43 arrested for refusing to move support station for people leaving uptown jail
Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office deputies have arrested 43 people who were stationed in front of the jail in uptown Charlotte. The volunteers arrested were staffing a jail support station where tables and tents had been set up for weeks.
The arrests came Thursday afternoon after a group of volunteers and activists refused to leave. Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden had, hours earlier, told the group that they had to vacate the sidewalk in front of the jail.
The arrests included at least four attorneys from the public defender’s office, according to private defense attorney Tim Emry.
Charlotte Uprising, one activist group calling for city and county officials to defund police departments, helped organize jail support to provide food, water and other items to people as they leave the Mecklenburg Detention Center. Activists say they are also assisting people recently released from jail to find housing and mental health services.
McFadden, though, said Thursday the group had to vacate due to homeless people sleeping in the area and participants parking cars in the bus lane in front of the tables and tents. He also said some law enforcement officers had been harassed, but some organizers said they had not witnessed that from the group.
“Visitors and employees have gotten harassed daily … and it has impeded daily operations, and have received several complaints as well,” Dejah Gilliam, spokeswoman for the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, said Thursday morning.
Just after 2 p.m., sheriff’s department vehicles lined the streets with lights flashing. Traffic to the one-way street was blocked off by sheriff’s office vehicles. Around a dozen deputies stood in a line in the street in front of the jail support station. Then an activist shouted that the request to leave was denied.
“We believe our services are essential,” they said, before leading the jail support volunteers in chants. Some deputies tried to engage protesters in conversation.
Around 15 minutes later, a deputy issued an order to disperse over a speaker multiple times, warning that those who did not leave could be arrested or detained. Volunteers — a few with bicycles — stood between the sheriff’s deputies and the supply tables.
Then around 2:30 p.m., deputies began making arrests. Some deputies struggled with people on the ground while other volunteers were pushed further back from deputies or ran away.
“We’re doing this for your skin color. Are you f— blind?” a protester shouted at a Black sheriff’s deputy.
Deputies, one on each side, walked protesters — some struggling and shouting — to a white van. When the van was full, deputies escorted protesters to cars to be transported to the jail.
“It doesn’t matter. I told you to leave,” a deputy said to a protester being arrested as he handed out zip ties.
Above the detention center entrance, a banner shows the words “Here Black Lives Matter” above a Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s badge and Sheriff McFadden’s name.
“That Black Lives Matter banner is a fake,” said Charlotte Uprising activist Gloria Merriweather to the crowd.
Around 3 p.m., jail support volunteers started to break down the waterproof rain coverings. Cars pulled up to the sidewalk, and volunteers moved coolers, water bottles, chairs and blankets into the back.
Jail support in Charlotte
Jail support’s physical presence in front of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office has grown as protests have continued for nearly three weeks in Charlotte after Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis officer who knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. During marches, protesters often got snacks and water from volunteers there.
Since local demonstrations began, public officials and protesters have criticized the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for arrests and for using chemical agents to disperse crowds, while the county sheriff’s office has largely avoided direct criticism.
On June 3, McFadden announced that the sheriff’s office would adopt a “duty to intervene” policy, which would punish deputies if they did not intervene when seeing other officers use excessive force. CMPD has implemented a similar rule. On June 8, McFadden also announced that its deputies will no longer be allowed to use tear gas during protests or other law enforcement encounters.
In a Twitter video posted by Charlotte Uprising before the arrest, McFadden is seen and heard telling the group to move the jail support station by 2 p.m. He said the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office could provide a truck and movers to help.
“We’ll pack it up,” McFadden said in the video.
Charlotte Uprising sent a tweet asking supporters to join them for a sit-in at 2 p.m. at the sheriff’s office. They also encouraged the community to call the Sheriff’s Office and demand for jail support to stay.
The jail support group had been outside the sheriff’s office on Fourth Street for weeks.
Charlotte Uprising originally started the group as a fund to help protesters bail out of jail if arrested while demonstrating in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. More recently, the tables and tents have also become a supply station for protesters and a resource for people released from the county jail.
“Jail support provides so much for people,” ACLU activist Kristie Puckett-Williams told reporters Thursday. “It’s a welcome home party, letting them know that their lives matter. It’s also resources that they might not immediately have access to.”
Those resources include money, a ride, cigarettes, a hot meal, clothes, and access to a phone charger, Puckett-Williams said.
“This should be something that is happening all the time, not just during a protest,” she said.
Volunteer Katie Horowitz, who recorded the video of McFadden on Thursday telling the group to leave, said the sheriff gave three reasons for the request to move the station. Horowitz said McFadden said cars were being parked in the bus lane on Fourth Street, homeless people have been sleeping near the station and that police officers have been harassed.
“We’ve been here too, and are not seeing that,” one volunteer said in the Twitter video.
Even as jail support volunteers were arrested Thursday, remaining volunteers began collecting the names of those arrested. And other volunteers began loading supplies into cars in front of more than two dozen onlooking deputies.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 3:29 PM.
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