A television position is pictured empty while riot police clears a street of demonstrators, in Ferguson, Missouri August 13, 2014. Police in Ferguson fired several rounds of tear gas to disperse protesters late on Wednesday, on the fourth night of demonstrations over the fatal shooting last weekend of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, 18, by a police officer on Saturday after what police said was a struggle with a gun in a police car. A witness in the case told local media that Brown had raised his arms to police to show that he was unarmed before being killed. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Police firing on news crews with tear gas.
Reporters handcuffed and thrown in jail.
No, this isn’t Tehran or Beijing, but Ferguson, Mo., smack-dab in the center of the United States, where for days, demonstrators have taken to the streets in reaction to the police killing of unarmed teenager, Michael Brown on August 9. And reporters trying to cover events say they’ve been treated badly.
Two journalists–Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly were briefly detained on Wednesday and released without charge. Lowry’s firsthand account of the incident, published in the Post Thursday, is chilling:
“’My hands are behind my back,’ I said. ‘I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.’ At which point one officer said: ‘You’re resisting. Stop resisting.’ That was when I was most afraid — more afraid than of the tear gas and rubber bullets. As they took me into custody, the officers slammed me into a soda machine, at one point setting off the Coke dispenser…”
Al Jazeera America journalists reported that they were attacked by police with tear gas and rubber bullets, and one news photographer was attached by local residents.
President Barack Obama expressed his concern in a statement on Wednesday:
“…And here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also voiced alarm:
