A lawsuit alleging that Graham, North Carolina, police and Alamance County sheriff’s deputies engaged in voter suppression by dispersing a 2020 march to the polls with pepper spray appears close to a final settlement.
With the help of a mediator, 19 plaintiffs struck a deal with law enforcement officials that would pay each plaintiff about $17,700 and oblige Graham’s police chief to meet with them, court documents show.
The plaintiffs, including four children, agreed not to litigate Graham’s much-disputed protest ordinance for six months.
Though the lawsuit is nearly resolved, the debate about what really happened that day, and who is at fault, most certainly is not. “The parties disagree on nearly all of the key facts,” states the settlement agreement submitted to the court for approval.
Graham, a bedroom community for the Triangle and the Triad, was one of the most active Black Lives Matter protest sites in the country in 2020.
After a federal judge found that summer that local restrictions on demonstrations were likely unconstitutional, people gathered downtown almost daily to protest racism, police violence and the Confederate monument that still sits outside the town’s historic courthouse. Law enforcement officers and counter-protesters who said they were protecting the monument and backing up officers often showed up too.
On Oct. 31, 2020, the Rev. Greg Drumwright led the I Am Change March to the Polls. Roughly 200 people walked from an African Methodist Episcopal church to a rally under the Confederate monument in Court Square. The group’s final destination was supposed to be the polling place a block away, but police dispersed the crowd with pepper spray before the trip’s final leg.
The law enforcement agencies said that marchers did not obey their orders to clear the road and that organizers brought a prohibited gas-powered generator onto courthouse grounds, which was a hazard. A deputy who was part of a team sent to seize the generator was injured in the ensuing scuffle.
Toddlers and people in their 80s were among those affected by the chemical irritant. A video clip of a disabled woman seizing violently as she struggled to breathe put Graham in the national media spotlight. Experts on policing demonstrations told The News & Observer at the time that the the use of pepper spray “flies in the face of best practices.”
Two federal civil rights lawsuits were filed within days of the event. One case, involving the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was settled last year.
Drumwright, an Alamance County native now based in Greensboro, is the lead plaintiff in the case approaching resolution. He and the other plaintiffs were represented by attorneys with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the ACLU of North Carolina, the global law firm Mayer Brown and Keith & Associates, based in Greensboro.
The settlement agreement followed a magistrate judge’s order subjecting plaintiffs to deposition questioning as long as nine hours and forcing them to pay a portion of the cost.
The final terms as they apply to child plaintiffs must be approved by a judge. A hearing has been set for June 14 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Though the lawsuit originally sought systemic changes, a ban on the use of pepper spray against peaceful protesters included, the agreement does not require the Graham Police Department or the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office to alter any policies or practices.
For that reason, Drumwright called the deal “bittersweet.”
“We understand now what the law, through this case, will and will not allow for,” Drumwright said in an interview with The News & Observer. “We had to put much of what we wanted to achieve through this case on the back burner, having that understanding.”
He said the agreement left him “unsettled” because people questioning police actions continue to be arrested in Graham. In April, officers arrested three people and detained a juvenile after a group approached police to record a traffic stop.
Meanwhile, criminal cases against march participants continue to make their way to the courts.
Drumwright said he hopes the federal government will investigate the local patterns and practices that he believes discriminate against Black people. The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office was previously investigated for its treatment of Latinos; that case ended in settlement in 2016.
Tony Biller, an attorney for Graham, said the police department has voluntarily made changes since the march to the polls, including adding quarterly de-escalation training for officers.
“Police Chief (Kristy) Cole was newly installed at the time the lawsuit was filed,” Biller wrote in an email. “She was already committed to and has engaged in several efforts to improve Graham’s community policing and communications.”
An attorney for Alamance County declined to comment on the case before a judge approved the final terms.
All video recorded by law enforcement during the march has yet to be released. Last summer, a Superior Court judge ordered the agencies to give the video to a coalition of news organizations, including The News & Observer but Graham appealed. Oral arguments in front of a panel of judges with the N.C. Court of Appeals is scheduled for June 7.
“Sound of Judgment,” an investigation and documentary published last year by The News & Observer and ProPublica, plumbs the history of the area’s ongoing unrest.
