An Iowa official said Monday that she arrested a Des Moines Register journalist assigned to cover a Black Lives Matter protest last year after she failed to leave the area after being shot with pepper spray.
Des Moines agent Luke Wilson spoke during the trial for journalist Andrea Sahouri and her boyfriend Spenser Robnett, saying he did not know at the time that Sahouri was a journalist, The Associated Press reported. Sahouri and Robnett face charges of wrongdoing for lack of dispersal and interference with official acts.
The case against Sahouri has received local, national and international scrutiny from journalists and human rights defenders, as she is believed to be the first journalist to be tried in the United States since 2018, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
In his testimony, Wilson said he responded outside the Merle Hay Mall on May 31, where protesters smashed windows and threw projectiles, such as rocks and water bottles, at officers. He said he threw pepper spray from a nebulizer to break up the crowd, but Sahouri stayed.
“Once I determined I wasn’t leaving, I had to take action,” he said, according to the AP.
The officer said she grabbed Sahouri while shooting pepper spray with her other hand, which hit both her and Robnett, who regained her custody. Wilson said he had thought he had activated the body camera, but later found out he hadn’t.
Prosecutor Brecklyn Carey told jury members that the images show police leading a crowd that included Sahouri and Robnett to disperse around 6:30 p.m., and shows 90 minutes after Robnett tried to keep Sahouri away from the arresting officer. , according to the AP.
But defense attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt argued that the 6:30 p.m. order was aimed at those blocking an intersection and that the couple was following those instructions.
He said Sahouri and Robnett ran when tear gas was deployed an hour and a half later, and the officer grabbed it and chopped it with pepper as it identified itself as a press, to which Wilson allegedly responded: That’s not what I asked for. “
Black Lives Matter protests erupted nationwide last summer after the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
Sahouri was one of more than 125 journalists arrested or arrested during the 2020 protests, most of whom were not charged or dismissed. Twelve more journalists are still on trial, the AP reported, citing U.S. press freedom tracking.
If both are found guilty, they would face hundreds of dollars in fines, a criminal record and, while unlikely, up to 30 days in prison for each charge.