Georgia attorney general won’t reassign cases against police
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s attorney general on Tuesday denied a request from a newly elected district attorney to reassign the prosecution of two high-profile cases in which Atlanta police officers were accused of using excessive force, including the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks.
In a letter to Attorney General Chris Carr last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis raised concerns that actions by her predecessor, Paul Howard, called into question the appropriateness of having her o ce continuing to handle the cases.
Carr rejected that argument, saying the concerns Willis raised have to do with Howard’s potential violation of a state bar rule and a potential criminal investigation into Howard’s actions.
“Both appear fairly obviously to be matters that are personal to your predecessor in o ce and that do not pertain to you or your o ce,” Carr wrote. “Therefore, from the concerns raised in your letter, it appears abundantly clear that your office is not disqualified from these cases by interest or relationship.”
None of the o cers in either case have been indicted, though they were arrested last summer. Carr wrote that the responsibility for both cases remains with Willis and her o ce.
Willis’ spokesman Je DiSantis said in an email that Willis disagrees with Carr’s conclusion, which he said is “contrary to the longstanding practice and position” of the attorney general’s o ce in such cases.
He added that Willis “is dedicated to ensuring justice is done in these and all matters, and will handle these cases accordingly.”
The charges against officers in both cases were announced last summer as Howard was fighting to keep his job amid a Democratic primary challenge from Willis. Howard’s conduct, “including using video evidence in campaign television advertisements,” may have violated Georgia Bar rules, Willis wrote in her letter to Carr.
She also noted that Carr had asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate whether Howard improperly issued grand jury subpoenas in the Brooks case.
Howard has previously denied any political motivation or wrongdoing.
Police responded June 12 after receiving complaints that Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in a Wendy’s drive-thru lane. Police body camera video shows O cer Garrett Rolfe and another o - cer having a calm and respectful conversation with Brooks for more than 40 minutes. When the o cers told Brooks he’d had too much to drink to be driving and tried to handcuff him, he resisted in a struggle caught on dash camera video. Brooks
grabbed a Taser from one of the o cers and fired it at Rolfe as he ran away. Rolfe fired his gun and an autopsy found Brooks was shot twice in the back. Both o cers’ lawyers have said their actions were justified and both were released on bond.
Howard announced charges, including felony murder against Garrett Rolfe, less than a week after Brooks’ death.
In the other case, Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim were in a car stuck in downtown traffic on May 30 during protests sparked by the killing of George
Floyd in Minnesota when they were confronted by police o - cers. Police body camera footage shows officers shouting at the couple, firing Tasers at them and dragging them from the car. Throughout the confrontation, the pair can be heard screaming and asking what they did wrong.
Howard announced charges against six o cers within days.
Attorneys L. Chris Stewart and Justin Miller, who represent Brooks’ family and Pilgrim, and attorney Mawuli Davis, who represents Young, said their clients are left in “a state of limbo.”
“We believe that these officers should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, but it became abundantly clear through her recusal letter that the Fulton DA was not interested in prosecuting these cases,” they said in an emailed statement.
After being disappointed by Willis’ transfer request, they had hoped Carr would give the cases to a prosecutor who would pursue them vigorously, the lawyers said, adding that they plan to meet with Willis next week to discuss what happens next.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — As racial injustice protesters swarmed the streets of Portland, Oregon, day after day last year, a voice would come over a police loudspeaker, announcing they had assembled unlawfully and would be arrested or face tear gas and rubber bullets if they didn’t disperse.
Law enforcement agencies can respond that way under an arcane Oregon law that critics say allows them to violate people’s First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. Now, state Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Black Democratic lawmaker, is seeking to repeal the law in this predominantly white state.
The push comes after Portland saw more than 100 straight days of sometimes violent protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May.
Other states have dealt with the issue. In 1971, the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated Virginia’s unlawful assembly statute on First Amendment grounds, the ACLU of Oregon said. The court said the law was too broad in banning demonstrators’ intent to use force and violence, even if they did not pose a threat.
Law enforcement has already begun lining up against the Oregon bill sponsored by Bynum, who chairs the House subcommittee on equitable policing and held a public hearing Monday.
“Repealing this statute will eliminate a valuable tool that law enforcement uses to disperse unlawful gatherings and deescalate tensions when violence and threats to community safety become likely,” said Chris Skinner, police chief of the college town of Eugene who testified on behalf of associations of police chiefs
and sheriffs.
He said that without the law, “law enforcement would be forced to wait to respond until violence and criminal activity escalates.”
Supporters of the measure say it shouldn’t be up to police to decide if a protest has the potential to become violent. The law also gives officers the power to arrest people before there’s a crime. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon says that because unlawful assembly is not a crime in Oregon, the vast majority of protesters who were arrested were charged with interfering with a peace officer.
A version of the law has existed since before Oregon became
a state. Before the 1980s, the law was even more draconian, critics say, allowing law enforcement to order bystanders to disperse an unlawful assembly and that failure to do so could result in arrest.
Sheriff’s deputies used that provision in 1984 during protests by environmentalists against logging in the Willamette National Forest. Protesters blocked a logging road to protest the cutting of trees that they felt should have been preserved as wilderness.
A Linn County deputy sheriff ordered a freelance photographer to arrest the demonstrators or face prosecution for a felony. The photographer told the pro
testers they were under arrest. They refused to move, the ACLU of Oregon recalled in 1987 testimony to the Legislature.
“The deputy then ordered the photographer to carry the demonstrators to the sheriff’s van. He refused, and he was arrested,” the group said. Two other people also were arrested after refusing to arrest the demonstrators.
A prosecutor later dropped charges against the three. In a lawsuit against the county, a federal judge ruled in 1986 that the law’s provision compelling bystanders to assist in arrests was unconstitutional. The Legislature in 1987 repealed the provision.
The Oregon law
is
still unconstitutional because it gives police outsized power to silence dissent, said Kelly Simon, the ACLU of Oregon’s interim legal director.
“Ironically, or maybe not so ironically in Oregon, unlawful assembly declarations too often are precursors to police violence against those asking for the government to recognize their right to be safe,” Simon told Bynum’s subcommittee.
She said police in Portland have regularly declared Black Lives Matter protests to be unlawful assemblies but not gatherings of white supremacists, which are sometimes violent.
Bynum, who is sponsoring a raft of bills on police reform, said she doesn’t go to demonstrations out of fear for her safety. In 2018, when she was knocking on doors to talk with constituents in a Portland suburb, someone called the sheriff’s office to report a suspicious person.
At a protest, Bynum would be concerned about both police and white supremacists. Members of the Proud Boys and other far-right groups have frequently clashed with racial injustice protesters. Portland police have fired tear gas, pepper balls and impact munitions at Black Lives Matter protesters and rushed them while swinging batons. More than 1,000 arrests have been made since the protests began.
But Bynum wants change for her four children, ranging in age from 19 to 10.
“What I, in particular, fight for is for my kids to be able to attend demonstrations without fear of something happening to them,” Bynum said.