19 Columbus protesters arrested after downtown march Sunday agree to plea deal
Nineteen of the 22 people Columbus police arrested after a demonstration against racial injustice on Sunday pleaded to misdemeanor charges Tuesday in Columbus Recorder’s Court, so their bond money could be refunded.
Only one pleaded guilty. The rest pleaded no contest, meaning they admitted no guilt but chose not to fight the charges. All were given credit for the time they spent in jail, and faced no further penalty.
They said it cost them from $350 to $400 to bond out of jail on a misdemeanor charge of failing to disperse, a city ordinance violation. Though some wanted a full hearing on the evidence, they decided together to plead and get their money back. Some said they would donate it to causes and continue with additional demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man killed May 25 by a white Minneapolis police officer.
“We really didn’t want to take the plea that we did, honestly,” protester Stephanie Naulta said after the hearing. “We really wanted to go back through and fight with this. But at the same time, looking at everything, the best thing to do right at this point was to … get our money back and continue fighting for the cause until everybody sees that every life matters.”
One of the protesters, Gadget Jackson, persuaded his compatriots to take the plea deal, which was offered after a private conference between Recorder’s Court Judge Julius Hunter, defense attorney Mark Jones, and police Sgt. Derick Solt, who testified on behalf of the officers who made the arrests. Those who were charged waited in the courtroom as the three met for about 20 minutes.
Jones represented 16 protesters. Columbus attorney Ralston Jarrett represented one who also pleaded no contest, and the public defender’s office represented another who pleaded guilty. A 19th suspect who had no counsel pleaded no contest on his own, and left before he got his bond money back.
After a plea of no contest, judges find a defendant guilty, and the offense remains a conviction on the person’s record.
Solt testified that police allowed Sunday’s protest to proceed with police escorts through downtown, though demonstrators had obtained no permit for it. Mayor Skip Henderson decided not to prohibit it just for the lack of a permit, Solt said.
Marchers around 1 p.m. Sunday circled Broadway from the RiverCenter parking garage to 13th Street and back, before holding a rally at the garage.
That ended around 2:30 p.m., but later a “splinter group” formed, marched north to 13th Street, and turned east toward Veterans Parkway, Solt said.
He said both Police Chief Ricky Boren and police Maj. Charlie Kennedy told the protesters to disperse and stay off Veterans Parkway at 13th Street, lest they endanger public safety by entering the busy intersection. When the demonstrators proceeded anyway, officers moved in and started making arrests, he said.
He said Kennedy later checked each suspect’s identity to confirm the protester disobeyed his order to disperse, though some of the demonstrators said they never heard such commands.
“We were told by police officers we were allowed to continue our peaceful protest as long as we stayed on the sidewalks, we didn’t impede on traffic, and we remained peaceful, and that’s exactly what we did,” protester Mikaela Seamans said after the hearing. “And I personally did not hear anything about ‘you can’t go past this street’; ‘you can’t do that’; ‘this isn’t allowed,’ you know.”
She said the demonstrators have more protests planned, and have applied for city permits for those events.
Had the protesters not agreed to the plea deal, their hearings would have been postponed 30 days for police to compile body-camera footage as evidence.
That also factored into their decision to plead no contest, said Gadget Jackson.
“There’s really no point in us dragging this all out,” he said outside the courtroom. “It’s not going to be a bad thing on our record, as far as it’s not a felony. It’s not a major charge.”
After Tuesday’s court session, Sgt. Solt posed with Jones and his clients for a group photo.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 3:32 PM.