Who was arrested at Charlotte’s George Floyd protests?
In a cell at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center, ACLU organizer Kristie Puckett Williams started dancing and singing as loud as she could.
It was Friday night and she had just been arrested while protesting against police brutality and death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man killed while being detained.
The detention officers must have thought she was crazy, Puckett Williams said. But really, she simply wanted to annoy the officers into letting her go.
According to records from the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office, Puckett Williams was arrested for failure to disperse on command. She was one of nearly 100 protesters taken into custody through Tuesday afternoon.
“We are sick of this tyrannical oppressive police regime that exists across the country,” Puckett Williams told the Observer. “This is not just an indictment of Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. This is an indictment of policing everywhere.”
Charlotte Observer reporters researched the backgrounds of the protesters arrested in Charlotte from Friday night through Tuesday.
After five days of protest and nearly 100 arrests, here is what we know about those taken into custody:
▪ Most of those arrested were charged with failure to disperse or resisting a public officer.
Andrea McCrary, an assistant professor of English who studies the rhetoric of social movements for Queens University in Charlotte, pointed out many of these charges could be viewed as subjective, as it is up to a police officer to decide if someone is exhibiting disorderly conduct. She also pointed out charges such as failure to disperse and disorderly conduct are to be expected in protest.
“Activists may argue that to be “orderly” in a moment of injustice would be the wrong action, even if it is illegal,” she said over email. “History will show us that plenty of well-known activists and clergy members were arrested on these kinds of charges.”
▪ More than a dozen were charged with carrying or possessing a weapon.
Community organizer and activist Kass Ottley was at a Beatties Ford protest where she said she saw a white man with an assault rifle and a nine millimeter gun who was not arrested by the police.
“He marched to Beatties Ford Road and no one said a word to him” she said. “Why? So we’re arresting protesters with guns, then we’re arresting all protesters with guns or are we just arresting some of them? The double standards I’m tired of. The officers saw him, it’s not like they didn’t see him.”
Three-quarters of those charged with a weapons offense were black, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis of court data.
▪ About 58% of all protesters arrested in Charlotte were black and 30% were white.
▪ About 60% of those arrested were from Charlotte, and more than three-quarters were from the Charlotte area.
▪ About 58% had prior charges. Most of the prior charges were misdemeanor and most of the prior charges were dismissed, according to an Observer analysis.
Around 28% of protesters’ prior charges were felonies.
“This is irrelevant,” said Danielle Boaz, an Assistant Professor of African Studies at UNC-Charlotte. “First of all, we know that there are significant racial disparities in policing so knowing that many of the protestors, the majority of whom were black, have a criminal record tells us nothing except that it reinforces the fact that policing is racially biased.”
▪ The average age of those who were arrested during protests in Charlotte was 26. Twenty-five percent were female.
Puckett Williams said she didn’t plan on going to Friday night’s protest. But when she learned that the march was happening on Beatties Ford Road, a historically black neighborhood, and tensions were escalating she joined protesters hoping to act as a mediator.
By at around 10 p.m. she was arrested. Puckett Williams said she sat in a CMPD substation for around an hour before they could be driven to the county jail in uptown.
She stayed in police custody until about 2 a.m.
In a statement about this week’s arrests, CMPD said: “CMPD is actively investigating all criminal activity and is working to prevent the harm and destruction caused by the violent acts of rioting.”
CMPD said there have been at least 53 reports of officers being assaulted in the past six days.
Puckett Williams said portraying protesters as violent adds to their frustration.
“The dismissal of our pain is where the anger comes from,” Puckett Williams said. “It’s not just flash bangs and the tear gassing. It’s the gaslighting,” she said.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 3:56 PM.
