A Washington-based journalist has sued St. Louis County and one of its police lieutenants, saying his rights were violated when he was arrested while covering protests over the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, court papers showed.
Gerald Yingst, a reporter and producer with News2Share, also accuses police of defaming him by announcing his arrest on Twitter and saying he had refused a commander’s order to clear the street, damaging his professional reputation.
A St. Louis Police Department spokesman referred enquires about the lawsuit to the St. Louis County counselor’s office.
No one answered calls placed there on Thursday evening.
Yingst was one of two people detained on Nov. 22 during one of the nightly protests outside the Ferguson police department as a grand jury mulled whether to charge Darren Wilson with the shooting death in August of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The grand jury eventually declined to indict the officer, prompting two days of violent demonstrations in the St. Louis suburb, as well as wider protests and national soul-searching over policing.
Yingst’s lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Missouri, names St. Louis Police Lieutenant James Vollmer as a defendant and says he is being sued in his individual capacity.
It also sues St. Louis County for allegedly failing to train and supervise Vollmer, and for defamation.
The lawsuit says Yingst was standing on the sidewalk outside the police headquarters, recording attempts by officers to clear protesters from the street, when Vollmer allegedly pointed at Yingst and told a group of patrolmen to “lock him up.”
Protesters and other reporters standing alongside Yingst on the sidewalk were not arrested, it said. “No reasonable officer would have believed that Defendant Vollmer had probable cause to cause Yingst’s arrest,” the lawsuit added.
Shortly afterward, the police department tweeted, using the journalist’s official Twitter handle: “@TreyYingst reporter from D.C. taken into custody for failure to disperse. Was asked to leave street by the commander and refused. #Ferguson.”
The lawsuit, which was filed for Yingst by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, accuses the county of publicly disclosing information that it knew to be false, and of harming the reporter’s professional reputation in the process.
Obama to set up panel to boost trust between police and communities
President Barack Obama on Thursday will set up a task force to draw up recommendations to strengthen trust between law enforcement and local communities, following protests over several instances of police killings of unarmed people this year.
“There is a sense of urgency,” White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told reporters before Obama was to sign an executive order setting up the Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
She said the order directs the 11-member panel to submit recommendations to the president by March 2.
Obama had said on Dec. 1 that he would use his last two years in office to address the “simmering distrust” between police and minority communities.
Days after the Missouri decision, a New York grand jury decided not to bring criminal charges against a white police officer whose chokehold contributed to the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African-American, in New York in July.
“The Task Force will examine … how to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and the communities that they protect, while also promoting effective crime reduction,” the White House said in a statement.
Jarrett said one of the issues to be considered by the panel is formulating best practices for the use of body cameras by police forces.
Obama has asked the U.S. Congress for $263 million to pay for body cameras for police officers and expand training for law enforcement.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a George Mason University professor who is a former U.S. assistant attorney general, will lead the task force.
Missouri AG sues cities over predatory traffic ticketing
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday against 13 St. Louis suburbs for predatory traffic ticketing, saying the cities were depending on traffic fines for too much of their budgets.
Black residents in some municipalities around St. Louis have complained they are unfairly targeted by frequent police patrols on highways, and have pressured politicians to make it more difficult for cities to earn revenue from traffic fines.
Under what is known as the Macks Creek law, cities in Missouri cannot raise more than 30 percent of annual revenue from fines and court costs for traffic violations, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
“The Macks Creek law was enacted to protect Missourians from predatory traffic ticketing,” Koster said.
“As we continue to identify areas for reform, an important first step is to require St. Louis County municipalities to follow the Macks Creek law to the letter. Based on my review, these thirteen municipalities did not.”
The cities being sued include Vinita Terrace, which Koster said derives more than 50 percent of its operating revenue from traffic-related fines.
The cities of Moline Acres and Normandy were also named as deriving more than 30 percent of revenue from such fines.
Koster said the goal of the lawsuit was for cities to come into compliance and to properly report revenue.
Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb where Brown was killed in August, was not among the cities being sued.
In September, the Ferguson City Council announced new laws to reduce the city budget’s dependence on court fines.
The changes came after residents of the town, which has a black majority and a mostly white government, complained about years of racial profiling and onerous traffic fines that affected mostly poor and African-American residents.
Reuters
