New Jersey police sergeant charged with stealing AP photographer’s camera bag

A protest scene turned into a press-safety case when AP photojournalist Angelina Katsanis lost her camera bag during clashes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, then watched its AirTag trace the gear far from the detention center and into a New Jersey police sergeant’s orbit.

Katsanis was covering unrest outside the ICE facility on May 30 when she was struck by a wooden beam, described as a 2-by-4, during confrontations between police and demonstrators. She left her bag behind while she went for medical treatment. When she returned in a wheelchair to recover her equipment, the bag was gone. The camera bag and contents were estimated at $10,000.

The missing gear became the focus of a criminal case against Darryl J. Brown, 43, of Sparta Township in Sussex County. New Jersey authorities said Brown, an Essex County sergeant, was suspended without pay and charged with third-degree theft of property valued at more than $500. That charge carries a possible three- to five-year prison sentence, and coverage has put the maximum fine at either $10,000 or $15,000.

Investigators said the AirTag inside Katsanis’s bag helped track the equipment, and body-worn camera footage also tied Brown to the scene. A search of his home reportedly recovered several missing items, including pieces marked with Katsanis’s name and phone number. The attorney general’s office said the evidence connected the gear directly to Brown.

The theft allegation landed in the middle of a volatile protest campaign outside Delaney Hall, where activists had gathered since late May over claims that immigrants inside were mistreated, denied medical care and served rotten, worm-riddled food. State and Newark health inspectors were reportedly denied full access to the facility. After a May 26 visit, U.S. Sen. Andy Kim said he witnessed “chaos inside and outside” the detention center. Over the weekend of the protest, at least 60 demonstrators were arrested.

For working photographers, the case is a hard reminder that the danger in a protest zone does not end when the picture is made. A bag left for medical care can become a lost bag, a lost bag can become evidence, and a simple ownership marker, from a phone number tag to an AirTag, can be the thread that brings a missing kit back into view.