“Policing in America is on trial here,” Joseph Giacalone told the Washington Post last week. “Derek Chauvin has done more damage to policing in America than any issue since I’ve been alive.” The retired NYPD detective sergeant teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Chauvin is on trial in Minneapolis, Minn. for the murder of George Floyd last May.
One would think repeated negative press, rumors of cracks in the “blue wall of silence,” and nationwide calls for sweeping police reform might have given more officers pause. Particularly around Minneapolis. And one would be wrong (USA Today):
Journalists covering a protest in a Minneapolis suburb Friday night were forced on their stomachs by law enforcement, rounded up and were only released after having their face and press credentials photographed.
The incident occurred hours after a judge issued a temporary order barring the Minnesota State Patrol from using physical force or chemical agents against journalists, according to court documents. It also barred police from seizing photographic, audio or video recording equipment, or press passes.
The journalists were covering a protest in the Brooklyn Center suburb of Minneapolis where last week a white officer shot and killed a 20-year-old Black man, Daunte Wright, during a traffic stop last Sunday. The officer who fired the fatal shot captured on body-cam video has been arrested.
Police declared the protest an unlawful assembly after about 30 minutes and an an incident propmpted police to deploy pepper balls and chemical irritants. They ordered the crowd of about 500 to disperse. Journalists lingered to report on events, thinking they did not need to disperse, said Jasper Colt, a photojournalist with the USA TODAY Network.
Police forced the journalists to the ground onto their faces and began photographing them.
The Minnesota State Patrol issued guidance to its troopers and other law enforcement agencies, MSP said in its statement. The guidance highlights the orders in the temporary restraining order prohibiting MSP from enforcing general dispersal orders against the press.
MSP is also prohibited from “arresting, threatening to arrest, or threatening/using physical force” against members of the press.
So much for that.
The Minnesota State Patrol issued a statement on the temporary restraining order issued as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The guidance was issued in response to that order:
“MSP will not photograph journalists or their credentials,” the agency said in a statement. “However, troopers will continue to check credentials so media will not be detained any longer than is necessary. In addition, MSP will no longer include messaging at the scene advising media where they can go to safely cover events.”
Use of force they know. And PR? not so much.
“The emergency order requires law enforcement to take certain steps to protect journalists… the order requires law enforcement to leave them alone,” said Adam Hansen, an attorney with Apollo Law LLC, who is working on the civil case with ACLU-Minnesota. “We absolutely see what happened last night as a violation of the court’s order and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t continue tonight and on into the future.”
There will be an “into the future.”