Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim “can’t even” over his reporter Ryan Reilly being charged with trespassing and interfering with police duties in Ferguson a year after the fact.
Reilly and WaPo‘s race reporter Wesley Lowery were detained last year after getting into a tussle with police in a local McDonald’s. Police allegedly asked the reporters to leave the premises. The reporters whipped out their cell phone cameras and began taking video. So police roughed them up a little, according to the reporters.
No charges were filed. The reporters weren’t even booked, although they did spend time in a jail cell.
But a year later, St. Louis County has filed charges against both Reilly and Lowery. (The summons letter to Lowery came Monday; Reilly learned late Monday night that he was also being charged.)
“A year ago, police in St. Louis County bizarrely arrested a Washington Post reporter and a HuffPost reporter at a McDonald’s,” wrote Grim in a late night note. “After roughing them up, they released them without charges. Until now. Seriously. Are you…I mean…what are they…I mean…ah, I just can’t with this.”
And an official statement from HuffPost:
“The Huffington Post condemns the charges filed by St. Louis County against our justice reporter, Ryan J. Reilly, while covering the protests in Ferguson last year. Ryan has the full support of The Huffington Post in fighting these charges.
Almost a year ago today, Ryan was working on his laptop in a McDonald’s near the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. 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.
At least we know St. Louis County knows how to file charges. If Wesley Lowery and Ryan J. Reilly can be charged like this with the whole country watching, just imagine what happens when nobody is.”
Please note: That’s Reilly to the right in the picture above. Lowery is on the left. The pair have become bosom buddies since their tussle with police in Ferguson last summer.