RALEIGH, N.C. — The Alamance County Sheriff's Office on Monday said an unpermitted gas-powered generator at a weekend march led to an assault against an officer — which then prompted a deputy's use of pepper spray against march participants.
The use of force is now the subject of two federal lawsuits filed Monday night.
One, by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, alleges that the use of pepper spray by Graham and Alamance County officers amounted to voter intimidation. The other lawsuit, filed by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the ACLU of North Carolina, asks a judge for a temporary restraining order.
Both the police department and the sheriff's office have said their use of force was justified.
"Because the gas-powered generator was running and within two feet of a container of gas, it was deemed dangerous and a fire hazard per the fire marshal," said Michelle Mills, the department's community engagement and diversity coordinator.
But North Carolina congressional representatives David Price, G.K. Butterfield and Alma Adams, all Democrats, on Monday called for the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the departments' use of force, with Adams calling for an end to "the indiscriminate use of chemical agents," according to a statement.
The generator was used to power the amplification system for speeches the march's organizer, Rev. Greg Drumwright, and others gave Saturday in front of the courthouse steps. Documents provided by the Graham Police Department show that the sheriff's office told Drumwright, in an email sent to several local officials including the district attorney, that he couldn't have a generator on courthouse grounds.
When deputies tried to disconnect the sound equipment, an officer was assaulted, and the officer deployed her pepper spray as she fell to the ground, Mills said. She said demonstrators were "pulling and shoving" officers, who then used more pepper spray to get the crowd to disperse.
Graham police earlier had used pepper spray on the crowd of about 200, including children and elderly people, to get them to move out of the street following a moment of silence lasting eight minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd. Floyd was a Black man who died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in May.
Officers told the crowd to move onto the sidewalk after nine minutes and used pepper spray to get people to move faster.
Two national experts on policing mass demonstrations condemned the way Graham police and Alamance County sheriff's deputies handled the "I Am Change" march, which was supposed to end at the polls.
The use of pepper spray against a group that included children and older people was "stunning," said John Noakes, professor of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania.
"It flies in the face of best practices," Noakes said, referring to a 2018 report by the Police Executive Research Forum that lays out recommendations based on the combined expertise of police agencies, scholars, advocacy groups and the federal government.
"Ensuring that police responses to mass demonstrations are proportional to the actions and mood of the crowd is critical to making sure the police do not unintentionally escalate tensions during protests," the report says.
Graham police have justified the initial use of a "pepper fogger" by saying that demonstrators were not allowed to be in the road. But that's inadequate, Noakes said, because use of force should be commensurate with the threat.
"This was more like a military action than a police action," he said.
Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University who wrote a guidebook for police on how to handle mass demonstrations, said that the officers' repeated uses of pepper spray appeared to be unwarranted and disproportionate.
"Short of property damage or violence, police really need to be much more restrained in those kinds of moments," he said.
The proper response to an assault would be to arrest that person responsible for the assault, but allow the event to continue, Maguire said.
"One of the issues I talked about in my guidebook is everything that police do at these types of events should either maintain whatever current level of police legitimacy you have, or it should improve it," he said.
"Clearly, trying to unplug people's amplification devices is not preserving or enhancing police legitimacy. It's diminishing, it's creating a sense among the community that you're trying to take away their voice — quite literally in this case."
The police response was especially egregious, Noakes and Maguire said, due to the political context.
Earlier this year, the ACLU and other groups sued Graham and Alamance County for restrictions of protesting in Court Square, where a Confederate monument sits in front of the courthouse.
As has happened across the county since George Floyd was killed, marchers sought to highlight racial injustice and police brutality. And they were headed to vote during an especially contentious election season, where suppression of minority voters has been a hot button issue.
The march in Graham was not the type of event that Noakes would expect to turn ugly.
"The protests that police worry about these days are leaderless protests in which the protest group refuses to have any communication with police or has very little communication with police," Noakes said.
But in this case, Drumwright was the clear leader, and records released by the police department show he was trying to coordinate with the authorities, though he missed some deadlines.
"In most situations like that, the police will take advantage of that, and live with a little bit of community disruption in order to allow people to express their First Amendment rights," Noakes said.
Maguire advises police leaders against taking a defensive posture after an event goes badly.
"There need to be statements that seek to reclaim legitimacy," he said. "There ought to be statements like, we assure you that we are going to take a long, hard look at what occurred in this incident, with an aim toward trying to improve how we handle these types of events in the future. That ought to be the tone that police leaders are taking right now, not a defensive posture."
Neither Graham Police Chief Kristy Cole nor Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson has publicly answered questions or agreed to an interview with The News & Observer since Saturday's march.
Johnson was present while a spokeswoman read a statement to a group of reporters on Monday, but neither he nor any member of his staff would answer questions during the event, which was billed as a news conference. Reporters were instructed to email questions to a spokesman.
The office provided a packet of 15 arrest records related to the march. Most people were charged with failing to disperse on command. One woman was charged with having a fixed blade knife at the event. Weapons are illegal at parades and protests in North Carolina.
A woman was charged with misdemeanor riot after she began to sing a freedom song into a megaphone outside the county jail, and a man was charged with attempting to stop officers from arresting her. None of the arrest records provided to reporters described an assault on an officer.
Drumwright has announced a redo of Saturday's march to the polls to take place on Election Day. He asked that marchers convene at Wayman Chapel AME Church in Graham at 3 p.m.
