St. Louis County Charges Journalists Who Covered Ferguson Protests With Trespassing
from the bad-move dept
Just about a month ago, we noted that prosecutors in St. Louis County were, somewhat ridiculously, still considering charging two reporters, Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post, with “trespassing” charges for their coverage of the Ferguson protests. As you may recall, we also wrote about when they were first arrested, as they were gathering up their things in the local McDonald’s after the police ordered them to leave. Here were their tweets at the time — along with the tweets of a few other reporters on the scene, including one in which police admitted the arrest was a mistake:
Another reporter, Matt Pearce from the LA Times, reached out to the police, who seemed to indicate that the arrests had been a mistake (and from the descriptions offered by Reilly and Lowery, that sounds about right). Lowery and Reilly were then released and told that no charges would be filed against reporters.
A court summons dated Aug. 6 ? just under a year after Lowery?s arrest ? was sent to Lowery, 25, ordering him to appear in a St. Louis County municipal court on Aug. 24. The summons notes that he could be arrested if he does not appear.
?Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,? Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. ?You?d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.
Meanwhile, it seems noteworthy that this comes just days after St. Louis County “settled” a lawsuit filed against it by another journalist, Trey Yingst, who had been arrested while covering protests in Ferguson in November. In that case, the county agreed to pay Yingst $8,500 and drop all charges… and evidence showed that the police flat-out lied about why they had detained Yingst — using the same excuse they had used against Lowery and Reilly.
A Reason magazine reporter, along with other witnesses, also supported Yingst?s account. And video of the incident, posted that night on Twitter, shows police in skirmish formation approaching Yingst on the sidewalk.
The St. Louis County Police Department, however, tweeted after the incident that Yingst was detained for ?failure to disperse? and had ?refused? orders from commanding officers to leave the street. A police report echoes the description of events in that tweet.
In the police department?s account, Yingst was standing in the street with protesters and impeding the flow of traffic when ordered to move to the sidewalk. It was then that Vollmer ordered Yingst — three times, by his account — to return to the sidewalk. But Yingst refused to do so, according to the report, and only ?slowly walked backwards onto the sidewalk? as the police formation approached.
?The whole police report was basically made up,? Yingst said.
Given that, you would think that prosecutors would shy away from immediately going after journalists where there was pretty strong evidence that they, too, were detained for bogus reasons, but apparently “reason” doesn’t exist in the prosecutor’s office in St. Louis County. I would imagine that both Lowery and Reilly will have pretty strong defenses, and that St. Louis County may end up handing over more taxpayer funds to both of them before this is over. Also, Reilly says he’s spent the last year trying to find out the name of the St. Louis County police officer who slammed his head into the wall — and figures that now that he’s being charged, he might actually be able to find out who it was.
Filed Under: arrests, ferguson, journalism, missouri, protests, reporting, ryan reilly, st. louis county, trespassing, wesley lowery
Companies: huffington post, washington post
Comments on “St. Louis County Charges Journalists Who Covered Ferguson Protests With Trespassing”
“Probably didn’t know any better”
These are the people who are charged with enforcing our laws. They should all absolutely know BEST.
Re: Re:
they are not YOUR laws… they are the STATES laws that you and other statists believe in, forcing the rest of us to live under an illusory authority that you grace with a monopoly on violence.
…but you need these laws to build your roads.
Why charges now? Sorta late to the party – no?
Cops: We don’t like our illegal activities being made public knowledge – ya hear?
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 11th, 2015 @ 5:28am
I figure the statute of limitations are about to kick in. Prosecuters can’t let criminal trespassers go about willy nilly. I guess the clerk should have read the reports before getting things signed off for processing.
Not to negate the officer’s actions to kickstart this whole debacle.
Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 11th, 2015 @ 5:28am
or they have delayed it long enough that the statue of limitations will be up on the officer who slammed his head into the wall by the time he finds the name.
Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 11th, 2015 @ 5:28am
I donno – I suspect the statute of limitations for assault and battery might be a touch longer then that for a trespassing lawsuit.
Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 11th, 2015 @ 5:28am
look into prosecutors conflict of interest and incentives in getting higher conviction ratings. This will better explain why they are prosecuting a year later. They delayed to try and find evidence they can use against the journalists, whether real or made up evidence or circumstantial.
they also waited a year, to be safely outside the statute of limitation in regards to retaliatory rules. If they charged them to close to time they were let go, and found that journalists did nothing wrong. The journalist would have solid case of retaliation by government officials.
Re: Re:
“Cops: We don’t like our illegal activities being made public knowledge – ya hear?”
If they have nothing to hide …
Wow-prosecutors should be sacked
What are the prosecutors doing here? I hope this goes Streisand on them, especially after the 1 year anniversary of the shooting just passed.
Note to self: Avoid St. Louis, period. The rules of law and common sense do not apply there.
Re: Wow-prosecutors should be sacked
“Re: Wow-prosecutors should be sacked”
And the people responsible for hiring the people who have just been sacked, should also be sacked.
Ni.
Re: Re: Wow-prosecutors should be sacked
Bonus points for the Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference!
Re: Wow-prosecutors should be sacked
Nonono. What should happen, right, is they should let the lunatics onto the police force!
There is no way that crazy people could possibly do a worse job than those in power in the St. Louis PD.
Re: Re: Wow-prosecutors should be sacked
Uh, I think it may be too late. That ship has done sailed.
Win or Lose they do not care, they have learnt the lesson taught by the RIAA/MPAA, tying people up in court punishes them for non-compliance with their demands.
Re: Winning in court isn't the goal
Nailed it in one.
The point isn’t to win in court, it’s to show that anyone that refuses to properly grovel, and especially anyone that makes them look bad, will be run through the wringer. It’s to show what happens to people that they don’t like, and make it abundantly clear that they don’t mind losing in court if that’s what it takes to ‘punish’ people. Why should they after all, even if they lose it’s not like they are the ones paying out.
Re: Re: Making a counterexample
Any chance this could result in a purge of the precinct brass and DA’s office?
Re: Re: Re: Making a counterexample
By who? I doubt the police are desperate enough for a scapegoat that they’d be willing to offer up one of the brass, and who exactly would have the guts to go after anyone in the DA’s office?
No. While a nice idea, there is about a zero to nill chance that this would result in anyone but the reporters facing any real negative consequences.
Re: Re: Re:2 In my fantasies...
A presiding judge who can no longer contain his digust about being part of this justice system demands a blood sacrifice from St. Louis County police and from the DA who elected to prosecute.
In reality this will get cataloged in the minds of angry people across the US and will contribute to the sum of outrage that causes one to pop off, travel somewhere and shoot some officers that had nothing to do with this case.
I truly hope I’m being overly cynical.
Learn something new....
I’ve heard of method acting, but method stupidity is a new one on me.
after having an officer get away with what really was nothing but murder, the police and prosecutors obviously think they are on a roll and get away with far lesser incidents totally unscathed. i just hope that some sense comes into play pretty quickly and if not, the papers concerned use any and all evidence they can muster, along with very expensive and experienced lawyers to swat these cases down!
however, with the events continuing as they are within Ferguson, there could be more charges against more people on the anniversary of that fateful day. one person according to news reports, has been shot already. perhaps what the police etc are really trying to do is just whatever the hell they want but not have anything reported??
Even assuming that they were trespassing, this is incredibly stupid. The entire riot/protest was a result of over aggressive policing and a failure of the police to know when to descalate the situation. (Protests over excessive force are met by police by a massive show of force and zero compassion).
They have obviously learned very little. They are just doubling down on excessive and intimidating policing. This one, they are very unlikely to win either in the courts or in the court of public opinion.
Tresspass
Did anyone from McDonald’s file a complaint? Can it actually be trespassing if the property owner does not consider it to be trespassing?
Do we know yet who the cop was that filed the report?
A ‘lawsuit’ is a civil proceeding. Isn’t this a criminal misdemeanor charge?
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 11th, 2015 @ 6:47am
At this point, it’s more of a let’s see what sticks…
You know the governments knows they’re doing the wrong things when reporters are being intimidated.
