Updated: 20 protesters arrested in Lexington, including two protest organizers
Twenty protesters, including two organizers, were arrested in downtown Lexington Saturday, as demonstrators gathered for a 16th straight night to call for more police accountability.
Organizers Sarah Williams and April Taylor, both 37, were arrested after the protest and charged them with second-degree inciting a riot and second-degree disorderly conduct, according to Lexington police. Police also charged both sisters with resisting arrest, according to a news release from police Sunday.
Taylor said in a Facebook post that five police cars “swooped up” as Williams was leaving the gathering and arrested her. A video on Taylor’s Facebook page showed her walking with a small group of people on Limestone Street as they asked for someone to come pick them up, when officers on bicycles rode up and arrested Taylor outside Soundbar.
Police accuse Taylor of “moving barricades and talking other protesters into crossing past the barricade in an effort to obstruct law enforcement operations.”
Police also charged Taylor with third-degree terroristic threatening and accuse her of yelling at, shoving and hitting another protester with a megaphone, and “telling officers that she was going to get a gun and kill all of them,” police said in a release to the media Sunday.
Williams was charged with inciting a riot on the basis of the accusation that she incited others “to go past the barricades for the purpose of arrest,” police said in the release Sunday.
A Facebook post by the Lexington Housing Justice Collective early Sunday said Williams was arrested ”while she was walking peacefully to her car to go home.” It added that some protesters went to get Taylor’s car “and were arrested, then cops followed her and arrested her. Protestors were TRYING TO DISPERSE.”
Most of the other people arrested during the protest were charged with second-degree disorderly conduct and failure to disperse, police said, though one woman had an additional charge of resisting arrest and a man had an additional charge of criminal trespass.
Others charged included Kaulbert Wilson, 19, charged with disorderly conduct, menacing and disregarding a traffic device by a pedestrian, and Precious Taylor, 34, charged with third-degree assault, criminal mischief, two counts of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Police accuse Precious Taylor of trying to interfere with Williams’ arrest, and “actively resisted arrest and directly kicked an officer, causing injury to his knee,” police said in Sunday’s news release.
Most of the protesters who were arrested crossed a barricade that had been set up on the sidewalk in front of police headquarters and either lay or knelt on the sidewalk during a “die-in” that protesters hoped would last for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd.
As the marchers approached headquarters, police in riot gear came out.
“You will be arrested if you are inside the barrier. Do not resist,” an officer said.
Once the arrests began, officers used zip ties to restrain the protesters’ arms behind their backs. Some protesters walked away with officers, while others were carried.
“Don’t resist,” one protester yelled to a woman as officers tried to restrain her arms behind her back.
Before the “die-in” and arrests, protest organizers had called for people who were willing to be arrested to gather for a brief meeting on the courthouse lawn.
Then the entire group marched to police headquarters, where those who had not planned to be arrested lay on the sidewalk outside the barricade in solidarity, later rising to their feet and chanting “no lives matter ‘til Black Lives Matter.”
“We are escalating,” Williams told the crowd earlier in the evening.
Earlier in the day Saturday, protesters had confronted Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers during a march organized by the National Bar Association John Rowe Chapter, and later protesters chanted while Weathers and Mayor Linda Gorton tried to speak during a forum on race at Southland Christian Church.
Williams has been calling for changes to Lexington’s police disciplinary procedures for more than a year. The police collective bargaining agreement, which outlines those procedures, is set to expire June 30.
Herald-Leader reporter Morgan Eads contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 13, 2020 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Updated: 20 protesters arrested in Lexington, including two protest organizers."
