Reporters for the Huffington Post and Washington Post were arrested on Wednesday evening amid the ongoing protests in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting this weekend of a young African-American man.
Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post and Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post, reporting from the scene in Ferguson, relayed their encounters with the police via social media. It appears they were both arrested at a local McDonald’s and later released without being charged.
The reporters were there covering protests following the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed, on Saturday. Confrontations between protesters and police, resulting in tear gas and rubber bullets being fired into the crowds, have occurred since Sunday evening.
Their accounts, curated by TPM, are below. Reilly is a former reporter for TPM.
SWAT just invade McDonald’s where I’m working/recharging. Asked for ID when I took photo. pic.twitter.com/FOIsMnBwHy
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 13, 2014
Police come into McD where me and @ryanjreilly working. Try to kick everyone out.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 13, 2014
“We cannot guarantee your safety. We will not be answering 911 calls”
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 13, 2014
Was arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Officers decided we weren’t leaving McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn’t have been taping them.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Released without any charges, no paperwork whatsoever
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Well, @WesleyLowery and I have been released. That was an experience.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 14, 2014
Police now say there might be a report available to Ryan and I in “a week or two”
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
The police actions were condemned by senior editors from both the Huffington Post and Washington Post.
“We’re very glad that Ryan has been released and is doing well,” Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for the Huffington Post, told TPM in an email. “But this is what happens when local police are allowed to become para-military units.”
“That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news,” Marty Baron, executive editor at the Washington Post, told Post reporter Mark Berman.
A photographer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweeted this photograph of Reilly being arrested.
@HuffingtonPost reporter @ryanjreilly arrested when police closed Ferguson McDonalds. #MikeBrown #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/rAz2A8eu31
— Robert Cohen (@kodacohen) August 14, 2014
Law enforcement officials in Ferguson and St. Louis County could not be immediately reached for comment.
Well, to be fair, one of them IS black.
So, totally understandable.
I’m shocked! SHOCKED! ( I didn’t know that Stassinopoulos Post had any reporters)
I heard interviews yesterday suggesting that the police, by donning riot gear and using heavy-handed, unnecessary tactics, might be trying to provoke a riot - thereby giving them an opportunity to show how bad race relations are under this President. I thought initially that this was probably a serious exaggeration. Well, what should I think now?
Going as badly as expected.
Time for media swarm.
I think the higher ups have lost control of this.