‘They don’t value human life,’ activist says as police video reveals plan to attack with tear gas

A leading activist in Charlotte on Wednesday night called newly released video of officers planning June 2 to attack demonstrators with tear gas a validation of what she and others have known for months.

“They just confirmed what we already knew and what we said from the beginning: that this was a planned attack — despite the chief’s statements, and despite the tweets that they had put out saying otherwise,” Kristie Puckett Williams told the Observer while participating in a peaceful protest in uptown.

Puckett, manager of the Smart Justice campaign for the ACLU of North Carolina, was among about 75 people who gathered to march at Romare Bearden Park around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“We knew that we had done nothing in the minutes prior to that to warrant that response from them,” she said of the night in early June when hundreds of people marched to protest the death of George Floyd.

Earlier Wednesday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officials released hours of video footage showing the lead-up to a clash between protesters and police June 2. The incident — where police in riot gear unleashed tear gas from at least two directions on nearly 200 people — has resulted in no officers being disciplined but has drawn widespread criticism. One supervisor with CMPD was suspended for two weeks after being heard making what department officials have called “insensitive” remarks, the Observer reported.

An unidentified officer in the footage released Wednesday is heard referring to a plan to “bottle-neck” hundreds marching June 2. He told officers nearby the strategy was to “hammer their ass” and said later: “Hey, wave goodbye. They’re all about to get gassed.”

On Wednesday morning, CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said the department had reviewed at least 100 hours of video, including footage from body-worn cameras and surveillance cameras in uptown from June 2. He said at a news conference that the department would release “every bit of” video available.

He also argued that “there’s a human side of this.” He says officers had endured days of “riotous” activity by the time of the incident in question. He also says his officers had been verbally and physically assaulted.

Puckett, though, said that whoever is responsible for touching off the police action on June 2 is part of a systemic law enforcement problem.

“He has a value issue,” Puckett said. “He doesn’t value people. ... This is why we see so much violence at the hands of police — because they don’t value human life. They don’t value civil liberties and civil rights. Because if they did, they would hold them in a much higher regard.”

Mayor Vi Lyles, through a city spokesman, did not respond to an interview request from the Observer on Wednesday.

“I hope everyone is aware that that’s not the kind of department we want to have for policing,” Lyles has previously told reporters. “It’s not the kind of reputation that we want to have nationally or locally.”

Already, outcry over the tear gas attack on Charlotte’s streets has resulted in policy changes. Police with CMPD’s civil emergency unit are now required to wear body cameras and department leaders have changed basic requirements for how dispersal orders will be given to protesters. And earlier this summer, the City Council voted to stop funding, at least short-term, chemical agents.

Wednesday, meanwhile, marked the fourth night of recent demonstrations planned as resistance to the Republican National Convention, a portion of which was held in Charlotte. CMPD officers have repeatedly used pepper spray against people protesting ahead of and just after the RNC session in Charlotte on Monday.

On Monday night, several people were arrested and many more were hit with pepper spray when officers on bicycles rushed a crowd of nearly 100 people. The crowd had been marching through part of uptown and South End and stopped near the Midnight Diner on South Tryon. A small flag was lit and burned for a short time on the road pavement. After police officers rode in, pepper spray was deployed. City Councilman Braxton Winston was among those injured.

Winston, following the release of June 2 video, renewed his long-standing calls for deep change in policing in the city.

“I wonder if my colleagues will join me in abolishing this or nah,” he wrote on Twitter.

Charlotte’s government, Winston wrote, “is supposed to provide municipal services. Who does this serve?”

On Wednesday night, CMPD officers on bicycles kept their distance as the crowd moved from Romare Bearden toward the Black Lives Matter mural in uptown. At one point, it appeared water bottles were thrown at officers, but the officers did not react.

At the same time, the fight against racial injustice was reverberating across the country. According to the Associated Press, players from six NBA teams decided not to play postseason games on Wednesday as part of a boycott in the wake of the weekend shooting by police in Kenosha, Wis., of Jacob Blake.

Some games in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and the WNBA also were called off as part of a boycott that gained momentum over the course of just a few hours.

Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot in the back by police in Wisconsin on Sunday night. Federal investigators said Wednesday that they have launched a civil rights probe into the shooting. Violent — and ultimately deadly — protests erupted in Kenosha on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday authorities said a 17-year-old had been charged with homicide after gunfire erupted, leaving two dead and another person seriously wounded.

This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 11:34 PM.