My Thought Too
In what way does the prosecutor get to charge anyone with trespassing on private property if the owner fails to complain? I’m guessing McDonalds is not pressing a complaint, in fact quite the opposite, I would be surprised if a large corporation with a concern about bad publicity would not state outright that they had no problem allowing the journalists to be present.
Re: My Thought Too
The individual franchise owner might be pressing the charge.
Re: Re: My Thought Too
That’s possible, assuming it is a franchise and not a corporate-owned location. However I would think that a) he would still be concerned about bad publicity given that the McDonalds is in the area of the protests and thus most of his customers would be too and b) McDonalds corporate office would lean on him heavily because of the bad publicity it would bring them, possibly it could even be a violation of the franchise agreement.
Re: My Thought Too
Sure would be great to have McDonalds come out and say, “Hey, they were welcome to be there. They weren’t trespassing.” Hold idiocy up to the strong light of day…
Re: Re: My Thought Too
Conversely, if the manager had told them “you need to get out” and they ignored him, the trespassing charges are totally appropriate, and they don’t get a pass just because they are reporters. I don’t think I’ve heard anything definitive on whether or not that happened.
Re: Re: Re: My Thought Too
Yes – and let’s just assume it did happen until otherwise proven. Amirite?
Re: Re: Re: My Thought Too
The manager talking to the journalists, who were still finishing their food, is conspicuously absent from all accounts of the incident.
Re: My Thought Too
Maybe they broke the 5th amendment and decided they owned that mc donalds for the duration thus anyone there that they did not like was trespassing, and being charged under the assumption no one looks at their illegal behavior to justify a trespassing charge
I get the feeling the police know the law they just choose not to follow it as they know they will not be called out on it
*Sarcasm* Note to self, don’t walk on the sidewalk…or go to St Louis.
Intimidation tactics while they conviently forget the laws that protect these journalists
Trespassing?
How is this trespassing at all? Where I live, if you operate an establishment that is open to the public, like a restaurant or a store, it can only be trespassing if the establishment owner or their representative has asked you to leave and you refuse to do so.
Did the McDonald’s manager or employees ask the reporters to leave? If it was just the police telling them to leave I don’t see how that could be considered trespassing at all.
Re: Trespassing?
…it can only be trespassing if the establishment owner or their representative has asked you to leave and you refuse to do so…
In my neighborhood repeated refusal to leave can get you arrested and charged with burglary, not just trespassing.
Failure to disperse
“Yingst was detained for “failure to disperse” which is ridiculous in itself. One person cannot disperse.
Why do we let police get away with this shit? We are sheep. God damn sheep.
Re: Letting the police get away with this.
Let’s use a better metaphor. We’re not sheep.
We’re hostages.
There’s fifty of us (or so) and about five bank robbers with big guns.
They don’t control the situation by moral authority, or righteousness, but by the fact they have big guns. And if you do anything to piss them off, they’ll totally shoot you.
When they’re not watching you, you might have an opportunity to turn the situation around, to do something that destabilizes their stranglehold.
I’m not going to blame you for not acting. Big guns in my face freak me out too. In the meantime they keep promising that they’re not after our money, just the bank’s and that if we cooperate with them, everyone will live. I’m not sure I believe them, especially after one of them took a hostage’s Twinkie.
If we could coordinate and mob them, we could totally overwhelm them. But some of us are going to die, especially the first ones who take action.
And no-one outside the bank seems to know or care. It’s up to us.
Re: Re: Letting the police get away with this.
And 45 of the hostages are preoccupied with the Twinkie.
They need to fire all police in Ferguson and the DA’s.
And what happens when a heavily armed group walks the streets of Ferguson at night?
Nothing, because they’re white
Re: Some day this nation will have to choose...
…whether we want to keep our freedom or our white male pride.
Right now the white male pride is winning.
Gotta say, this prosecutor's got balls
Or the world’s most inflated ego, if he thinks he can go toe to toe with the paid lawyers of the Washington Post (owned by Bezos) and the Huffington Post (owned by AOL). I’m betting that any single lawyer from either of those companies’ salaries are greater than St. Louis’s entire staff.