NPC leaders decry abuse, arrests of journalists in Twin Cities
Leaders of the National Press Club and National Press Club Journalism Institute issued a statement Tuesday warning police in the Twin Cities to heed the Constitution and allow law-abiding journalists to cover protests there without interference, abuse or arrest.
Over the past week, police in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have physically assaulted numerous journalists and arrested several others. Reporters and producers have been hit with pepper spray or other chemical irritants, pushed, thrown to the ground, tackled and, in some cases, jailed.
It is clear from most, if not all, of these cases that the journalists who were mistreated were merely doing their jobs and looking to follow police orders, according to a recent summary of events by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
This is not the first time journalists have suffered abuse at the hands of police in the Twin Cities.
Last May, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested live on air while reporting on a George Floyd protest.
During the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, police mistreated reporters on a massive scale by penning them, hitting them and chemical-spraying them without regard to efforts by the press to show their credentials. Several dozen journalists were arrested during the convention week.
The “Democracy Now” news program won a $100,000 settlement three years later from state and local authorities over mistreatment of three of the program’s reporters at the 2008 convention. Under the terms of the settlement, the St. Paul police agreed to train officers in respecting the First Amendment rights of the press and the public.
“Police in the Twin Cities have an abysmal record of respecting the press’s right and duty to cover protests, and the events of the past week are the latest sign of it,” said NPC President Lisa Nicole Matthews and NPC Journalism Institute President Angela Greiling Keane.