Attorneys representing at least 50 people arrested on charges stemming from protests in response to the Akron police shooting of Jayland Walker are seeking to have the cases dismissed.
The attorneys say the arrests violate their clients’ constitutional free speech rights and that the complaints against them were invalid because Akron police failed to detail the alleged crimes or provide sufficient evidence. They also say some of the people arrested weren’t actually protesting — they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“A young man was killed and people came out to express their objections,” said Elizabeth Bonham, a Cleveland attorney whose firm represents four of the people charged in the protests. “That's political speech. It's a right within the core of the First Amendment.”
Similar dismissal requests in Cleveland and Cincinnati have been successful in the past few years after mass protest arrests.
The motions, filed late Wednesday in Akron Municipal Court, focus on people who were arrested while protesting around the time Mayor Dan Horrigan implemented a curfew prohibiting people from being downtown at night. Police arrested more than 50 people and deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd after Akron released videos of the Walker shooting July 3. Several downtown businesses were damaged.
More than 75 people have been arrested on charges related to protesting in the three months since Walker’s shooting on June 27.
Several local groups held a press conference Thursday to lend their support to the dismissal of the cases against the protesters, who were charged with misdemeanor offenses like rioting, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and misconduct at an emergency.
“These organizers believe these charges are unfounded, unjust and an infringement upon individual rights and liberties," said Fran Wilson, an activist who moderated the press conference. "According to case details and protester testimonies, police abused their powers multiple times during arrests."
Stephanie Marsh, Akron’s spokesperson, declined to discuss the motions or the groups calling for the dismissals.
“We typically do not comment on pending cases, so we won’t be issuing any statements or providing comment at this time,” she said.
Walker was shot by eight Akron officers after he fled from officers in his car and then by foot. He was unarmed when killed, though police say he fired a single shot from a gun during the crosstown car chase. His shooting is being investigated by the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The Legal Defenders of Summit County organization is handling most of the protester cases, with others represented by private attorneys.
Attorneys say the dismissal requests don’t pertain to any of the protesters who are accused of behavior that went beyond demonstrating, such as the destruction of property.
“There was no violence done by our clients,” Bonham said. “Even allegations of a few pieces of property damaged by troublemakers is not enough for a free-speech ban.”
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The attorneys sought to consolidate the protester cases, which are pending in all six Akron Municipal courtrooms, but these requests were either denied or haven’t yet been decided. The attorneys are asking the judges to hold hearings.
Andrea Whitaker, the Summit County public defender, said dismissal requests also may be filed in other, more recent cases involving people charged for protesting.
In an effort to publicize the court filings and solicit donations for legal expenses, activists had 10 protesters share their stories at a “Drop the Charges” press conference Thursday morning at First Congregational Church in downtown Akron.
Inside the church, blank police complaint forms and a pen sat on a table. Wilson said the event organizers — the Akron Bail Fund, Akron Democratic Socialists of America, Serve the People Akron and the Freedom BLOC — are gathering allegations of police misconduct. The citizen-signed complaints, Wilson said, will eventually be filed together.
On stage in the church chapel, Wilson introduced people watching on social media to the protesters on stage, including three who openly alleged police retaliation, mistreatment during protest arrests, poor conditions while kept for days in jail and the financial consequences of being arrested for what they called peaceful political speech.
The organizing groups shared their collective efforts to help attorneys track down the arrested, raise legal funds and spend $16,000 from the Akron Bail Fund to support protesters in court.
With the exception of a one-day hiatus on July 6, Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan issued a nightly downtown curfew from July 4 to the July 17. Only people traveling between work and home or seeking medical care, law enforcement and news media were allowed out after 9 or 10 p.m.
The attorneys for those arrested during the protests claim the order was overly broad, vague and unconstitutional. As evidence of the sweeping application of the curfew, attorneys submitted police body-worn camera footage in which an officer handcuffing a woman says, "Everybody you see downtown is getting arrested."
In a dismissal motion filed on behalf of man who was arrested July 4, the attorneys said his “arrest was made without probable cause, was unsupported by law, resulted in an invalid complaint, and violates defendant’s constitutional rights.” He was charged with misconduct at an emergency and failure to disperse.
