A copcam captures a bleak Chattanooga skyline as an officer takes a girl to jail after his aggressive encounter in support of a private lending interest that violated a state law. (Photo Chattanooga police department)
A juvenile court judge in Chattanooga dismissed a charge of resisting arrest against Kennedy Gray, whose arrest cell phone video caused and internet sensation with 1.5 million views and put mud on the face of the Chattanooga police department, whose officer meddled with a car repossession.
By David Tulis / 92.7 NoogaRadio
In a Facebook message Thursday afternoon, the girl’s mother, Avery, said the juvenile judge dismissed the case. The girl, 14, had been charged with resisting arrest, stop, frisk after the June 25 encounter at the curb outside the county jail, where her mother was on personal business.
Mrs. Gray said magistrate Bruce Owens dismissed the case. “Judge Owens looked at me and said, ‘Mrs. Gray,’ he was like, ‘I’m not going to have you come back to this court’. He said, ‘Mrs. Gray, I’m dismissing this charge, and he said, ‘It looks to me like you’re a very good parent. If you have a 21-year-old, a 16-year-old about to be 17, and a 14-year-old daughter that’s never been in our system, that’s never been in juvenile or jail, that lets me know what type of parent you are.’ So he said, ‘I’m not even requiring to come back to this court anymore.’ He said, ‘I’m dismissing this charge.'”
Mrs. Gray says she told him she intends to sue over her daughter’s arrest and injuries to her arms. “He was very sympathetic to that,” Mrs. Gray says.
I asked state prosecutor Neal Pinkston spokeswoman, Melydia Clewell, what role Mr. Pinkston’s office played in the dismissal of the charges, as I had pointed out in a letter to Mr. Pinkston that the criminal charge against the girl was disconnected from the facts of the case as evidenced in the girl’s arrest video and the copcam record.
“It’s against the law to divulge any information concerning a specific juvenile case w/out a court order from the judge allowing information to be made public,” Mrs. Clewell said. “All I can say is that we take our duty to both prosecute the guilty and protect the innocent most seriously.”
The charging statute was Tenn. Code Ann. 39-16-602. Resisting stop, frisk, halt, arrest or search — Prevention or obstruction of service of legal writ or process. It becomes operative when the accused uses “force” to resist. Miss Gray did not use force.
The hard-scrabble and occasionally homeless Gray family, originally from St. Louis, is pressed on many fronts. Kennedy’s dad, Terrance, a truck driver, is often away, and is jailed on seven counts of robbery. On Friday morning, Mrs. Gray said that her car broke down and that she had to leave it overnight to be towed Friday.
On Saturday, nearly in tears, Mrs. Gray says she lost her F$14 an hour job as a forklift operator at a local logistics company.
“I can only take so much,” she laments. “All of this is so overwhelming — OK? I feel like I’m in a dream. My life has been turned upside down because of the Chattanooga police department.”
Act of oppression?
In an interview, Mrs. Gray said she is trying to determine if the city police officer’s actions, helping a repossession agent of M&R Motors in Rossville, Ga., violated the law in a way to make the arrest of the girl actionable as an act of official oppression, which in Tennessee law is a crime, not a mere private tort.
If an act of oppression is not prosecuted by a district attorney such as Mr. Pinkston, it would be actionable with the help of a private attorney, whose involvement would be premised on a contingency fee, usually a third of any damage award.
If an oppressive act under color of law is prosecuted by the state, no compensation or restitution goes to the victim.
Trouble for officer unlikely
The police department has not revealed if the officer, whose family name is Wright, faces any sort of administrative discipline. The law that appears to have been violated is not directed at him, but at parties in repossession action. These repossession actors are required to avoid a “breach of the peace” when they seize collateral property without a court order (nonjudicial vs. judicial repossession).
Apparently, if an agent waves a court order in the air over the sidewalk, he is allowed any amount of breaching the peace and hoopla necessary to satisfy the claim against the debtor and take back the goods.
The breach of the law appears largely to have been the fault of the unnamed repo man, whose actions are subject to the statute. Whether any penalty provision attaches to the law is not immediately clear, whether as against the agent, or officer Wright.
The officer, in his defense, would be able to show he didn’t know about the statute, and didn’t intend to violate it and cause the results forbidden by it.
It is unlikely the DA would act against him, because Mr. Pinkston is aware that intent has to be proven in a criminal case for each element of the offense. “A person commits an offense who acts intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence, as the definition of the offense requires, with respect to each element of the offense” Tenn Code Ann. § 39-11-301. Mr. Pinkston highlights the mens rea requirement in on the county website, saying he “fairly prosecutes individuals who choose the violate the criminal law.” The intent requirement originates in God’s civil statutes in the Old Testament, and keeps in check the power of the civil authority.
An open records request for the police report about the Gray arrest was denied, and I have been unable to review the citation and arrest narrative from Mrs. Gray.
The Gray arrest, and that of Diana Watt on July 7, have created an uproar in Chattanooga, with police being chastised and praised for officers’ short tempers and summary use of violence and criminal charges to subdue members of the public, in these cases — women of color.
One city council member, Demetrus Coonrod, objected to the conduct of the officers serving Mayor Andy Berke, whose branch of government is responsible for police. Other council members sat mutely Tuesday.
The Gray family’s ordeal
Repo man lacked court order; cop lacked authority to create Gray girl arrest uproar
Tulis scolded on inaccuracies on Pinkston, ‘resisting arrest’ statute
Prosecution of nonviolent Gray girl, 14, cover for 2 wrongs by cop
Judge halts TN’s driver license abuse, but keeps deep state scheme alive
Cops pile 8 charges on Mrs. Watt in hair-raising traffic stop
Red Bank police chief refuses to meet over violence, profanity
This comment comes by email from Levi, The Gnome of Middle Tennessee:
Looks like payday for the young lady and her family. Good article showing the real criminals are who are on the public payroll and their accomplices stealing the car and kidnapping the young lady.
Good for her she did not get tortured any more than she was. According to the recent court cases all the jackass has to plead as immunity is he was ignorant of the law and was a coward. Now he also made false filings on the court, perjured affidavit, slander, excessive force, aided in stealing a car maybe a carjacking outright if no one at the scene was legitimate in taking the car, and put that jackass on lifetime payments of 1/3 of his gross wages and take his drivers license for nonpayment.
The repo people are also going to get hit big time. The other officers who provided support at the scene are also liable as they failed to stop a felony and further aided and abetted the crime. That is official oppression, dereliction, and some other wrongs I would have to look up. After all, its the law.
And bust the pocketbook of the city for knowingly hiring a candidate who was officially defectively trained to carry out this war on society. No mercy to the merciless, grind the wicked to dust.
The only way to make a dent in this official oppression is to totally wreck the financial incentive that is the primary motivation, lust for unchecked power is the secondary motive. No finances and there is no reason to report for work.
The cop WAS NOT AWARE OF THE STATUTE? SO HE HAD NO INTENT TO VIOLATE THE STATUTE?
What about, IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO DEFENSE, REMEDY OR EXCUSE?
In my old days studying law seems I remember reading that a policeman of a city corporation is considered no more than another city employ and has no immunity. The cop, “I did not know I could not help a repo man repossess a car without a court order and without a BREACH OF THE PEACE.”
Is a policeman’s job now OJT, on “the job training”?
When it comes to law enforcement, ON THE JOB TRAINING and IGNORANCE OF THE LAW AS A REMEDY is a recipe for tyranny and chaos and anarchy.
I’m 75 years old and if there is one thing I have learned in all my years it is that government employees, bureaucrats and law enforcers are among some of the biggest liars on the planet.