(WATCH) Body Cam Footage Shows NBC Being Nailed For ‘Following’ Rittenhouse Jury Bus (VIDEO)

This week, the Kenosha Police Department released video footage of a traffic stop of NBC News freelance writer James Joseph Morrison. Morrison was stopped by police for closely following the jury bus from the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

According to the video, the journalist admits that “yes,” he was “following” a car, due to orders he received from New York.  Morrison has “no ties” to the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to an officer who was engaged in the traffic encounter.

The Kenosha Officers Agency told Law & Crime that neither Morrison nor anyone else at NBC was ultimately charged with the crime of jury tampering “because police interrupted any opportunity to do so,” according to the department.

According to camera evidence, an officer approaches Morrison and asks, “Were you following a vehicle?” According to a police report, the reporter was only a few blocks away from the unmarked bus.

Footage from Law & Crime show how some of the interaction takes place:

“I was trying to see — I was being called by New York, going, maybe these are people you need to follow, but I, I don’t know,” Morrison said.

“I was trying to . . .”

He trailed off.

“You was trying to what?” an officer asked.

“Just do what they told me to do,” Morrison responded.

“New York told you to follow a vehicle?” the officer asked.

“Yes.”

Morrison was soon confronted with the question of who had instructed him to follow the vehicle. He dials the phone number of a woman called Irene Byron, who works as a booking producer at NBC, and instructs the officer to speak with her. The following is a portion of Byron’s explanation concerning the reporter who was following the vehicle:

Um, we — we — we were just trying to respectfully, um, just trying to see if it’s, um, if it’s possible to, um, to try and get any leads about — um — about the, the case, and so we were, we, uh, we were just keeping our distance, um, just to see, like, where, um, peop — people involved in — in the — in the trial, um, are positioned. By no means were we trying to get in contact with any of — any of the jury members or whoever’s in the car. We just were, um, trying to see, like, where, um, where key players in the trial may be at.

When the officer inquires as to whether Morrison has any personal links to Kenosha, the reporter responds that he “loves” the city and goes on to discuss his reporting. The officer ignored his vague response and declares he “has no ties” to Kenosha.

Last month, the Wisconsin judge supervising Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial, Judge Bruce Schroeder, banned MSNBC from the courtroom as a result of this incident.

“The jury, in this case, is being transported from a different location in a bus with the windows covered so that they aren’t exposed to any signs by one side or another or interests in the case, so I’m going to call it a sealed bus, and that’s been done every day and they’re brought here to this building,” the judge explained the courtroom.

“Police, when they stopped him because he was following at a distance of about a block and went through a red light, pulled him over and inquired of him what was going on. He gave that information and stated that he had been instructed … to follow the jury bus,” Schroeder added.

Judge Schroeder just announced that MSNBC is now banned from the courthouse after a person identifying himself as a producer was stopped following the jury bus last night. It is being investigated by police. pic.twitter.com/bbOxYDoKT4

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 18, 2021

Stay tuned to The Scoop for any updates.