The Des Moines Register via AP
Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri listens to opening statements Monday in her trial in which she is charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts while reporting on a protest last May.
In the second day of her trial, Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri testified that she was arrested at a racial justice protest as she was trying to go farther away from an area where police were clashing with protesters.
Prosecutors in the case have claimed that Sahouri, and her then-boyfriend Spenser Robnett, remained at a protest near Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines on May 31, even after police had ordered everyone to leave the area.
Rare trial of U.S. journalist arrested on the job begins in Iowa
Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri faces 30 days in jail after she was charged with misdemeanors from her coverage of racial justice demonstrations in May.
By Elahe IzadiThe Washington Post
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Police officers are shown arresting Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri after a Black Lives Matter protest she was covering on May 31, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo courtesy Katie Akin via AP
Prosecutors in Iowa began their case Monday against a Des Moines Register reporter arrested during racial justice protests last summer, a rare trial of a U.S. journalist charged with a crime while reporting.
IPR A view of the courtroom at the Drake Legal Clinic where the trial of Des Moines Register journalist Andrea Sahouri is being held.
The trial of Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri started Monday with testimony from police officers who were at the protest where she was arrested while on the job.
On May 31, a crowd protesting for racial justice and against police brutality blocked streets near Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines. Some people broke into stores. Police responded with tear gas and pepper spray to break up the crowd. Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri was in the crowd, covering the unrest, when she was pepper-sprayed and taken into custody.
Prosecutors argued case is "a fast pitch down the center, right down the middle of the box," using a baseball metaphor. Sahouri's defense attorneys argued in their opening that "this is a case about a journalist arrested for doing her job."
An Iowa journalist faces trial Monday on charges stemming from her coverage of a protest against racial injustice, a case that prosecutors have pursued despite