Journalist Amy Goodman plans to turn herself into authorities in North Dakota Monday in response to a warrant for her arrest.
The warrant shows Goodman was charged Sept. 3 in Morton County, N.D., with a criminal trespassing misdemeanor. That day, Goodman’s show Democracy Now! “filmed security guards working for the Dakota Access pipeline company using dogs and pepper spray to attack protesters,” according to the show.
Goodman (Nick Bygone/Wikipedia)
Goodman plans to issue a press statement Monday morning followed by a short walk to the county jail, according to a statement from Democracy Now!
“I will go back to North Dakota to fight this charge,” Goodman said in the release. “It is a clear violation of the First Amendment. I was doing my job as a journalist, covering a violent attack on Native American protesters.”
A petition calling for North Dakota to drop the warrant has attracted nearly 70,000 supporters.
The show’s report showed a security company siccing dogs on protesters who had crossed a fence where bulldozers were preparing land for pipeline construction. According to the show, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation based the charge on a viewing of the report.
First tenets of journalism…the five W’s. You never tell us for whom Ms. Goodman works.