CNN Reporter Knocked By Protestor During Live Shot

A CNN reporter was knocked over by a protester while reporting live from the scene of violent protests in Charlotte on Wednesday.

According to The Daily Mail, National reporter Ed Lavandera was speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper on camera at 9.16pm about how the crowd had turned violent when a man in a white shirt and dreadlocks ran into him, causing him to fall to the ground.

'Ed, are you OK?' Anderson asked. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're fine, Anderson, we're fine,' Lavandera told Cooper. 'It's just someone taking out their frustrations on me.'

'If you need to leave that location Ed that's fine just let us know?,' Anderson said.

'Yeah we're just figuring out what to do here,' Lavandera replied.


At 10:03pm he came back on air and explained what happened.

'We were just doing the report and I didn't see it coming. All I heard was someone yelling at me that I needed to "tell the truth" and the next thing you know I got kind of blindsided,' Lavandera said.

He said he tried to find the man who assaulted him but didn't know what he looked like.

'There was a guy that came up to me a few moments ago and told me he was the one who knocked me out.

'I didn't see the guy and he came up to me and actually hugged me and apologized for what he had done.