BBC cameraman ‘violently pushed ’ by belligerent man at Trump rally

A belligerent man at President Donald Trump’s campaign rally on the Texas border apparently attacked news crews, shoving and swearing at a photojournalist from the BBC, according to reports and a spokeswoman for the network.

The BBC said cameraman Ron Skeans was “violently pushed and shoved by a member of the crowd” while covering the rally Monday night in El Paso, about a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border. BBC spokeswoman Charlotte Morgan said in a statement Tuesday to the Washington Post: “The man was removed by security, and Ron is fine. The president could see the incident and checked with us that all was OK.”

“It is clearly unacceptable for any of our staff to be attacked for doing their job,” she added.

It is unclear if the man, who has not been publicly identified, will be charged.

As the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and others reported, Trump spoke for about 75 minutes Monday, attempting “to paint an image of crime and lawlessness on the border while claiming falsely that violent crime went down in El Paso after a wall was built.”

When asked about the incident during Monday night’s rally, Michael Glassner, who leads the Trump campaign, said in a statement to the Post that “An individual involved in a physical altercation with a news cameraman was removed from last night’s rally.”

“We appreciate the swift action from venue security and law enforcement officers,” he added.

Skeans, the cameraman, told BBC News that he did not see the man in the crowd coming at him, but he felt a “very hard shove” that almost knocked him down.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

Video that appeared to be from Skeans’s camera showed it falling toward the ground. Seconds later, when the picture was restored, a man in a red Make America Great Again hat could be seen being restrained as he shouted, “(Expletive) the media!”

BBC Washington correspondent Gary O’Donoghue wrote on Twitter that the man jumped onto the media platform, “tried to smash our camera” and shoved Skeans.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the U.S. news media, labeling journalists the “enemy of the American people” and calling much of their coverage of him “fake news.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement Tuesday that said Trump “condemns all acts of violence against any individual or group of people — including members of the press.”