Eighth Circuit Denies Immunity For Cop Who Tackled Photographer During Protest

During a nighttime protest in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Des Moines, Iowa police officer tackles, pepper-sprays a news photographer and arrests him for "failure to disperse." Charges dropped, the photographer sues. Eighth Circuit: No qualified immunity for the officer on the photographer's Fourth Amendment claims for unlawful seizure and excessive force. The photographer was standing by himself, not as part of an unlawful assembly, and the officer tackled him for basically no reason. To trial the case must go.