Police make 11 citations, 14 arrests at Moral Mondays so far

Moral Monday participants may be willing to risk arrest, but this week the 11 protesters detained by police were given citations and released that evening.

The citations come after 14 protesters were arrested last Tuesday and held overnight at a detention center. The arrested protesters were charged with second-degree trespassing, a low level misdemeanor — the same reason given for this week’s citations.

Martin Brock, the N.C. General Assembly police lieutenant, could not be reached after multiple requests for comment.

The Rev. Julie Peeples from Greensboro was among 14 protesters arrested around 1:45 a.m. last Wednesday in the office of N.C. Speaker of the House Thom Tillis.

Peeples said she thinks police tried to avoid making any arrests — police warned the sit-in participants eight times.

“I think they were trying very hard not to make arrests knowing that it would have more of an impact if people were arrested, that it might not reflect well on the Speaker and his General Assembly,” she said. “So I think they were trying hard not to arrest us, but I think in the end they did wait until most of the media and most of the crowd had left, and it was after the 11 o’clock news hour.”

Nearly 1,000 protesters were arrested in last summer’s Moral Mondays, and some of their cases have yet to be closed.

The court date set for the 14 protesters arrested last week is July 11, Peeples said.

Protesters led by the N.C. NAACP have criticized the Republican-led legislature for its policies on issues such as education, minorities’ rights, environmental concerns and health care.

The group of 11 protesters were cited Monday around 7 p.m. after they delivered a letter to Gov. Pat McCrory’s office and staged a sit-in.

“Our 11 moral witnesses would not be moved from their attempts to petition the governor directly,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP, in a press release. “To our governor and our state lawmakers, we say: if you are going to engage in premeditated political ideology that hurts the least of these, then we will give no quarter.”

The Rev. Dick Weston Jones from Chapel Hill was arrested after participating in the sit-in at Tillis’ office last week.

In a video testimonial filmed at the sit-in and released by the N.C. NAACP, Jones spoke of the importance of raising one’s voice to an unresponsive government.

“The only way they listen is when we keep talking and keep talking, until they begin to bend a little, and then you keep talking some more,” he said in the video. “And if you don’t, they’ll never listen again.”

Contact the desk editor at state@thedailytarheel.com.