St. Charles County in Missouri will pay three Al Jazeera jounalists who were tear-gassed during their coverage of the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, Missouri.
The three were covering the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death in that community when they were caught up in the tear gas deployed by the county’s SWAT team.
St. Charles County agreed to pay $280,000 in total to the three, according to the law firm Lathrop GPM, which represented the journalists.
The Al Jazeera America journalists — correspondent Ash-har Quraishi, producer Marla Cichowski and photojournalist Sam Winslade — were preparing for a live broadcast when confronted by the SWAT team. Officers fired tear gas toward them, and later claimed their move was in response to protesters in the same vicinity throwing rocks and bottles at them. They also claimed they did not know the Al Jazeera team was a news crew.
The law firm said video evidence contradicted police claims. Several videos showed no protesters in the area and no objects thrown at police.
Bernie Rhodes, the attorney for the journalists, said George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis, Minnesota police played a part in the award.
“The jury’s verdict finding Chauvin guilty of George Floyd’s murder represents a turning point in America: jurors will no longer rely on law enforcement’s version of what happened, especially where there is video that affirmatively disproves the police,” Rhodes said in a news release.
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