A Conversation With the Reporter Who Was Arrested for Asking a Question

By Kaitlin Menza, Esquire

11 May 17

 

Dan Heyman was charged with "willful disruption of governmental processes" in West Virginia.

ournalist Dan Heyman was arrested Tuesday at the West Virginia state capitol after approaching Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kellyanne Conway, special counsel to the President. Heyman was charged with willful disruption of government processes, a misdemeanor under state law. After several hours in jail, he was released late Tuesday night. Heyman woke up Wednesday morning and spoke with Esquire by phone, noting his exhaustion but claiming to be physically unharmed.

"I was not roughed up at all," Heyman said. "They kind of pulled me around and put the handcuffs on me and did that kind of stuff, but I didn't get hit, I didn't get tased, any of that." He spent the free time chatting with his fellow inmates. I was fairly confident that I wasn't going to be there for a long time, so it was an opportunity for me to experience something very different. The guy I was talking to said, 'I thought I'd be out in a day! It's been a month.' That was somewhat concerning, when I heard him say that." On his way out, one inmate asked Heyman for his extra pair of jail-issued socks, to which he obliged.

On Tuesday, Heyman heard about Secretary Price's visit to the capitol to discuss the opioid crisis, and stationed himself in a long corridor. "I just decided it was an opportunity to go down and try to get some information from the horse's mouth, as it were," Heyman said. Like every other person who enters the capitol building, he went through a metal detector and was cleared for entry.

"I stood there and Secretary Price came in, and I started an audio recording on my phone, and held out my phone to him to try to get close enough to get his comments. I asked him the question of whether domestic violence would be a pre-existing condition that could result in the denial of insurance under Trumpcare. And he didn't say anything, kept walking," Heyman said. "So I asked him again and walked along with him on this corridor. At one point I sort of was moving through the entourage behind him, and somebody said, 'Stay back, get away.'" Heyman kept going.

"I moved to the other side of the hallway, keeping up with this group as it moved to get another shot at asking this question. I think I asked him a total of three or four times. At some point, I was pulled aside by the capitol police," he said. "I want to make clear—if you're a daily reporter, I'm sure you've been involved in scrum situations where you're trying to ask somebody a question. It was pretty much exactly like that. I was reaching over or between people, sort of leaning into the group, to try to get my cell phone close to him. But I wasn't trying to get past people."

A spokesperson for the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety says Heyman crossed a line in terms of persistence. "As we believe the criminal complaint explains, this is not a matter of simply trying to ask questions," said Lawrence Messina, also of the department. "This individual physically tried to push his way past Secret Service agents who were here to provide for the safety and security of this event in the state capitol." Messina noted that Price held an event for reporters. "This individual could have attended that press conference. The other reporters here did attend it and I presume were able to ask their questions there."

He continued:

"[West Virginia capitol police] witnessed this individual physically trying to get past the Secret Service agents repeatedly, and I think the complaint speaks to this. The agents actually pushed him away, and maybe more than once," he said. "They were basically seeing him—I think the phrasing in the complaint is 'breach'— the Secret Service detail that was escorting Secretary Price and Miss Conway. And when they witnessed this, they stepped in."

But why was Heyman formally arrested, rather than simply removed from the area?

"That was a decision made by the capitol police based on their knowledge of the law and what they witnessed," Messina said. "I believe that they concluded this individual had crossed a line."

Heyman was released on $5,000 bail and faces a $100 fine and a maximum of six months in prison for the misdemeanor.

"This particular charge is really broad in its language," said Heyman's lawyer, Tim DiPiero. "'A person who willfully interrupts or molests the peaceful process of a division or agency or branch of state government.' I don't know what process was going on when these two federal employees are walking the halls of the state capitol, but it seems to me that the guy's just doing his job, and in the process of doing his job, he winds up in an orange jumpsuit. These things aren't supposed to happen in a democracy like the United States. It's just not what we stand for."

DiPiero and his client are still weighing their legal options. "Obviously we are going to defend the criminal charges. As far as anything else, it's too early to speculate on that," DiPiero said.

In a statement, the ACLU of West Virginia said of Heyman's charge: "What President Trump's administration is forgetting, and what the Capitol Police forgot today, is that the government works for us. Today was a dark day for democracy. But the rule of law will prevail."

Meanwhile, the reporter in question is looking for a nap.

"I guess I'm at the center of a topical heat wave. I'm kind of… well, you're a reporter, you know, sometimes this gets to be a pretty frantic business. There's a certain amount of that. The fame, I could take it or leave it. It comes with the territory, I guess," Heyman said.

"It's hard to say exactly what the impact of this arrest will be," he said. "There is an antipathy right now against reporters that's been created and I don't think it's healthy. It's a concern, let's put it that way."