This article originally published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“I was just another in a sea of black faces on the other side of a police line,” said Christian Gooden, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer who was hit by pepper spray while covering a protest on September 29, last year. Gooden said that he turned his head when police sprayed indiscriminately, then resumed photographing the protesters and officers. Gooden said that when an officer approached and sprayed him moments later, he had to keep moving his head to avoid being hit directly in the face.
Gooden said that he believes the officers assumed he was a protester because so many activists were carrying cameras, and because of his race. “If I were white, I would probably be distinguishable from the crowd,” he said, adding that he believes “my color made the cop less concerned about who he was spraying.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker found that protests were the most dangerous beat in the U.S., accounting for the 29 arrests, 12 equipment searches or seizures, and 31 assaults of journalists that it documented in 2017. Journalists of color told CPJ they believe protests carry an additional risk for them.
Gooden said he was not wearing his press pass on September 29, but was carrying two large cameras and a camera bag. He had also reported for several nights on the protests over the acquittal of a former white police officer who shot and killed a black man. Other photographers for the Post-Dispatch said that their gear and constant presence means they are noticeable and recognizable. One of the photographers, David Carson, told CPJ the officer “pretty intentionally targeted [Gooden].”