Lexis-Olivier Ray, a freelance journalist who covered the upheaval for the news website L.A. Taco, was not among those arrested. But last month he received a letter from the Los Angeles city attorney’s office notifying him that he faced a criminal charge for failing to follow an LAPD officer’s order to disperse during the tumult. AdvertisementA group of LAPD officers just broke my camera mic, tackled me to the ground and beat me with their batons, after I identified myself as a journalist multiple times. Prosecutors in the city attorney’s office declined to file charges against 16 of those people. “I find it difficult to believe that there isn’t a connection between my recent investigative reporting and the notice that I received from the City Attorney’s office,” he wrote in an email to The Times.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 18, 2021 15:03 UTC