A journalist for the Des Moines Register was acquitted on both charges related to her arrest during a George Floyd protest last year.
The journalist, Andrea Sahouri, was acquitted by a six-person jury on Wednesday after she was charged in May 2020 with failure to disperse and interference with official acts.
Law enforcement officials said she and her then-boyfriend, Spenser Robnett, who was also acquitted of the same charges, failed to follow police orders as they attempted to disperse a crowd at the Merle Hay Mall on May 31, 2020. If convicted, the two misdemeanor offenses carried a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail.
Sahouri told the jury on Tuesday that a law enforcement officer was “coming at me,” and she raised her hands and informed the officer that she’s a member of the press, to which Officer Luke Wilson grabbed and pepper-sprayed her.
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“I didn’t think it was a good idea to run from officers because I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said. “I put up my hands and said ‘I’m press, I’m press,’ and he grabbed me and pepper-sprayed me and told me, ‘That’s not what I asked.'”
Robnett also tried to tell the officer that Sahouri was a journalist, and he was subsequently pepper-sprayed and arrested.
The defense argued that the prosecution had no evidence of a dispersal order and couldn’t prove that either Sahouri or Robnett disobeyed a police order because Wilson’s body camera did not record the interaction. Defense attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt accused the officer of having “assaulted” Sahouri.
Assistant Polk County Attorney Brad Kinkade argued that her job as a journalist was not relevant to the case.
“If you believe Officer Wilson went around that corner, tried to detain Ms. Sahouri, and she tried to pull away, that in and of itself is interference with official acts,” he said. “If you believe Officer Wilson that Mr. Robnett attempted to remove Ms. Sahouri from his custody, then you can check that box.”
In 2020, there were 128 arrests and detainments of journalists in the United States, and more than a dozen currently face criminal charges, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. A number of these incidents occurred last spring as millions of people worldwide protested against police brutality and use of force regulations following the death of Floyd.
Floyd, a black man, was killed while in police custody after one former officer, Derek Chauvin, used his knee to restrain Floyd for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was arrested, and his trial is underway, while the other three officers involved and arrested await trial.
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In the weeks after Floyd’s death, there were daily protests across the country, some of which turned destructive and violent.
