Why Police Tried to Make an Example of Journalist Andrea Sahouri
Most arrested reporters never go to trial—and this case should have been no different
On Wednesday, Andrea Sahouri, a journalist with the Des Moines Register, and Spenser Robnett, her boyfriend at the time, were acquitted of all charges that they failed to disperse and resisted arrest while reporting on a Black Lives Matter protest late last spring.
But Sahouri and Robnett should never have been arrested in the first place. There was no reason to arrest Sahouri, much less take her to trial, other than to send a message to journalists about power, race, and gender. Sahouri, who is Palestinian, told me in an interview that she believes that race played a role in her arrest and pointed out that Katie Akin, a white reporter who had been standing nearby, was not arrested.
“Officer Wilson turned that corner, saw a woman with darker skin and darker features and made assumptions about me and decided to assault me even when I said ‘I’m press. I’m press,’” Sahouri told me in an interview after the trial. “So, why me? I’d love to ask that question. I think race definitely plays a role.”
On May 31, 2020, Sahouri was on assignment for the Des Moines Register, reporting from a Black Lives Matter protest in the city…
