June 12, 2020, Minneapolis, MN-- Maggie Koerth, a senior science reporter for the website FiveThirtyEight, was covering a protest from a Minneapolis sidewalk on Saturday when a police officer drew a weapon on her and another working journalist, impeding their work.

“We said, ‘Press, press — we are press,’ and we held up our badges and put our hands up in the air,” Koerth said in an interview to the New York Times. “They kept pointing the weapon at us while we were doing that, and one of them said, ‘Shut up.’”

Demonstrations sparked across United States after murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in the pursuit of justice. With numerous police forces deployed to protest sites, journalists face constant threat of violence, arrest and censorship. Hundreds of journalists have reported to have faced attempts at censorship, verbal attacks, blatant threats and police violence. Hundreds of journalists have been arrested while on duty and black journalists who take the ongoing civil unrest very personally are especially targeted. CFWIJ follows the events closely with great concern.