Reporter charged with torching police cars amid protest

 

Some reporters have turned whatever reputation America’s legacy media had for telling the truth after the years-long Russian collusion conspiracy theory was debunked on its head during 2020.

They, and their editors, knowingly suppressed vital information about Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activities just as his father was competing for the presidency.

They trumpeted impeachment for President Trump when he was acquitted by the Senate.

They openly called violent riots “mostly peaceful” even as buildings burned in their own standup shots.

They intone that President Trump’s concerns about election fraud are “baseless” even as sworn statements from witnesses confirm it happened.

Now one of their members has been arrested – accused of firebombing police cars during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Federal authorities have accused Renea Goddard, 22, of allegedly sneaking into Arkansas State Police headquarters to “slash squad car tires and torch them with Molotov cocktails.”

The charges against Goddard and several others were announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Investigators allege that the defendants were responsible for “numerous incidents of vandalism” and accompanied Black Lives Matter protests.

Officers found tires on their vehicles punctured and Molotov cocktails in the parking lot.

And “surveillance footage reflected that two individuals were moving near the parking lot after the protests, and a flaming object can be observed being launched into the parking lot area.”

Other vehicles had been burned or vandalized with spray paint.

“Witnesses informed law enforcement that Renea Goddard, Emily Nowlin, and Aline Espinosa-Villegas were responsible for the incident. Federal search warrants were executed to obtain the locations of their cell phones, and cell site data confirmed that their cell phones were in the location of Arkansas State Police Headquarters on August 28, 2020,” the government alleged.

The arrests “send a message that violence targeted toward law enforcement will not be tolerated,” stated U.S. Attorney Hiland. “Breaking into a police compound and fire bombing a police vehicle with a homemade explosive device is clearly not a peaceful protest. Those who would target law enforcement with violent acts will not do so in the Eastern District of Arkansas without the full resources of the federal government being deployed to assist our state and local partners in bringing those responsible to justice. They will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The New York Post reported Goddard worked for Arkansas Public Media, then as a “reporter and host” for KUAR Public Radio.

KUAR confirmed that Goddard had been a part-time employee but no longer was working there at the time of her arrest, the report said.

“Such an attack shows a fundamental rejection of the role of reporters. It is an erosion of lines of separation from those we cover or represent,” explained Jonathan Turley, a law professor and prominent commentator.

“In a way, it is the most extreme form of new advocacy for reporters. There has been a steady erosion of bright lines for reporters in their neutrality and objectivity,” he said. “There has been a loss of clarity in the roles of reporters in the last four years that undermine the entire profession.”

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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

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