Following up on our earlier article about the Secret Service agent who choked and body-slammed White House photographer Chris Morris at a Donald Trump rally today, Morris has released the following statement:

“I’ve worked for nine years at the White House and have never had an altercation with the Secret Service. What happened today was very unfortunate and unexpected. The rules at Trump events are significantly stricter than other campaigns and make it very difficult to work as a photographer, as many others have pointed out before me. I regret my role in the confrontation, but the agent’s response was disproportionate and unnecessarily violent. I hope this incident helps call attention to the challenges of press access.”

And here’s another view of the violent incident, just posted on Twitter:

Here’s new angle of the Time photographer being slammed to ground. https://t.co/GD6sLpB1bP (via @Maddie_Marshall) pic.twitter.com/JZ6qKFYfns

— Tim Hanrahan (@TimJHanrahan) February 29, 2016

It still amazes me — and not in a good way — that the media have allowed Donald Trump to pen them in like sheep. Journalists should have refused to continue covering his events en masse when he demanded this absurd restriction. But then, they would have lost their big election season money-maker.