by Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — The federal government agreed in August to a request by the police to restrict about 37 square miles of airspace over Ferguson, Mo., for 12 days for what they said were safety concerns, but audio recordings show that the local authorities privately acknowledged that the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.
On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, the agency’s air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to allow commercial flights to operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and for police helicopters to fly through the area — while still prohibiting flights.
“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” one administration manager said about the St. Louis County Police Department in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.”
At another point, referring to the temporary flight restriction, a manager at the administration’s center in Kansas City, Mo., said the police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this T.F.R. all day long. They didn’t want media in there.”
The manager said there was “no option for a T.F.R. that says, you know, ‘OK, everybody but the media is OK.’ ” The managers then developed wording that they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.
The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which has said the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing news media from witnessing the violence or police response to demonstrations after the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The police said at the time, and again as recently as Friday, that they had requested the flight restriction in response to shots fired at a police helicopter.
But police officials confirmed that there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an F.A.A. manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed “rumors.”
The A.P. obtained the recordings under a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Any evidence that a no-fly zone was put in place as a pretext to exclude the media from covering events in Ferguson is extraordinarily troubling and a blatant violation of the press’s First Amendment rights,” said Lee Rowland, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues.
The F.A.A. administrator, Michael Huerta, said in a statement Sunday that his agency would always err on the side of safety. “F.A.A. cannot and will never exclusively ban media from covering an event of national significance, and media was never banned from covering the ongoing events in Ferguson in this case,” he said.
Mr. Huerta also said that, to the best of the agency’s knowledge, “no media outlets objected to any of the restrictions” while they were in effect.
The agency manager in Kansas City then asked a St. Louis County police official if the restrictions could be lessened so nearby commercial flights would not be affected. The new order allows “aircraft on final there at St. Louis. It will still keep news people out. The only way people will get in there is if they give them permission in there anyway,” so with the lesser restriction, “it still keeps all of them out.”
“Yeah,” the police official replied. “I have no problem with that whatsoever.”
Brian Thouvenot, the news director at KMOV-TV in St. Louis, told The A.P. that his station had been prepared at first to legally challenge the flight restrictions, but was later advised that its pilot could fly over the area as long as the helicopter stayed above 3,000 feet. That kept the helicopter and its mounted camera outside the restricted zone, although filming from such a distance, he said, was “less than ideal.”
None of the St. Louis stations were advised that news helicopters could enter the airspace even under the lesser restrictions, which under federal rules should not have applied to aircraft “carrying properly accredited news representatives.” The F.A.A.’s no-fly notice indicated the area was closed to all aircraft except the police and planes using the airport.
“Only relief aircraft operations under direction of St. Louis County Police Department are authorized in the airspace,” the notice said. Aircraft using Lambert-St. Louis Airport were exempt.
The day that notice was issued, Sgt. Brian Schellman, a county police spokesman, denied that the no-fly zone was to prevent news helicopters from covering the events. “We understand that that’s the perception that’s out there, but it truly is for the safety of pilots,” he told NBC News.
The Ferguson police were widely criticized for their response after the death of Mr. Brown, a black man who was shot by a white city police officer, Darren Wilson, on Aug. 9. Later, under county police command, several reporters were arrested, a TV news crew was tear gassed and some demonstrators were told they were not allowed to film officers. In early October, a federal judge said the police had violated demonstrators’ and news crews’ constitutional rights.
“Here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying and arresting reporters who are just doing their jobs,” President Obama said on Aug. 14, two days after the police confided to federal officials that the flight ban was secretly intended to keep the news media out. “The local authorities, including police, have a responsibility to be transparent and open.”
The restricted flight zone initially encompassed airspace in a 3.4-mile radius around Ferguson and up to 5,000 feet in altitude, but the police agreed to reduce it to 3,000 feet after the F.A.A.’s command center in Warrenton, Va., complained to managers in Kansas City that it was impeding traffic into St. Louis.
The flight restrictions remained in place until Aug. 22, federal records show. A police captain wanted it extended when officials were set to identify Mr. Wilson by name as the officer who had shot Mr. Brown and because Mr. Brown’s funeral would “bring out the emotions,” according to the recordings.
“We just don’t know what to expect,” the captain told the F.A.A. “We’re monitoring that. So, last night we shot a lot of tear gas, we had a lot of shots fired into the air again.
“It did quiet down after midnight,” the captain added, but “we don’t know when that’s going to erupt.”
