Harassed by police, journalists in Minnesota assert

Journalists covering protests over the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, by police in suburban Minneapolis say officers have harassed and assaulted them despite a federal order to leave them alone.

U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright issued a temporary restraining order Friday prohibiting police at the protests in Brooklyn Center from arresting journalists or using force against them, including flash-bang grenades, nonlethal projectiles, pepper spray and batons, unless they know the journalists committed crimes.

The order also prohibits police from forcing reporters to disperse along with the rest of the crowd and from seizing their equipment.

But USA Today videographer Jasper Colt tweeted that he and other reporters were forced to lie on their stomachs Friday evening while police photographed them and their credentials before letting them leave.

“We condemn the actions of the police in Brooklyn Center in the strongest possible terms,” USA Today Publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth said in an email to The Associated Press on Saturday. “Requiring journalists to lie prone on the ground and photographing their credentials are purposeful intimidation tactics. To be clear, we will not be intimidated or deterred in fulfilling our First Amendment right and responsibility to hold power to account in our reporting.”

Freelance photographer Tim Evans told the AP that one officer punched him in the face and tore off his credentials, forced him onto his stomach and pressed a knee into his back.

“I was yelling, ‘press.’ He said he didn’t care and to shut the (expletive) up,” Evans said.

Evans said another officer came over and smashed his head into the ground. He was zip-tied before a third officer freed him and let him leave.

Other journalists posted photos and videos online showing police detaining them while checking their credentials, and in at least one case spraying chemical irritants.

Scott Wasserman, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said 136 people were arrested during Friday night’s protests. None were journalists, he said.

He didn’t respond to a follow-up message asking whether officers harassed or assaulted any reporters.