REPORTER ON TRIAL

Jury Acquits Des Moines Journalist Arrested During BLM Protests

Andrea Sahouri was found not guilty of failing to disperse and interference with official acts while she was covering the George Floyd protests last year.

The Des Moines Register reporter who was arrested on charges of failure to disperse and of interference with official acts last year was acquitted by a jury on Wednesday afternoon. Andrea Sahouri was arrested while covering the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd. Police arrested Sahouri and her then boyfriend, saying they stayed in an area police were trying to clear. Police also claimed Sahouri and Spenser Robnett resisted when an officer pepper sprayed them and tried to arrest them, but the defense argued the pair didn’t hear the order to leave the area and did not pull away when arrested. A jury agreed, acquitting the pair of all charges.