The complaints against this man and others who were arrested were signed by the same officer who wasn’t present during the protests. Charging documents include no description of the alleged crimes and no facts supporting the allegations and some show the wrong location, according to the motions.
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The attorneys say the complaints violated the freedom of speech and assembly under the federal and state constitutions.
“Peaceful protest in the public square, the purest form of expression protected by the First Amendment, must be protected, not infringed, when law enforcement interacts with peaceful demonstrators,” the attorneys said in one of the complaints.
Along with some police body-worn camera video, the attorneys submitted as evidence cell phone and other videos taken during the protests and arrests. One 30-minute video is from the helmet-mounted GoPro camera of a motorcyclist riding through downtown.
The attorneys, though, said they have received limited body-worn camera videos during the discovery process because many of the officers who were dressed in riot gear weren’t wearing their cameras. The Beacon Journal has requested but not yet received information from Akron police about the body-worn camera policy when police wear riot gear.
Whitaker said the man who took the GoPro video as well as a “sizeable amount” of the other people arrested weren’t protesting but were swept up with protesters when officers were given an order to arrest everyone downtown.
“They were not doing anything – just going about their daily lives,” Whitaker said.
This includes a man who was roller skating, a woman returning to her apartment and someone who was downtown having dinner.
Those arrested spent one or two nights in jail and were released after being arraigned and posted cash bonds.
A Beacon Journal review of 61 people charged in July for protesting found only four living outside Ohio. Bonham’s office represents all four, including Jacob Blake Sr., the father of a man shot and paralyzed by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.
More:Akron police arrest protesters Jacob Blake and Bianca Taylor
Blake was taken to the hospital following his arrest and he and another protester filed complaints with the Akron Police Department alleging excessive force. The investigations into their complaints are ongoing.
In mass motions to dismiss criminal charges filed against protesters, legal defenses based on First Amendment rights have worked.
The strategy led to the largest settlement of its kind in 2004 when New York City agreed to pay $18 million to protesters, journalists and bystanders arrested, detained and fingerprinted while observing or participating in demonstrations outside the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Faced with a similar First Amendment defense, the city of Cleveland dropped charges against some protesters arrested during the 2016 RNC and, through insurance claims, began paying protesters settlements in 2019 that totaled more than $300,000 that year alone.
In 2020, lawyers in Cincinnati jointly applied a constitutional defense strategy similar to what Akron attorneys are now pursuing.
Amid national protests over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Cincinnati police arrested 475 demonstrators for violating a curfew imposed by John Cranley. The former mayor set and later expanded the downtown boundaries of the curfew after reports of violence, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and an officer being shot at.
Targeting the same charges that several protesters in Akron now face, the coalition of defense attorneys drafted a motion filed in each of the roughly 500 criminal cases. Robert Linneman, a lead attorney in the effort, said the motions challenged the curfew as unconstitutionally vague or a violation of protected speech under the First Amendment.
Four judges dismissed the cases in their courts. Other judges denied the motion, pushing hundreds of cases to trial.
But to try the cases, a tremendous volume of surveillance and body-worn police camera footage would have to be processed, reviewed and turned over as state's evidence. Ultimately, the city of Cincinnati motioned the judges for relief. Charges were dropped in all but 23 cases that involved secondary charges like resisting arrest, obstructing official business or criminal damaging.
“You do not see that every day. In Cincinnati, they do not just drop charges,” the attorney said. “The amount of resources that the city ended up putting into this just became overwhelming.”
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“The lesson I took from this is that it was a big waste of everyone’s time and money,” Linneman said.
Civil lawsuits remain pending in court in Cincinnati as protesters with dismissed charges claim lost wages and mistreatment while jailed overnight.
Asked if similar civil action could eventually be taken regarding those arrested in Akron, Bonham said, “Our hope is for all of the charges to be dropped. We’ll have to look at it then.”
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com and 330-996-3705. Doug Livingston can be reached at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com and 330-996-3792.