WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The legal case filed by a group of journalists against the St. Louis, Missouri Police Department for civil rights abuses is well founded and likely winnable, St. Louis-based Attorney Thomas Kennedy told Sputnik.
“I think the case was well founded,” Kennedy said on Tuesday. “They will win. I hope they win.”
On Monday, four journalists sued the St. Louis County Police Department, alleging the police committed battery, false arrest and unreasonable search and seizure against the journalists as well as violated their right to freedom of press and speech when covering the police killing of Michael Brown in August 2014.
“I don’t think they wanted the truth of the police riots to be made to the public,” Kennedy said. “They wanted journalists to go away, so they could abuse people out of the public eye.”
Kennedy also said it is obvious that the police targeted journalists for that exact reason, and the journalists may be able to convince the judge and jury with evidence of what transpired.
Kennedy pointed out that the St. Louis County has been trying to cover up the abuses for a long time, and in seeking to keep journalists away behaved typically as persons who violate the law.
In St. Louis County, the authorities have financed little municipalities by collecting taxes and fines disproportionately administered to African Americans by white police officers, Kennedy said.
