Washington Post reporter charged with trespassing in Ferguson
A year since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., a Washington Post reporter who was covering the demonstrations as they unfolded has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer, and is ordered to appear in court, according to The Washington Post.
Wesley Lowery was arrested last August in a McDonald’s, which served as a staging area for reporters. A court summons orders Lowery to appear in a St. Louis County municipal court on August 24, the Post reports, and notes he could be arrested if he does not appear.
“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,’’ Martin Baron, executive editor of the Post, said in a statement Monday.
The counts against Lowery carry a possible fine of $1,000 and up to a year in county jail, according to the St. Louis County municipal code.
Ryan Reilly, a journalist with the Huffington Post who was arrested with Lowery in that McDonald’s, has been issued a summons on the same charges, according to the Post.
“A crime was committed at the McDonald’s, not by journalists, but by local police who assaulted both Ryan and Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post during violent arrests,’’ Ryan Grim, the Huffington Post’s Washington bureau chief, and Sam Stein, the site’s senior politics editor, said in a statement Monday night.
Read the full Post story here, and Lowery’s account of being arrested here.
Looking back at the streets of Ferguson
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