A year after two reporters were detained in Ferguson, Missouri, while covering protests that engulfed the town, they were officially charged with crimes and ordered to appear in court.
Wesley Lowery, a reporter for The Washington Post, and Ryan J. Reilly, a reporter for the Huffington Post, were charged this week with trespassing and interfering with a police officer. Both reporters were issued summonses and ordered to appear in court later this month or risk arrest if they do not appear.
“U.S. authorities have no business hauling reporters into court for doing their jobs, especially on a world story like Ferguson,” said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “We are appalled by this judicial intimidation of Wesley Lowery and Ryan Reilly and call on St. Louis authorities to drop all charges immediately.”
Media descended en masse last August to cover widespread protests and riots that ensued in the town of 21,000 after white former police Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot a black 18-year-old, Michael Brown.
Mr. Lowry and Mr. Reilly were among approximately two dozen journalists arrested while reporting on the events in Ferguson between August and November, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The decision to bring charges against the two reporters was a departure from previous decisions to drop charges against some of the other reporters arrested. Earlier this month, authorities reached settlement agreements with two other journalists who were arrested while covering protests in Ferguson. Under those agreements the journalists’ arrest records would be expunged.
Mr. Lowry and Mr. Reilly were each detained briefly by police on August 13, 2014, while working out of a McDonald’s restaurant in Ferguson to cover the protests. Officers entered the restaurant and were ordering customers to leave when the two men were taken into custody, with police saying at the time that they did not comply quickly enough with officers’ orders.
If convicted of the charges, Mr. Lowry and Mr. Reilly face a fine of $1,000 and up to a year in jail.
Editors from both The Washington Post and the Huffington Post have spoken out against the decision by the St. Louis County counselor’s office to bring charges and have said the news outlets will support their reporters in fighting the charges.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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