Amid public protests in the city of Ferguson, Missouri earlier this year, when local law enforcement officials in August requested a ‘temporary flight restriction (TFR)’ from the Federal Aviation Administration in the airspace above the St. Louis suburb, they claimed the request was based on safety concerns. However, telephone recordings by police officials obtained by the Associated Press appear to show that the concern was not about safety, but rather focused on restricting media coverage of the events happening on the ground.
“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in one of the recorded telephone conversations obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by AP.
In another part of the recording, an FAA official said the local police “did not care” if commercial traffic continued in the area, but made it clear “They didn’t want media in there.”
The community protests in Ferguson resulted from shooting death of an unarmed African-American teenager, Michael Brown, by police officer Darren Wilson. As protests over the shooting grew over subsequent days, the police response also escalated with deployments of heavily-armed riot police employing harsh tactics which garnered national attention and broad criticism.
In response to the police request, the FAA did enact flight restrictions over a three-mile area over Ferguson, making it impossible for television helicopters to cover the events from the air.
According to AP’s new exclusive reporting, the recorded calls about the TFR contradict claims made by the St. Louis County Police Department that the request was solely about safety and repeated statements that it had nothing to do with restricting media access to the dramatic interactions between community members, protesters, and police officers.
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