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"Chilling": Minnesota governor denounces alleged police violence against media

19 April 2021
Dan Ackermann

Gov. Tim Walz (D) apologized an interview with CBS Minnesota that aired Sunday over allegations that journalists covering unrest in the Twin Cities suburb of Brooklyn Center were assaulted by police.

  • But he added, "Apologies are not enough. It just cannot happen."

.@GovTimWalz This is hideous and entirely unacceptable. What are you doing to ensure accountability and make sure it doesn't happen again? https://t.co/36iSK5244D

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 18, 2021

Why it matters: Since violations of press freedoms came to national attention last year, as journalists were arrested and assaulted while covering anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, such violent encounters with law enforcement seem to have become the norm.

  • Walz told CBS Minnesota, "We all need to recognize the assault on media across the world and even in our country over the last few years is chilling. ... We cannot function as a democracy if they're not there."

Driving the news: Media attorney Leita Walker, representing nearly 30 news outlets and government transparency groups, sent Walz and Minnesota law enforcement leaders a letter Saturday outlining allegations of police assaulting journalists during protests over the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright on April 11.

  • These include allegations that two New York Times photojournalists were "harassed by officers" and the alleged violent treatment of CNN producer Carolyn Sung, who Walker said was trying to comply with a dispersal order when she was arrested by state troopers.

Zoom in: Walker writes that "troopers grabbed Sung by her backpack and threw her to the ground, zip-tying her hands behind her back" while she repeatedly identified herself as a journalists, noting she had shown her credentials.

  • After being zip-tied a trooper allegedly yelled at Sung, who is Asian American, "Do you speak English?"
"She was patted down and searched by a female officer who put her hands down Sung’s pants and in her bra, fingerprinted, electronically body-scanned, and ordered to strip and put on an orange uniform before attorneys working on her behalf were able to locate her and secure her release, a process that took more than two hours."
Excerpt from Walker's letter

Freelance photographer Joshua Rashaad McFadden, who was covering the demonstrations for the New York Times, told the outlet Sunday police used batons to bang on the windows of the car he was in last Tuesday to gain entry and get him out, allegedly attacking him and his camera.

  • "It was definitely scary — I've never been in a situation like that with so many police officers hitting me, hitting my equipment," he said.

What they're saying: Minnesota State Patrol acknowledge in a statement Saturday that, in accordance with a federal judge's temporary restraining order issued a day earlier, members of the press "are exempted from general dispersal orders."

Of note: Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri was last month acquitted of all charges by a jury following her arrest while covering a Black Lives Matter protest last summer.

Journalists must be allowed to safely cover protests and civil unrest. I’ve directed our law enforcement partners to make changes that will help ensure journalists do not face barriers to doing their jobs. https://t.co/r4s2VpGp0C

— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) April 18, 2021

Go deeper: For more coverage, sign up for the Axios Twin Cities newsletter.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.