United States: Police Draw Weapons Towards Reporter Maggie Koerth

Location: United States, Minneapolis
Date: June 13, 2020

Maggie Koerth, a senior science reporter for the website FiveThirtyEight, was covering a protest from a Minneapolis sidewalk on Saturday when a police officer drew a weapon on her and another working journalist, impeding their work.

“We said, ‘Press, press — we are press,’ and we held up our badges and put our hands up in the air,” Koerth said in an interview to the New York Times. “They kept pointing the weapon at us while we were doing that, and one of them said, ‘Shut up.’”

We just had MPD with support from outside sheriffs point weapons at us while we screamed that we were press. “Shut up!” one yelled back. We are safe.

— Maggie Koerth (@maggiekb1) May 31, 2020

Demonstrations sparked across United States after murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in the pursuit of justice. With numerous police forces deployed to protest sites, journalists face constant threat of violence, arrest and censorship. Hundreds of journalists have reported to have faced attempts at censorship, verbal attacks, blatant threats and police violence. Hundreds of journalists have been arrested while on duty and black journalists who take the ongoing civil unrest very personally are especially targeted. CFWIJ follows the events closely with great concern.

The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.

If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.