The Blade | The Huffington Post
The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade filed suit against U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and several others, including three members of the military police. Two of its journalists, Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn, were detained outside of a General Dynamics plant last Friday. Nolan Rosenkrans reports:
The lawsuit states that the Ms. Fraser and Mr. Linkhorn were unlawfully detained, that Ms. Fraser was unlawfully restrained and received unlawful threats of bodily harm, that the cameras were unlawfully confiscated and pictures unlawfully destroyed, and that the pair’s Constitutional rights were unlawfully prevented from being exercised.
The lawsuit also says the MPs “repeatedly addressed and referred to Plaintiff Fraser in terms denoting the masculine gender. Plaintiff Fraser objected and requested that defendants employ an appropriate mode of address. Then, after Defendant Snyder had placed Plaintiff Fraser in handcuffs, he threatened a physical assault, saying “You say you are a female, I’m going to go under your bra.”
The suit asks for monetary damages as well as “a permanent injunction prohibiting the Defendants and each of them from engaging in the same or similar conduct in the future, and in particular enjoining them from interfering with the lawful photography of publicly visible portions of the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center or any similar facility, and further enjoining them from detaining or confining any persons engaged in such activity as well as enjoining them from seizing or destroyingthe equipment possessed by or photographs taken by any such persons.”
Blade Managing Editor Dave Murray told The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone Wednesday the paper was considering a suit. It already filed complaints with the FBI.
Here’s a copy of the complaint.
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