Two reporters reach settlement with State Patrol after being injured covering protests over George Floyd murder

Emily Baude KSTP

FILE - Minnesota State Patrol troopers line up across from demonstrators protesting the killing of Daunte Wright on April 13, 2021, outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department. (KSTP)

Two L.A. Times journalists who were injured by Minnesota State Patrol troopers while covering protests over George Floyd’s murder have settled a lawsuit against the agency for $1.2 million, as reported on Wednesday in the L.A. Times.

The L.A. Times says the lawsuit alleged the troopers violated photographer Carolyn Cole and former The Times’ Houston bureau chief Molly Hennessy-Fiske’s 1st Amendment rights in May of 2020 when they were hit with pepper spray and projectiles while backed into a corner and actively identifying themselves as media.

“Being attacked by the Minneapolis State Patrol four years ago was an experience no other journalist should have to face,” Cole said in a statement. The photojournalist was pepper-sprayed and suffered a corneal abrasion in her eye. Hennessy-Fiske was bloodied after being hit multiple times by blunt projectiles, the L.A. Times reported.

The L.A. Times notes the two reporters will each receive $100,000 from the settlement, with the remaining $1 million going to cover attorney costs for the law firm that represented them.