Protesters spit on and threaten CBC reporter and camera operator
People blocking a Surrey, B.C. border crossing in protest of COVID-19 public health measures spat on and shoved CBC journalist Dan Burritt and a CBC camera operator on Feb. 19, 2022.
A CTV News video of the incident shows people in the crowd pushing the CBC journalists. In the video, someone can be seen pushing the camera operator from behind, causing the camera to fall, before two people can be seen appearing to spit on the camera operator.
Surrey RCMP were investigating the incident, as well as several others targeting media workers at the protest, said the police department in a statement.
Updated:
On Feb. 15, 2023, Surrey RCMP charged Vojislav Zmukic with assaulting the camera operator.
Zmukic pleaded guilty in June 2024 and was convicted on Dec. 3, 2024; he received a suspended sentence, one year of probation and was ordered to do 50 hours of community service and not come within 100 metres of the CBC camera operator.
In an apology to the camera operator and the CBC which Zmukic submitted to the court, he wrote that he was “extremely remorseful.”
This incident took place during the nearly month-long protest in January and February 2022, which began in Western Canada as an “On to Ottawa” demonstration of truck drivers opposed to vaccination requirements for crossing the Canada-U.S. border. The convoy gathered support from others as protesters drove across the country, arriving in Ottawa on Jan. 28, where police allowed large trucks to occupy the streets around Parliament Hill. Concurrently there were copycat blockade protests at the land border crossings to the U.S. in Windsor, Ont., Emerson, Man., Coutts, Alta. and Vancouver and Surrey, B.C.
Many reporters covering these events were harassed and assaulted by protesters who yelled obscenities, threatened them and accused them of being liars peddling “fake news,” replicating many of the slogans and chants associated with supporters of Donald Trump in the United States. Far-right groups said they hoped the convoy would be “Canada’s Jan. 6,” the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Surrey RCMP said they have begun an investigation into the harassment of the media by conducting interviews with journalists and collecting video about “acts of aggression and intimidation” at a local protest.
After the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, large numbers of police broke up the Ottawa occupation between Feb. 18 and 21, arresting 196 protesters and removing 115 vehicles from the streets near Parliament Hill. Police also broke up blockades across the country during the same period of time.