Professor charged with assault, summoned to appear in court

Davis Beatty
Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:29:19 +0000
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Frames from the video of Ohio State assistant professor Luke Perez grappling a local cameraman after president emeritius Gordon Gee visited a Chase Center course Monday. Credit: Courtesy of DJ Byrnes, The Rooster

The Ohio State professor caught on video tackling a journalist was served a summons on a charge of assault Friday.

Luke Perez, an assistant professor at the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society, was officially notified that he must appear in court, according to Ben Johnson, university spokesperson, in an email.

On Monday, Perez was seen on video tackling Mike Newman, an independent documentarian, in a hallway at Smith Laboratory. The viral video was recorded by DJ Byrnes, who runs a local Substack-based newsletter, “The Rooster.”

Neither Newman nor Byrnes is under investigation, Johnson said.

Former Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee was in Smith Laboratory to speak in Perez’s class, Profiles in American Leadership. After the guest lecture, Gee was approached by Newman and Byrnes, per prior Lantern reporting.

The two men, unaffiliated with one another, were both attempting to interview Gee following his guest lecture. Byrnes was able to ask questions, but Gee ended the interview before Newman was able to ask any questions of his own.

According to prior Lantern reporting, the situation escalated as Newman was attempting to continue the interview when Perez stepped in front of Newman to block him from approaching Gee.

Perez then struck Newman’s camera and wrestled Newman to the ground.

The Lantern requested the incident report from the university on Wednesday and will update this article when it is obtained.