Two reporters who cover the New York Police Department had their access to the agency’s headquarters temporarily revoked on Thursday, a day after federal agents seized the phone of the city’s police commissioner, Edward A. Caban.
Police officials told the reporters, Tina Moore, The New York Post’s police bureau chief, and Maria Cramer, the police bureau chief for The New York Times, they were being punished for contacting police unions for assistance in interviewing department employees.
Ms. Moore was escorted from the room used by reporters at 1 Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan Thursday evening. The move came hours after news broke that Commissioner Caban was among several top city officials involved in an unspecified federal investigation. It was unclear whether the two developments were related.
The actions deepened the tensions between police leaders and the reporters who cover them. Last December, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams decided to move reporters to a trailer outside Police Headquarters under a plan that news outlets denounced.
Top police officials have used social media to criticize journalists, and a police leader confronted a reporter from The New York Daily News and berated him for his news coverage.
Craig McCarthy, the The Post’s City Hall bureau chief, wrote on social media on Thursday that Tarik Sheppard, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner of public information, had used an expletive and called Mr. McCarthy a “scumbag” after he contacted a police official about the federal investigation.
Police officials declined on Friday to directly address the actions taken against the reporters, but described the access given to them as a “privilege to experience the proximity to N.Y.P.D. personnel and events,” and said that reporters were expected to “maintain high ethical and moral standards at all times.”
Ms. Cramer said she got a phone call Thursday evening from Carlos Nieves, an assistant police commissioner, informing her that her identification card, which provides access to certain areas at Police Headquarters, was being invalidated until Sept. 16.
Mr. Nieves told Ms. Cramer that she had violated rules requiring her not to go around the police press office to request interviews with department employees.
Ms. Cramer said she had contacted the lieutenants’ union to request an interview with a member for an article, adding that she had never agreed not to do so.
Mr. McCarthy posted on social media that Ms. Moore had been escorted out of the office because she contacted the Police Benevolent Association in connection with an article related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ms. Moore confirmed his account.
On Friday, Ms. Moore was allowed to return to the press office at headquarters. She declined to speculate on the reason for the department’s change of heart. As of Friday afternoon, Ms. Cramer’s status was unchanged.
“The Times has not yet received a suitable explanation for this action, and any suggestion that our reporter behaved unethically is false,” a Times spokesman, Charlie Stadtlander, said in a statement. “This restriction to a free and independent press is concerning, and we look forward to further explanation from the N.Y.P.D., including the full reversal of this revocation.”
On Wednesday, federal agents seized the phones of five top Adams administration officials, including Mr. Caban. The phones of several other department officials, including Mr. Caban’s chief of staff and two Queens precinct commanders, were also seized. The nature of the investigation, by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, is unclear.
Political observers have been stunned by police officials’ aggressive behavior toward reporters. Chris Coffey, a Democratic political strategist, said it was not wise for police leaders to target The Post, which has been kinder to Mr. Adams in its coverage than is typical with Democratic mayors.
“Not only is it beneath who we are as New Yorkers, and something out of a petty dictatorship, it’s also bad communications and political strategy,” Mr. Coffey said of removing the two reporters.
When reporters were moved from 1 Police Plaza to the trailer, they were asked to sign a two-page agreement called “N.Y.P.D. Media Center Regulations” that included guidelines about which areas of Police Headquarters were considered off-limits to reporters.
The rules did not mention restrictions on contacting unions for interviews. They did include a warning that “abusing the privilege of utilizing free office space inside 1 Police Plaza” could result in the revocation of access for a reporter or news outlet.
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