Charges against young journalists, including former CL intern, arrested during Occupy Atlanta protest to be dropped
Stephanie Pharr, Judy Kim, and Alisen Redmon arrested while covering Nov. 2011 bust
Three young journalists, including a former CL intern, who were arrested while covering a Nov. 2011 Occupy Atlanta protest might soon see their legal woes come to an end.
Atlanta Solicitor Raines Carter confirmed to the AJC on Sunday that the city would file a motion asking a judge to dismiss the charges against Stephanie Pharr, who interned for CL’s photo desk, Judy Kim of Georgia State University’s Signal, and Alisen Redmon of Kennesaw State University’s Sentinel.
On Nov. 5, a large group of Atlanta Police officers in riot gear and on horseback arrested 20 people along Peachtree Street near downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park for obstructing traffic. Pharr, Kim, and Redmon, who were covering the events, were among them. Pharr was pushed to the ground during her arrest, which was captured on video and made the rounds on Twitter and YouTube.
“It was like being swept into a vortex,” Pharr, who spent more than 12 hours in jail, told CL a few days after her arrest. “One minute everything was peaceful and fine, the next everything was out of hand.”
After 10 months of waiting for a court date, the trio finally appeared before a judge in late August. The journalists’ case attracted attention from media organizations, including the American Society of News Editors, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, CNN, the American Society of Media Photographers, the Atlanta Press Club, and the Student Press Law Center. On Saturday, the AJC’s Christopher Seward reports, Mayor Kasim Reed discussed the city’s plans during a gathering of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at the newspaper’s headquarters in Dunwoody.
“The city’s doing the right thing,” says Joeff Davis, CL’s photo editor. “I’m disappointed this has taken this long and gotten this far. As I expressed to the Atlanta Police Department the night she was arrested, Stephanie was a legitimate journalist covering a legitimate news event. I think to charge her and the other journalists with obstruction of traffic while streets are closed was wrong.”