Andrea Sahouri, a reporter for the Des Moines Register, testified on Tuesday, reporting the incident in which a police officer sprayed pepper and arrested her while she covered a racial justice protest last year.
As the Associated Press reports, Sahouri told jurors that he was fleeing a scene in which tear gas was fired to disperse protesters when he saw a policeman attacking her, causing her to raise her hands.
“I was not doing anything wrong,” said Sahouri, according to the AP. “I said, ‘I am the press, I am the press’. He grabbed me, sprayed me with pepper spray and said, ‘That’s not what I asked’ ”.
Spenser Robnett, Sahouri’s boyfriend at the time of his arrest, also testified on Tuesday in AP reports. He told the court that after seeing Sahouri being sprayed with pepper, he went ahead to inform the police officer, Officer Luke Wilson, that she was a reporter who had just received pepper spray.
Images from the body camera were also shown during the trial in which Sahouri may be seen temporarily blind and in pain, while repeatedly telling police officers that he was a reporter.
“This is my job,” Sahouri told one of the officers. “I’m just doing my job. I’m a journalist.”
Both Sahouri and Robnett face misdemeanor charges for non-dispersion and interference with official acts, possibly resulting in fines and imprisonment. Both also testified that they did not hear the order to disperse and decided to continue reporting what she described as a historic moment.
“It is important that journalists are on the scene and document what is going on,” she said, according to the AP.
According to the AP, Judge Lawrence McLellan denied a decision on the defense’s acquittal request, although he could issue a decision on Wednesday.
During his testimony on Monday, Wilson said he decided to arrest Sahouri after she did not leave the scene.
“After determining that she was not leaving, I had to act,” said Wilson. He stated during the interrogation that he also decided to accuse her of interference after she pulled her left arm while he was arresting her, a detail he acknowledged he had not included in his report.
Wilson did not turn on the body camera, mistakenly believing that it was already on. The AP notes that law enforcement officers who fail to capture significant incidents are required to tell supervisors who may be able to recover the footage. Wilson said he didn’t do that.