TAMPA, Fla. _ Hillsborough County, Fla., prosecutors will not bring formal charges against 67 people who were arrested in recent protests
State Attorney Andrew Warren announced in a Monday news conference that his office would decline to prosecute those who were arrested on allegations of unlawful assembly.
"In each of those 67 cases, the evidence shows the person arrested was peacefully protesting," Warren said. "Prosecuting people for exercising their First Amendment rights doesn't solve problems, it creates them."
Warren is at least the second state attorney in Florida to decline to press criminal charges en mass related to the protests. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said her office would not seek charges against people arrested for curfew violations.
Prosecutors in Pinellas and Pasco Counties were evaluating individual arrests related to the protests. So far there have been about 40 misdemeanor arrests, plus nine felony cases, said Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett.
The felonies are likely to still be prosecuted, Bartlett said. They include the case of a man who is accused of hurling an object at St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway.
Like most other places throughout the nation, the Tampa Bay area has seen daily protests in the last two weeks over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
In one case, demonstrations devolved into violence in north Tampa, where vandals hurled objects at officers and set fire to businesses.
The next day, protests in downtown and east Tampa were marred by clashes with police, who broke up crowds using gas canisters and bean bag rounds. The rounds, often described as "less-lethal," have attracted criticism for causing serious injuries and, in some cases, death.
On June 3, Tampa police arrested more than 60 people who were among a large group that marched for hours through the streets of downtown Tampa.
While most of the local protests have been peaceful, a few early demonstrations were marred by clashes between protesters and police.
In several other cases, though, demonstrators said trouble occurred only when police in riot gear confronted crowds.
