John Abernathy, a photographer from Minneapolis, was flat on the ground. He had the knees of at least one federal officer on his back. He heard someone shouting to put his hands behind his back, but his arms were half pinned beneath him. He was surrounded by dozens of officers deploying something ― tear gas, he thinks ― that made it hard to see or breathe. He felt like he could puke or pass out.
He feared what might happen if federal agents got hold of his equipment. So when he locked eyes with another photographer, he took his camera ― a Leica M10-R with a 28-millimeter lens ― and threw it, pitching his cellphone away from him shortly after.
Photographer John Abernathy says he tossed his camera to Pierre Lavie so it wouldn’t be confiscated by federal officers.
Pierre Lavie, a fellow photojournalist, snatched the Leica by the strap and brought it close to his body. As he reached for Abernathy’s phone, which had only traveled a couple of feet, a federal officer repeatedly tried to stomp on it.
“I had to Hungry Hippo my hand in and out to avoid my hand getting stepped on, and I managed to finally grab it and get it away,” Lavie told HuffPost…