year-old reporter who was chasing down a story tip on Monday, he probably had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Hilde Lysiak, the preteen journalist whose exploits have inspired a Scholastic book series and an upcoming TV show, made a name for herself in 2016 by being the first to report on a grisly murder in her hometown, then firing back at critics who suggested that a nine-year-old girl shouldn’t be hanging around crime scenes. Since then, she has continued to break news about bank robberies, alleged rapes and other lurid crimes in the Orange Street News, the paper she publishes out of her parents’ home in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.

“NOTE TO DEALERS: OSN Will Not Be Intimidated,” she wrote last month after reportedly receiving threats because she had published text message exchanges between an alleged drug dealer and a woman whom he had reportedly solicited for sex.

So naturally, she didn’t back down when Joseph Patterson, the town marshal in Patagonia, Arizona, allegedly threatened to throw her in juvenile jail on Monday, then falsely claimed it would be illegal for her to film him and publish the video on the internet. Instead, she posted their exchange on YouTube and in the Orange Street News — which in turn prompted town officials to discipline Patterson, as the Nogales ( Arizona) International newspaper was the first to report on Wednesday.

On Feb 14, Lysiak, whose father is also a journalist, broke the news that one resident had spotted a mountain lion roaming around Patagonia, a town of fewer than 1,000 people nestled in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains. That evidently irked Patterson, who “took exception” to her attempts to chase down the story, the International reported. “We’re trying to keep people away from there,” he told the paper on Tuesday when asked about the sighting.

In the Orange Stree t News, Lysiak wrote that she was riding her bike to investigate a tip at around 1: 30 p.m. on Monday when Patterson, whose position in the small town is equivalent to that of a police chief, stopped her and asked for identification.

The 12-year-old gave her name and phone number and mentioned that she was a member of the media. She said Patterson told her: “I don’t want to hear about any of that freedom-of-the-press stuff ” and added that he would have her arrested and thrown in juvenile jail.

Later, Lysiak ran into Patterson again. This time, she was filming.

“You stopped me earlier and you said that I can be thrown in juvie,” she can be heard asking in the video. “What exactly am I doing that’s illegal?”

From the seat of his white Chevy Silverado truck, Patterson started to reply, then interrupted himself. “You taping me?” he asked. “You can tape me, OK, but what I’m going to tell you is if you put my face on the internet, it’s against the law in Arizona.”

There is no such law. Recording a law enforcement officer in a public place is protected under the First Amendment, as Lysiak noted when she posted the video online later that day.

While Lysiak sat on her bike, Patterson told her that he had noticed her following him around town while he responded to urgent calls. “Yeah, so how is that illegal?” the young reporter countered. The marshal told her that he didn’t want her to be harmed by the mountain lion that had been spotted, and he accused her of disobeying his commands and lying to him when she said she was headed to a friend’s house, which she disputed. Finally, he told her, “I’ll be getting a hold of your parents,” and drove off.

By early Friday morning, the YouTube video had been viewed more than 22,000 times, and hundreds of people had left comments calling Lysiak a “hero” and expressing outrage at Patterson’s false claim that it would be against the law for her to film him.

“Clearly, he is clueless about your constitutional rights to report the news,” one supporter wrote. Another fan, writing on the Orange Street News’s Facebook page, said that Lysiak was owed an apology. Meanwhile, a popular Texasbased YouTube account reposted her footage and added Patterson’s phone number, suggesting that anyone who was equally incensed should give him a call. (Lysiak later requested that people refrain from posting the marshal’s contact information online.)

A notice posted on the town of Patagonia’s website on Wednesday said that officials had received “many comments” about Patterson’s confrontation with Lysiak. “The matter has been carefully reviewed and we have taken action we believe to be appropriate for the situation,” the statement said. “We do not publicly disclose personnel actions including discipline and will have no further comment on this matter.”

WHAT EXACTLY AM I DOING THAT’S ILLEGAL?