UCI law school students filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of two journalists that accuses the Los Angeles Police Department of violating the journalists’ First Amendment rights by arresting the journalists for simply doing their jobs.
Law students Brian Fiumara and Zoe Vikstrom co-authored the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on May 9, 2022 on behalf of clinic clients Jon Peltz and Kate Gallagher, reporters for the independent news website Knock LA. The students to press freedom work in the law school’s clinical program.
The two journalists were arrested on March 21, 2021 for allegedly failing to obey police orders to leave the area near Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles before police began evicting unhoused persons from their tents along the lake. The city attorney, however, declined to file charges against them.
“Kate and Jon were arrested while standing on a public sidewalk, peacefully filming police and reporting to the public about a public protest and police actions, which is activity completely protected by the First Amendment,” said UC Irvine law school Professor Susan E. Seager, who directs the Press Freedom practice in the law school’s Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic.
“The LAPD treated Jon and Kate like criminals because Knock LA is not part of the establishment press. But the First Amendment – and the LAPD’s own policy – do not require reporters to work for the mainstream media to be protected by the First Amendment,” Professor Seager said.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and training for police officers dealing with the press at protests.
Police detained other reporters from more well-known media outlets, including a Los Angeles Times reporter, but let those reporters go and did not arrest them, the newspaper reported.
Since 2020, police have assaulted journalists across the country more than 600 times and made more than 200 arrests of journalists – with most of the arrests in 2021 and 2022 coming during coverage of police evicting unhoused people from their encampments, the lawsuit said.
Mr. Peltz said officers were hostile to the press at the scene. “It was clear that we were arrested because the LAPD did not want anyone – especially the media – to observe their egregious and unlawful conduct at Echo Park Lake. The department behaved with brazen lawlessness to silence voices critical of the department,” Mr. Peltz said.
“A free press is crucial for holding public agencies like the LAPD accountable. The police should not be allowed to arrest journalists for reporting on a protest against their department’s own conduct,” Ms. Gallagher said.
On the night of the arrests, Los Angeles police officers issued a dispersal order to protesters and reporters on a public sidewalk about 150 feet from the lake, but the officers then immediately trapped and arrested protesters, the two Knock LA reporters and other independent journalists, and would not allow any of them to leave, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that the LAPD has “a longstanding policy, custom and practice of obstructing, targeting, and retaliating against members of the press for exercising their First Amendment rights to gather news regarding police officer activity in public places, particularly during protests against police brutality.”
The Press Freedom clinic provides free legal services to independent journalists, independent news organizations, and press advocacy organizations.
Knock LA is a non-profit, independent news website focusing on local law enforcement misconduct and government corruption since 2017. The website published last year a 15-part series about the history of violent gangs of deputies within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and both the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department have released documents showing that the departments keep track of Knock LA’s reporting about their agencies.
The clinic is co-counsel with UC Irvine law school grad Shaleen Shanbhag, who is a partner at the civil rights law firm Hadsell Stormer in Pasadena, California.