Two journalists were detained by police in Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday while reporting on the protests that have taken place since the Saturday killing of an unarmed teenager by a police officer.
Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post tweeted that they were inside of a McDonald's when police entered. On MSNBC, Lowery explained that the McDonald's is two blocks from the QuikTrip convenience store where many of the protests have been staged, and has become a gathering place for the media. According to Lowery, officers "decided we weren't leaving McDonald's quickly enough, [and] shouldn't have been taping them."
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Reilly also used Twitter to share images of SWAT teams "with their guns trained on the crowds" gathered at a peaceful demonstration.
As night fell, the mood changed, according to a Huffington Post producer, as police began to throw tear gas.
UPDATE: Martin D. Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, released a statement Wednesday night saying he was appalled by what happened to Lowery and "there was absolutely no justification for his arrest."
The statement also said that Lowery was illegally instructed to stop taking video by police, and went along with their instructions. He was then slammed into a soda machine and handcuffed.
"That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news," Baron said. "The physical risk to Wesley himself is obvious and outrageous."
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