Des Moines Register reporter arrested covering George Floyd protests last year goes on trial

Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri went on trial Monday morning after being arrested last spring while covering Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

In the proceedings, Iowa police are facing a rash of condemnation — some of it international — from press freedom and human rights advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union and Sahouri’s alma mater, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned her master’s degree in 2019.

Sahouri was pepper-sprayed and jailed before being charged with one count each of failure to disperse, and interference with official acts. The misdemeanor charges could carry hundreds of dollars in fines and leave the 25-year-old reporter with a criminal record, The Associated Press reported. She could also face up to 30 days in jail on each count, though it would be unusual for a judge to impose that.

Prosecutors in the Polk County Attorney’s office have insisted on pressing the case against Sahouri and her former boyfriend, Spenser Robnett, who is charged with the same offenses, the AP said.

The incident happened on May 31, 2020, just days after now former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd for approximately nine minutes, cutting off his air supply and killing him. Chauvin’s jury selection began Monday in his own murder trial, though it was put on hold.

Sahouri’s trial opened with the selection of a six-member jury Monday morning, the AP reported. Sahouri was one of at least 125 reporters arrested or detained during nationwide civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s killing. Sahouri and a dozen others still face prosecution.

The trial is being held for both Sahouri and Robnett jointly in a courtroom at Drake University in Des Moines as part of a program for law students and is being broadcast live. It’s expected to last two days.

Employees of the Gannett newspaper chain, the Des Moines Register’s parent company, have flooded social media with support for their colleague, as has Columbia, which promoted hashtags #StandWithAndrea and #JournalismIsNotACrime.

Amnesty International, too, has launched a campaign to have the charges dismissed and draw public attention to Sahouri’s case as an attack on press rights.

“Even as she kept yelling, ‘I’m press, I’m press, I’m press,’ she was pepper sprayed on her arms and face twice at close range,” Amnesty said in detailing her case in a larger report about journalists harassed for reporting on the protests.

Sahouri’s trial opened with testimony from arresting officer Luke Wilson, who told the court that after being deployed into a chaotic scene with water bottles and other projectiles being hurled at officers, he dispersed a group of protesters with pepper spray. Robnett retreated, he said, but Sahouri did not, the Des Moines Register reported.

Wilson did not turn on his body camera during the arrest, saying later that he thought he had.

Prosecutors say they want the jury to focus solely on three questions: Was there a dispersal order, did Sahouri and Robnett disperse and did they pull away from the officer?

“The evidence you’re going to hear is not that Ms. Sahouri tried to pull away,” defense attorney Nicolas Klinefeldt told jurors. “She was assaulted while doing her job.”

With News Wire Services