Journalist arrested in Portland after asking a police officer for his name

Journalist Bea Lake reached a settlement with the City of Portland, Oregon, on Oct. 12, 2023, following her arrest while documenting protests in June 2020.

Lake filed a federal lawsuit against the city, the Portland Police Bureau and an unnamed police officer on June 6, 2022, almost exactly two years after her arrest. She alleged that officers violated her First and Fourth Amendment rights by arresting her while she was covering Black Lives Matter protests. The charge against her — interfering with a peace officer — was dropped in February 2021.

According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Lake accepted a settlement agreement for $15,000, plus an additional $10,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, on Sept. 18, 2023. The case was formally closed on Oct. 12.

Journalist Bea Lake filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Portland on June 6, 2022, alleging that officers violated her First and Fourth Amendment rights by arresting her while she was documenting protests two years earlier.

Lake was covering Black Lives Matter protests in Portland as staff for iHeartMedia radio network podcasts hosted by journalist Robert Evans. On June 7, 2020, Lake was arrested then released the following day on charges of “interfering with a Peace Officer.” The charges against her were dropped in February 2021, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.

According to the federal lawsuit filed on her behalf, Lake was complying with Portland Police Bureau orders to move away from the Justice Center in downtown Portland when an officer said that “press passes don’t matter.”

Lake asked the officer his name and, when he didn’t respond, repeated the question a second time. The officer responded, “You want to go to jail?” and grabbed her from behind by her press gear bag.

In July 2020, Lake and Evans, who was hit with a crowd-control munition and shoved by law enforcement, joined a class action lawsuit against the City of Portland. Jane Moisan, the attorney representing the journalists, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she filed the case in state court in order to raise the issue of officers’ use of force against crowds and establish those protections under state law. However, Moisan said, the case was quickly removed to federal court where it sat for months before it was remanded back to the Multnomah County Circuit Court in December 2020.

“By that time the protests had tapered off and really our purpose in going after the case in the first place had just been made more or less moot,” Moisan said. “We were really looking at: Where is it in state law that ever even justifies the use of force against a crowd? It’s more set forth in federal law than state law. I think that’s a good question to be looking at in general, we just got kind of outplayed on this one.”

Lake voluntarily dismissed her claims in the class action lawsuit in order to file the federal lawsuit, Moisan said. Evans reached a settlement agreement with the city for $5,000, and the case was formally dismissed on July 18, 2022.