It is a devastating realization that it took a lawsuit to ban Minnesota State Police from attacking journalists reporting on protests. But conditions of a class action lawsuit settlement indeed now prohibit state police from arresting, threatening to arrest, or launching chemical attacks on journalists for the next six years, the ACLU of Minnesota announced on Tuesday. As part of the settlement, journalists injured in covering protests for George Floyd and Daunte Wright, Black men killed at the hands of police in Minnesota, will receive $825,000.

One of the injured journalists named in the suit, Jared Goyette, repeatedly told police he was a journalist before he was injured, as was the case in several viral videos showing reporters targeted by police in Minneapolis. Goyette was shot in the eye with a projectile and sprayed with tear gas.

“The Court’s ground-breaking injunction will hold state law enforcement accountable and require them to respect the First Amendment, rather than use violence and threats that deter the media from covering protests and police conduct,” ACLU-MN Legal Director Teresa Nelson said in a news release. “We need a free press to help us hold the police and government accountable. Without a free press, we don’t have a free society, and we can’t have justice.”

In addition to the ban on attacking journalists, the settlement also prohibits:

• Making journalists disperse; and

• Seizing or intentionally damaging equipment such as photo, audio or video gear.

It requires an independent expert review of complaints alleging media mistreatment during the Floyd and Wright protests and requires body cameras to be worn by all troopers by June.

Other requirements spelled out in the settlement include:

• Requiring officers who respond to protests to prominently display their agency name and badge number readable from 20 feet away.

• MSP training on treatment of the media and First Amendment rights.

Ed Ou, a video journalist and plaintiff in the case, said when authoritarian governments around the world see U.S. law enforcement officers “targeting the press, it empowers them to act with impunity.” Ou said he was hospitalized with four stitches and “a permanent scar” on his face when the Minnesota State Patrol targeted him.

“For me, this lawsuit and settlement is bittersweet,” he tweeted, “because it is a sad that we even needed to do this in the first place. We should have already been protected by the First Amendment, and able to operate without fear of being attacked by security forces for our work.

”But this is a start, and sends a signal to security forces that they cannot act with impunity, and there are consequences for their actions.”

YouTube Video

CLICK HERE to support organizations that are fighting every day for racial justice.

RELATED: 'I am permanently blind in my left eye’: Police target reporters covering George Floyd protests 

RELATED: More than 4,000 people arrested in police rampage during George Floyd protests

RELATED: Lawsuit: Minneapolis police ruthlessly attacked journalists at George Floyd protest