IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – A policeman testified on Monday that he arrested a journalist at an undisciplined Black Lives Matter protest last year in Iowa after she didn’t leave when he repeatedly shot clouds of pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Des Moines officer Luke Wilson said he was unaware that Andrea Sahouri was a reporter for the Des Moines Register when he responded to a chaotic scene in which protesters were breaking shop windows and throwing stones and water bottles at police outside the Merle Hay mall on May 31.
Wilson said he sprayed the chemical irritant from a device known as a nebulizer to clean a commercial parking lot and that it worked by spreading the rest of the group, including Sahouri’s then boyfriend, Spenser Robnett. But he said Sahouri stood still despite the spray, which can cause a burning sensation and temporary blindness.
“After determining that she wasn’t leaving, I had to act,” testified Wilson, adding that he still didn’t know who she was.
Wilson, who was wearing a shock helmet and gas mask, said he came over and grabbed Sahouri with his left hand, while still holding the nebulizer with his right. He said he threw more pepper spray when Robnett returned and tried to get Sahouri out of his custody, hitting them both at close range.
Wilson testified on the first day of trial for Sahouri and Robnett on charges of misdemeanor for non-dispersion and interference with official acts. Prosecutors continued their case, despite local, national and international pressure abandon the rare effort to punish a reporter who works.
If convicted, they would be fined hundreds of dollars and have a criminal record. A judge can also face up to 30 days in prison on each charge, although this is unusual.
Defenders of journalism and human rights in the United States and abroad pressured Iowa officials to drop the charges, arguing that Sahouri was simply doing his job in documenting the noteworthy event. Iowa Democrats criticized one of their own, John Sarcone, a longtime Polk County attorney, for taking the case forward.
The two are being tried in court at Drake University in Des Moines as part of an exclusive program that allows first-year law students to observe real judgments. The university is broadcasting process, which is expected to last two days. A six-member jury was formed in the middle of the day and heard the prosecution’s opening statements and depositions on Monday. The trial will resume on Tuesday.
The US Press Freedom Tracker has not recorded any other trial of journalists active in the country since 2018. Sahouri was among more than 125 reporters detained or imprisoned during the civil unrest that unfolded in the U.S. in 2020. Thirteen, including Sahouri, still face process although most of the prisoners have not been charged or their charges have been dismissed, the group says.
Employees at the Gannett newspaper chain, which owns USA Today, the Register and hundreds of other newspapers, have flooded social media with support for Sahouri in recent days. The company is funding its defense. Columbia Journalism School, where Sahouri graduated in 2019 before joining the Register, expressed solidarity Monday promoting the hashtags #StandWithAndrea and #JournalismIsNotACrime.
Amnesty International he also publicized his case and demanded that the charges be dropped.
Sahouri was assigned to cover the protest where activists demanded better treatment for people of color days after the death of George Floyd, a black man who was pronounced dead after a white officer put his knee on his neck. for about nine minutes.
Prosecutor Brecklyn Carey told jurors that images from body cameras will show the police giving an order to disperse a crowd that included the two defendants at around 6:30 pm at an intersection outside the mall. The testimony will show that the pair was arrested 90 minutes later near the same intersection, and that Robnett tried to pull Sahouri away from the police officer who arrested them, she said.
Carey asked the jurors in an opening statement to keep their “eyes on the ball” and answer just three questions: was there a dispersion order, did the two disperse and move away from the officer?
But defense lawyer Nicholas Klinefeldt told jurors that the case was about a journalist who was mistakenly arrested while doing her job, adding that Robnett accompanied her to the event for security reasons.
He said the 6:30 pm dispersion order was only intended to release people who were blocking an intersection and who both complied. The body camera audio played to the jurors showed police officers shouting to “come back” and protest peacefully, while a “dispersion” order could only be heard weakly.
“Nobody was telling anyone to leave the scene. Quite the contrary, ”said Klinefeldt.
When the police released tear gas before 8 pm, Sahouri and Robnett fled and rounded the corner of a Verizon store. Wilson then grabbed her and sprayed her face with pepper spray while she put her hands in the air and shouted it was from the press, Klinefeldt said.
The official said to Sahouri “that is not what I asked,” said Klinefeldt. Wilson then threw Robnett pepper spray after he shouted that she was a journalist. A second Register reporter nearby was ordered to leave but was not arrested, he said.
Sahouri was put in a police van and held for a few hours.
Wilson testified that he did not “talk much” with Sahouri when he arrested her. He said he believed he had activated the body camera, but later learned that he did not and never tried to use a camera function to recover the video before deleting it.