Price did not answer the question, and Heyman, who was wearing a press badge as well as a shirt with the Public News Service logo, said he was physically pulled aside by state police and arrested - without any warning from officers. The capitol police criminal complaint explains that Heyman was moving aggressively past the secret service agents, forcing them to remove him a couple of times.
But someone forgot to tell Dan Heyman, a veteran reporter who works with the scrappy Public News Service project that seeks to keep reporting alive in state capitols around the country.
On Tuesday, Heyman heard about Secretary Price's visit to the capitol to discuss the opioid crisis, and stationed himself in a long corridor. However, the Public News Service reporter insisted on having an answer.
"This is my job, this is what I'm supposed to do", Heyman said in a news conference Tuesday after being released from jail. Messina said Heyman "repeatedly tried to push his way past Secret Service agents". Price declined to answer, and Heyman's questions were silenced when West Virginia police arrested him for "willful disruption of government processes". On the recording, Mr. Heyman says he was in a public space at the time, but Lieutenant Johnson counters that it was not a public area when Mr. Heyman was getting into the space of the Secret Service agents. The charge carries a penalty of up to six months in prison and a $100 fine.
Kristen O'Sullivan, a breast cancer survivor from Athens, West Virginia, was among a small group in the hallway hoping to talk to Price about the health care overhaul.
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However, an administration official told the Washington Post that White House rooms are "swept routinely" for listening devices. He is at the center of a series of questions about contacts between Trump's inner circle and the Russian government.
Heyman's arrest also caught the attention of the West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose legal director, Jamie Lynn Crofts, told ABC News that the organization stands ready to throw the weight of its office behind Heyman because they view his arrest as a troubling sign of a trickle-down effect. Time. If attempting to get close to a politician to ask a question is criminalized, then a journalistic practice that is as old as the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is finished.
As the secretary was passing through a corridor toward the state capitol building, Heyman repeatedly asked whether the new GOP healthcare bill would treat domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. "And he didn't say anything, kept walking", Heyman said.
The police didn't immediately read him his Miranda Rights, he added, because they said were not asking him questions.
"We just don't understand why he got arrested", he said.
Today, AP employs the latest technology to collect and distribute content - we have daily uploads covering the latest and breaking news in the world of politics, sport and entertainment. He stated that he could not remember how many times he asked the question, but maintains that he received no warning before his arrest. But the rule of law will prevail. "I believe that they concluded this individual had crossed a line", he said.
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