Ferguson Police Chief Claims Media 'Not A Target'

Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson had few answers for journalists asking him about why they had been so directly targeted by his officers while they covered the protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown.

Jackson spoke to a group of reporters after a night which saw two journalists arrested and several others hit with tear gas. The incidents were part of a pattern of police harassment of journalists covering the unrest in Ferguson.

But if anybody thought they were going to get clear answers from Jackson about any of this, they were mistaken.

Why were HuffPost's Ryan Reilly and the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery assaulted and arrested?

"I don't know."

Why, an Al Jazeera America reporter asked, was her network's news crew targeted by tear gas and rubber bullets, even though they were in an area where no protests were occurring?

"I don't know," Jackson said.

"Why is the media becoming a target?" the reporter asked.

"The media's not a target," Jackson said.