Minnesota police seem to be doing their best to damage their declining reputation even further.
With the trial of Derek Chauvin in the hands of the jury, America had to relive the horrific 9 minutes and 29 seconds of his knee on George Floyd’s neck and a parade of witnesses described as un murdered murder.
Last week, a Minneapolis suburban officer shot dead Daunte Wright when he initially refused to cooperate during a traffic stop and said she mistakenly considered her gun a Taser.
You would expect the state and local police to try to convince the world that these were isolated incidents and that the vast majority of their officers are compassionate and fair people.
Instead, some of their numbers began to arrest and harass journalists – to the point where a judge had to intervene.
RIOTS, PROTESTS IN MINNESOTA, CHICAGO, OTHERS IN RESPONSE TO POLICE SHOOTING
Now I know that reporters are not too popular these days. But some of them take the risk of spreading the news.
And I know that minor clashes between police and people with pseudo-signs are hardly uncommon during tense and sometimes violent protests. But what is striking about the Minnesota incidents is how completely unnecessary it is.
It’s almost as if certain officers are venting their frustrations over journalists just trying to do their job by discussing the night demonstrations that erupted after 20-year-old Wright was killed. At least 100 people were arrested during a protest rally on Friday night.
“Apologies are not enough; it just can not happen,” said Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. He told a CBS station that the assault on media has been “cold” for the past few years. Then why does he not do something about it? He sounds like a bystander.
Freelance photographer from Minneapolis, Tim Evans, said on social media that the police sprayed him with pepper spray in the face, tackled him to the ground, and even after he showed his press weapon, an officer punched me in the face beaten, ripped my license plate and threw it in the dirt. ‘
Freelance photographer from Minneapolis, Tim Evans, said on social media that the police sprayed him with pepper spray in the face, tackled him to the ground, and even after he showed his press weapon, an officer punched me in the face beaten, ripped my license plate and threw it in the dirt. ‘
Joshua Rashaad McFadden, a freelance photographer for the New York Times, told his newspaper that police surrounded his car as he tried to leave the protests. He says they hit the windows with clubs, got into the car to force him out, hit his legs and hit his camera lens.
“It was definitely scary,” the black 30-year-old said, adding that officers did not believe his press credentials were real until another photographer agreed to him.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” he said, knowing that “if a situation like this happens, they will not believe or care what I say.”
A CNN producer, Carolyn Sung, was grabbed by her backpack and thrown to the ground by state troops while trying to comply with a distribution order. According to a letter from a lawyer on behalf of 20 media organizations, Sung did not resist her, showed her credentials – and yet arrested.
It’s inexplicable, and it’s getting worse. When Sung, an Asian American, said the zippers on her wrists were too tight, one troop shouted at her, “Do you speak English?”
The producer was taken to the Hennepin County Jail and, according to the letter, ‘is a female officer who put her hands in Sung’s pants and in her bra, put down and searched, electronically scanned by the body and ordered to syrup and put on an orange uniform. ‘By the time lawyers were located and secured her release, she had been in custody for more than two hours.
It was not just a matter of hostility towards foreign journalists. A major station in Minneapolis, WCCO, was also affected.
“WC Chapman of the WCCO reported that during the chaos – which took place after hours of peaceful protest – law enforcers, along with other WCCO photojournalists, told them to get on the ground. They took photos of the journalists and checked their credentials before allowed it to continue. ‘
Jasper Colt, a USA Today Network photojournalist, said some media people like him were slowly leaving the area because they saw no reason why they could not continue to cover the protests over Brookly Center.
“Colt described the police when they brought protesters and media into one group and shouted at them to ‘get flat on our stomachs’.”
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On Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting law enforcement officers from arresting or using physical violence by journalists handling the protests.
The journalists argued in court that they were “ordered by law enforcement to evacuate the protest area, physically grabbed, hit by less deadly projectiles and rubber bullets, and sprayed with pepper.”
Judge Wilhelmina Wright rejected the argument that the police were trying to keep the journalists safe, “especially when considering the allegations, supported by statements that members of the press have suffered serious injuries in recent days among law enforcers. These serious injuries includes bruises and at least one injury that requires surgery. “
This is authoritarian tactics, and local politicians and officials can no longer try to blame Donald Trump for such misconduct. This is another blow to the polluted reputation of Minnesota and its largest metropolitan area. We can only hope that George Floyd’s ruling does not lead to more protests and more violence, with journalists trapped in the middle.