George Floyd protests spread nationwide

CNN journalist Josh Campbell is also on the ground in Minneapolis, not far from where CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his team were arrested by officers early this morning. They have since been released.

Speaking to Campbell earlier, CNN anchor John Berman pointed out that Jimenez is black and latino, and Campbell is white, though he said he did not know whether race played a factor in Jimenez’s arrest. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the arrest unacceptable and totally inadvertent.

The Minnesota State Patrol released this statement on Twitter: "In the course of clearing the streets and restoring order at Lake Street and Snelling Avenue, four people were arrested by State Patrol troopers, including three members of a CNN crew. The three were released once they were confirmed to be members of the media."

​CNN broadcast shows Jimenez clearly ​displaying his CNN badge before he was restrained.

Laura Coates, CNN's legal analyst, said the arrest of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez is "why people don't have faith in what might happen in Hennepin County."

Jimenez, who identifies as both black and Latino, was arrested early on Friday while reporting live on the protests in Minneapolis. Coates pointed out that Josh Campbell, another CNN journalist on the ground in Minneapolis, was treated very differently.

Coates added: "Four officers who were involved in the killing of an unarmed black man whose body was on the street and handcuffed behind his back, they have not been arrested since Monday or charged with any crime. Omar Jimenez shows a credential, a camera is running, his crew and producers are saying who they are and they were arrested sooner. Optically, this is why people don't have faith in what might happen in county."

CNN reporter Oscar Jimenez's journalism career began roughly eight years ago.

Jimenez, whose mother is black and father identifies as Colombian, worked in Baltimore at WBAL-TV before joining CNN in 2017.

In Maryland, he covered the trials for the officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, was the lead story on the station's Emmy award-winning special on opioids, and published pieces on opioid influence in the state and the fight against child sex trafficking.

Jimenez first worked with CNN's Newsource, based in Washington, DC.

While at Newsource, Jimenez reported from the ground in Paris in the aftermath of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, from Las Vegas just hours after the mass shooting there, the deadliest in modern American history and from Florida and Texas during the 2017 hurricanes.

He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he also played on the varsity men's basketball team. While in school, Jimenez was also an intern with CNN.

Learn more about Jimenez's career below:

CNN's reporter Omar Jimenez, who was released from custody in the past few minutes after he was earlier arrested live on air, said he was comforted by the fact that at least people could see what was happening.

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew have been released from police custody.

Jimenez, along with producer Bill Kirkos and photojournalist Leonel Mendez, were arrested shortly after 6 a.m. ET live on CNN air, while reporting on the protests in Minneapolis.

The team was released from the Hennepin County Public Safety facility in downtown Minneapolis just a few minutes ago. 

CNN president Jeff Zucker spoke with the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz on Friday morning, following the arrest of CNN's team in Minneapolis,

Walz said he "deeply apologizes" for what happened and is working to have the CNN team released immediately.

Walz described the arrests as "unacceptable," said CNN's team clearly has the right to be there, and said he wants the media to be in Minnesota to cover the protests.

Watch:

A CNN crew has been taken to custody amid protests in Minneapolis early on Friday morning.

Here is how the situation unfolded:

At 5:09 a.m. local time, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez was reporting live on an arrest happening in the area near a city police department precinct that protesters had burned and officers had abandoned overnight.

About a block away, a fire was burning at a different, four-story building that had contained restaurants. He was standing in front of a long line of police officers in riot gear.

Shortly after his crew captured the arrest on camera, the police officers moved towards Jimenez and his crew, asking them to move.

Jimenez told the officers he and his three colleagues were part of the same CNN crew and calmly identified himself with his CNN identification card.

Jimenez was then heard as telling the officers:

At 5:11 a.m., two officers in riot gear stepped up to Jimenez and said "you are under arrest."

Jimenez calmly asked why was he under arrest.

"Why am I under arrest, sir?"

He was then handcuffed and led away by the police, as the camera kept rolling.

Shortly after that, CNN photojournalist Leonel Mendez who was with Jimenez said he and the rest of the crew were also being arrested.

The camera then showed Jimenez's producer Bill Kirkos being handcuffed taken into custody.

Shortly after that, the camera, which was still rolling, was taken away from the crew.

Charles Ramsey, a veteran police chief who led departments in Philadelphia and Washington, DC and who now serves as a CNN law enforcement analyst, said the arrest of the CNN crew in Minneapolis "did not make any sense."

"The state police are going to have a lot to answer for with this arrest here," he said. "He's standing there, he identified himself. You can see his credentials. Just move him to where you want him to be."

Ramsey added that the there was "no way something like that should occur."

"I don't know where the person in command of that platoon is. But that's an individual who is definitely not taking charge," he added.

Watch:

CNN has criticized the arrest of one of its teams on the ground in Minneapolis in a tweet this morning, and called for their release.