After three weeks of silence and blocking enquiring reporters, American Urban Radio Network White House reporter and CNN analyst April Ryan finally addressed the videotaped incident at the beginning of August when her bodyguard, after being seen conferring with Ryan as stood on stage, took a video camera from a reporter filming Ryan speaking at a New Jersey charity event and then attacked the reporter in the lobby of the hotel venue, forcibly ejecting him out of the hotel. Ryan said she did not order “anyone to do anything” and that her bodyguard was “concerned for my safety.”
Ryan said she has since fired the guard and the security company.
The reporter who was attacked, New Brunswick Today founder and editor Charlie Kratovil, had received permission from the organizer and PR firms to attend and cover the August 3 event Ryan spoke at, the New Jersey Parent Summit held at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, New Jersey, according to documents he posted after the attack. However, Ryan claimed that she was not asked if Kratovil could record her speech, saying such permissions were in her contract.
Kratovil filed charges against the bodyguard, Joel Morris, who, according to CNN, faces a court date on September 12.
Ryan appeared Sunday morning via remote video from her Baltimore home on CNN’s Reliable Source’s hosted by Brian Stelter, who treated Ryan with kid gloves throughout the interview, even allowing Ryan to play the victim.
Ryan’s appearance was ghastly, the front lighting of her home computer screen on her face combined with the on-edge emotionalism of the potentially career-wrecking incident combined to portray Ryan in a bad light.
Ryan told Stelter she waited so long to speak out because a fear of lawsuits from the incident, but that her attorney had said she could speak. What may have also prompted Ryan to speak now was a scathing column by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple published Thursday challenging Ryan and CNN to speak out on the incident.
Ryan told CNN she had fired the bodyguard and the security company, noting that the guard had broken protocol by leaving the room, thereby leaving Ryan unprotected. That does not explain why the guard felt it was his duty to remove the camera from the room.
The Hollywood Reporter reported a year ago that Ryan said she hired security with her own money over alleged death threats from her coverage of the Trump administration.
Video of Ryan’s appearance:
CNN political analyst @AprilDRyan breaks her silence after her former bodyguard allegedly assaulted a journalist attending one of her speaking events. “I did not order anyone to do anything,” Ryan says. pic.twitter.com/iLxYDeblZp
— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) August 25, 2019
New Brunswick Today video of Ryan’s bodyguard taking reporter Kratovil’s camera:
Hotel security video posted by New Brunswick Today.
Kratovil told New Jersey 101.5 reporter Sergio Bichao after Ryan’s interview that he has not threatened a lawsuit and was disappointed Ryan did not apologize.
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