Police officer ‘fires pepper balls at journalist’ as George Floyd protests spread across US

A journalist and her crew were shot with pepper balls by a police officer while broadcasting a live report on protests taking place in Louisville, Kentucky.

Local reporter Kaitlin Rust, from television news station WAVE 3, was in the middle of a live segment on Friday when she can be heard screaming: “I’m getting shot!”

Footage from the broadcast showed a police officer aiming his pepper ball gun in the direction of the reporter and her crew and firing the pepper balls at them. A news anchor from the studio asks Ms Rust if she is alright, to which she replies: “It’s okay, it’s those pepper bullets.”

The news anchor then asks her who the officers were aiming at, and she replied: “At us! Directly at us!”

Ms Rust and her crew then move away from the officer and the protest, and she tells the studio they were told to move “farther away”.

“Well I’m sure if they had just said ‘move’, you would have moved,” said the news anchor as the crew are walking away from the officers.

Ms Rust said: “We were behind [the police] line, I guess a little too close for comfort.”

The pepper balls used on the reporters are non-lethal rounds that contain irritant powder.

Demonstrations in Louisville are entering the fourth day amid protests against the killing of a black woman, Breonna Taylor, in her own home in March. The protests coincide with nationwide unrest over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a police office pressed his knee into the back of his neck during arrest.

The Louisville Metro Police Department have apologised for the pepper ball incident. Police spokesperson Jessie Halladay told the Courier Journal: “It’s not something that should have occurred if she was singled out as a reporter.”

Ms Halladay said police would review the video and carry out “any investigation for discipline” if needed.

The incident comes as a CNN crew was arrested on live television by police in Minnesota, prompting an apology from the state governor, Tim Walz.

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and two other colleagues were arrested while covering violent and fiery protests in the city.

Mr Walz said at a news conference later: “I take full responsibility. There is absolutely no reason something like that should happen… This is a very public apology to that team.

“We’ve got to ensure that there is safe spot for journalism to tell this story,” he added.

Another member of the media was also reportedly struck by pepper balls while covering protests in Denver on Friday.

Photographer Hyoung Chang, of the Denver Post, said an officer fired two pepper balls directly at him. Mr Chang later uploaded a photo of his press ID with a large chip in it on Instagram, and said: “I got two pepper ball shots from Denver Police during covering George Floyd rally. I wonder why two not one. My press ID might helped me little [sic].”

Large-scale protests have turned into rioting in cities across the US, as people display anger at the deaths of black people at the hands of police. Clashes between protesters and police have led to the death of a teenager in Detroit.

Additional reporting by AP