Journalist acquitted in Iowa case seen as attack on press

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa jury on Wednesday acquitted a journalist who was pepper-sprayed and arrested by police while covering a protest in a case that critics have derided as an attack on press freedom and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury found Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri not guilty on misdemeanor charges of failure to disperse and interference with official acts. The unanimous, six-member panel also acquitted her former boyfriend, Spenser Robnett, of the same charges after a three-day trial in Des Moines.

The verdict is an embarrassing outcome for the office of Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, which pursued the charges despite widespread condemnation from advocates for a free press and human rights.

Those advocates, ranging from Sahouri’s bosses at the Register to Amnesty International, argued that Sahouri was wrongly arrested while doing her job by covering racial injustice protests in Des Moines last May.

Prosecutors argued that Sahouri and Robnett didn’t comply with police orders to leave the chaotic scene outside of a mall and interfered with an officer who pepper-sprayed and arrested Sahouri, who was on assignment for the newspaper.

Sahouri, 25, immediately identified herself as a reporter but was nevertheless subjected to what she called “extremely painful” pepper spray blasts and jailed. Robnett, 24, said he was sprayed after telling the officer that Sahouri was a Register journalist.

Sahouri was the first working U.S. journalist to face a criminal trial since 2018, according to the U.S. Press

Freedom Tracker. Although more than 125 U.S. journalists were arrested or detained last year, the vast majority were not charged or had their charges dismissed.

The Register’s parent company, Gannett, funded the pair’s legal defense, and employees of the newspaper chain rallied behind Sahouri on social media. Columbia Journalism School, where Sahouri earned a master’s degree in 2019 before joining the Register, also expressed solidarity by promoting the hashtag #JournalismIsNotACrime.

“Grateful justice was done and @andreamsahouri was fully exonerated,” Gannett news president and USA Today Publisher Maribel Wadsworth tweeted. “But it should never have come to this. She was assaulted, arrested, charged and tried for doing her job. Today’s victory is as much a victory for the 1st Amendment as it is for Andrea.”

Prosecutor Bradley Kinkade urged jurors during his closing argument not to consider that Sahouri was a journalist, saying her profession wasn’t a defense against the charges. In fact, he argued that the video and photos she reported live on Twitter of protesters breaking store windows and throwing rocks was “convincing evidence” that she was near an unlawful assembly.

Kinkade, an assistant Polk County attorney, argued that Sahouri and Robnett were within hearing distance when police gave orders to disperse, but that they stayed with the crowd. He said it didn’t matter if they actually heard or understood the orders, which were given nearly 90 minutes before the two were pepper-sprayed and arrested as police tried to unblock an intersection. The orders were barely audible on police video that was played during the trial.

Kinkade also urged jurors to accept the testimony of the arresting officer, Luke Wilson, who claimed that Robnett tried to pull Sahouri out of his custody and that Sahouri briefly resisted arrest. Wilson acknowledged that he had failed to record the arrest on his body camera and did not try to recover the video later, in violation of department policy.

Defense attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt said the case was about a reporter who was doing her job and a boyfriend who accompanied her for safety reasons. He said Sahouri was reporting on the “destruction of property so that the community could see what was going on.”

Klinefeldt said the defendants didn’t hear any dispersal orders and that Sahouri was trying to report only from places where she was allowed. He noted that they were running away from a tense location where riot police had deployed tear gas when Wilson arrested them.

Klinefeldt said that the officer’s claim that they interfered wasn’t credible. Sahouri testified that she put her hands up and repeatedly identified herself as a reporter but was nonetheless pepper-sprayed and handcuffed with zip ties.

Another Register reporter, Katie Akin, was near Sahouri and quickly informed police that they were journalists. Akin was told to leave but was not arrested.

Video captured by a responding officer showed Sahouri in pain, temporarily blinded by the pepper spray and repeatedly telling officers that she was a journalist doing her job. Nonetheless, authorities put her in a police van and took her to jail.

Even though the first color associated with St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was blue, eventually green became the hue of choice to commemorate his work and the holiday established in his honor. Because Ireland is dominated by green, rolling hills, the country is affectionately known as the Emerald Isle. And green clothing and decorations have become the standard each March during St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

It is one thing to drink a green beer or paint a green shamrock on your cheek, but dyeing an entire river green is an immense and awe-inspiring homage to St. Patrick’s Day. Since 1962, the vast undertaking of dyeing a river a bright shade of green has been a St. Patrick’s Day tradition in Chicago. Tom Rowan, a 76-year-old retired police officer, handles the task, and his methods are top secret. The Chicago River has been transformed into a verdigris waterway every year, with the exception of 2020, when COVID-19 halted holiday plans. However, someone other than Rowan managed to dye portions of the river green in 2020.

While the Chicago River is the most prominent green river on St. Patrick’s Day, others currently emulate the same effects or have done so in the past. The Irish Marching Society decided to bring the tradition to Rockford, Ill., and dye Rock River last year. San Antonio, TX; Savannah, GA; Indianapolis, IN; Charlotte, NC; Tampa, FL; and Washington, D.C. all have dyed various rivers green. In 2020, city officials in Dublin, Ireland, intended to dye the River Liffey green as well.

Nontoxic dyes and environmentally safe products are used to produce the green hues. Some stick around for a few hours, while others may last for days until they dissipate. While they last, green rivers can produce dramatic effects that are fun to behold.