Yingst v. County of St. Louis

On Dec. 16, 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a civil rights action against St. Louis County and police officer James Vollmer for violating the constitutional rights of Gerald “Trey” Yingst, a News2Share reporter and producer. He is seeking judgment against the County for its failure to train and supervise Officer Vollmer and for defamation.

On Nov. 22, Yingst was arrested in Ferguson. Police claimed he was standing in the street and failed to disperse after being asked by law enforcement to do so. However, several eye-witness accounts and video recordings of the incident show that Yingst was standing on the sidewalk exercising his First Amendment right to record police at the time of his arrest. This occurred one day after the ACLU of Missouri had secured court orders against the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the County of St. Louis and the City of Ferguson requiring that the police respect the First Amendment rights of journalists.

“It is troubling that the First Amendment rights of the media continued to be trampled despite multiple court orders prohibiting such government overreach,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri.

“Members of the press should be treated with respect, not harassed and arrested for doing their jobs,” said Jeffrey Mittman, ACLU of Missouri executive director. “After all, the media serve as our eyes on the ground and we all depend on them to have unfettered access to events as they unfold in our communities.”

Videos of Yingst getting arrested can be found at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/55733160 (at 35:40 mark) and http://m.ustream.tv/recorded/55733929?rmalang=en_US (at 1:15 mark).

Updated: July 28, 2015

This lawsuit was settled.