Toledo Blade Explains Why It's Suing The Federal Government

The Toledo Blade is demanding that government officials be held "accountable" after the detention of two of its journalists.

The Blade's Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn were detained by military police after taking photos of the exterior of the General Dynamics tank plant in Lima, Ohio. The pair identified themselves as journalists, but police continued to detain them and confiscated their equipment. The newspaper is suing six government officials over the incident.

In an editorial entitled "Liberty and Security" on Sunday, the Blade said it filed the lawsuit because officials at the plant have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

"Pentagon officials, from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the Army commandant at the plant to the rawest recruit, need to understand and acknowledge that such conduct was intolerable and can’t be allowed to recur, anywhere," the Blade wrote. "This is not special pleading on behalf of The Blade or news media in general; no American citizens deserve to be mistreated as our colleagues Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn were."

The newspaper immediately defended the two journalists, who said that they were on public property and their photos captured scenes that could be seen from the street, at the time of their detention. Blade managing editor Dave Murray called the treatment of the journalists "outrageous," and the lawsuit alleged that the military police violated the journalists' constitutional rights.

The editorial continued, "The initial effort by the police officers to determine what the journalists were doing may have been proper. But everything they did afterwards was not. They, and their employers, must be held accountable for their illegal actions." Visit the Toledo Blade for the full piece.