The city of Baton Rouge settled a First Amendment federal case with Karen Savage, a Class of 2016 graduate and adjunct instructor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. The settlement acknowledged that its police officers violated her press freedoms when they handcuffed her and put her in jail for 24 hours while covering a protest in response to a police killing in 2016.
The legal battle finally came to an end on Feb. 15, 2023 when the Baton Rouge Metro Council approved the $1.17 million settlement with Savage, journalist Cherri Foytlin, and 12 protesters who were subject to mass arrests following the 2016 police killing of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man who was selling CDs outside a convenience store.
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