IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa journalist covering a protest for racial justice was temporarily blinded when a police officer shot pepper spray in her face and jailed for hours despite telling him repeatedly she was just doing her job.
Body camera video played at her trial shows Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri in custody on May 31, 2020, her eyes burning from pepper spray.
She says she is the newspaper and asks Officer Luke Wilson why he arrested her, adding that she was in pain and couldn't see. Sahouri's defense played the video for jurors on the second day of a trial in which Sahouri and her former boyfriend, Spenser Robnett, are charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts.
