Man accused of assaulting journalist at a Seattle ICE protest in June arrested by SPD

The man accused of attacking an independent journalist during a demonstration in Seattle protesting ICE is now in police custody.

According to The Center Square, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) arrested 33-year-old Jeremy Lawson Wednesday after he allegedly assaulted Cam Higby last month while he was covering a protest near the federal building.

Higby, a journalist and host for the conservative news outlet Today is America, told KOMO News he’s still recovering from a concussion that sent him to the ER on June 14. His injuries would have been even worse if he hadn’t been wearing a protective helmet while covering the demonstration.

Ten days after the attack, Seattle Police forwarded a recommended felony assault charge against Lawson to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Nearly a month later, SPD confirmed that Lawson was arrested just as he was about to float down a river in Sultan. Lawson has now been booked for felony assault.

Cam Higby concussed while covering protest

Higby was in downtown Seattle when he was attacked, leaving him bloodied, bruised, and concussed. He was able to identify at least one of the alleged attackers.

“I hadn’t been recording for a while, and three dudes come running at me, ‘Hey, Cam, it’s time for you to leave.’ And then, next thing I know, there’s more hands than I can count on the visor of my gas mask. I can’t see anything,” Higby explained on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. “They’re trying to unscrew the filter on my gas mask. At one point, they hold me down. I’m in a headlock. They’re choking me. And this guy comes up and he punches me in the head twice. He then kicks me in the face. I pull out pepper spray, deploy it in his face, and then he cries like a baby for the next 10 minutes.”

A visit to urgent care confirmed he was concussed. Higby said he’s lucky to be alive. He noted that the attacker was wearing SAP gloves, which can be filled with steel shot to make the punches more damaging.

Higby was disappointed but not shocked by the lack of media coverage of the attack. He knows the coverage would have been different if the assailants were conservatives.

“You have an obligation as a journalist to cover what’s happening in this city, even if you don’t agree with the people who are being attacked,” Higby said in a message to Seattle media members.

Higby criticized The Seattle Times, in particular, for ignoring the downtown Seattle violence.

“It’s just it’s extremely alarming to me that nobody picks this up,” he said.

Higby alleged to The Center Square that he has continued to receive threatening text messages from unknown accounts, believing they were coming from Lawson.

The date of Lawson’s first court appearance has yet to be determined, as of this reporting.

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