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Seattle News Organizations Must Give George Floyd Protest Video and Images to Police: Judge

A Washington state judge ruled that news outlets must comply with a subpoena and hand over the unpublished video and photos from a May 30 racial injustice protest.

A superior court judge in Washington’s King County has ruled that five Seattle news outlets must comply with a subpoena and hand over all unpublished images and video from May 30 racial-injustice protests after the killing of George Floyd. The outlets had refused to hand over the images, which police said they wanted to use to identify suspects involved in an alleged arson of police vehicles and the theft of police weapons. Judge Nelson Lee ruled that the outlets are not protected under the Washington state shield law that prohibits authorities from access to reporters’ unpublished materials. The judge ruled that police could only use the images to investigate the arson and gun investigations and could not access cellphone photos and videos.