They were arrested while covering protests last year. They’re still in legal limbo.

On June 1, as protests intensified across the US following the police killing of George Floyd, Richard Cummings, a freelance photojournalist in Worcester, Massachusetts, saw dozens of police officers assembling in riot gear, even though the day’s main demonstration had wound down. He started to film them and take pictures. “Worcester’s never had anything with riot gear before,” Cummings told me recently. “It looks like the end of the world. It was crazy.” A few officers, Cummings said, were...