On Thursday night, September 24, the Louisville police department arrested state Rep. Attica Scott, her daughter Ashanti, and Shameka Parrish-Wright, part of the team at the local Bail Project. The police charged all three with “unlawful assembly” and “failure to disperse” – fairly standard charges for anyone arrested at the protests, and both misdemeanors.
But then, the police added “rioting in the first degree” to the charges, which is a Class D felony.
Let’s be right up front about this: that charge is bullshit, plain and simple.
And County Attorney Mike O’Connell should drop it. Period.
Frankly, ALL the charges are BS. But the rioting one sticks out like a toddler’s crayon scribbles pasted over the Mona Lisa.
Accusing Attica Scott of rioting is like accusing me of being a Proud Boy. It is so bogus it would be completely laughable – if it weren’t also serious.
How close is “associated with”?
The police contend that Scott, her daughter, and Parrish-Wright were “associated with” a group of protesters that was causing damage, including throwing a flare into the public library. (The flare-into-the-library event got transmogrified into “Attica Scott tried to burn down the library!” More BS.)
So here’s a pertinent question for the police and the County Attorney to answer: how close do I have to be to a group of people to be “associated” with them?
I was in my home in the East End that night. Was I associated with anyone downtown?
And if you think that’s silly, then answer the question. Ten feet? Thirty feet? Quarter mile?
The fact is, it’s a horrible wording for a charge like this. It is so fuzzy that it leaves the interpretation to whomever decides to use it. Including police.
So what happened that night?
Someone, somewhere, did throw a flare into the library. But it wasn’t Attica Scott, or her daughter, or Parrish-Wright.
And if you watched Scott’s live video feed, you know that the group she was with was peaceful, and simply walking toward the same church where they had gone other nights. Walking past the library, calmly walking down the street.
Let’s let Rep. Scott take it from here:
“They’re setting us up to be arrested. They told us — we were at the library — turn around, and when we tried to turn around, they said: ‘Circle, circle.’ And they told us to sit down while they pointed their guns in our faces like they were ready to kill us. We had no intentions of being arrested that night. They stopped us at 8:58. It wasn’t even 9 o’clock. We were literally across the street from the church, across the street from sanctuary.”
The police were waiting on this group at the church. They wouldn’t let the group into the church, and instead arrested them.
And charged them — a group walking calmly toward the church — with rioting.
Time for justice
Look, property destruction or violence during a protest is wrong. We get that. And if police see people committing those acts, the police should arrest them and charge them.
But to use “they were sorta near those people doing those things” as a pretext for arresting someone and charging them with rioting? That’s not justice – that’s selective law enforcement. And it’s wrong.
It’s time for justice to prevail. It’s time for the judicial system to work the way it was intended.
The initial court date for all three women is this week. If there is to be justice, County Attorney O’Connell should drop all the charges.
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