Raleigh and State Capitol police arrest 11 protesters outside Governor’s Mansion

Raleigh and State Capitol police arrested 11 protesters, dragging one of them down Blount Street, on Wednesday morning after they camped for two days outside the Governor’s Mansion downtown.

The group, mostly college-age, opposes SB 168, which they are demanding Gov. Roy Cooper veto to keep records open in cases of people dying in police custody.

Roughly 40 officers filed into the protest about 9 a.m. and demanded that the protesters disperse or face arrest. About a dozen of them had blocked Blount Street, holding a banner that read, “Justice for Soheil,” a reference to Soheil Mojarrad, shot and killed by Raleigh police last year.

One-by-one, police cuffed those in the street with zip ties and led them to the paddywagon as Taari Coleman shouted into a megaphone, “No justice, no peace, abolish RPD!”

The group chanted after her as police stood silent, arms folded.

“I know many of you have never discharged a weapon. ... It’s not that I don’t like you individually, I don’t like what you represent has done to what I represent,” Coleman told the officers. She had been arrested along with three others Tuesday after spraying chalk-paint in the street.

The first protester declined to walk with officers and was pulled down the street by a pair of State Capitol officers. The fifth greeted the fourth as they were loaded into the paddywagon: “What’s up, buddy?”

The eleventh protester arrested also declined to walk with Raleigh officers, who then carried her to the paddywagon. She lay flat on Blount Street, surrounded by officers, shouting, “I do not consent to get in an ambulance!” Soon, police loaded her onto a stretcher and pushed her inside the emergency vehicle.

Protesters had camped across from the Governor’s Mansion starting Monday night. After several warnings from police, they moved to the sidewalk and chanted toward the governor, but police made no arrests except during the street painting.

They sat on pillows in the middle of the road Wednesday as officers blocked off traffic.

At 8:30 a.m., protesters began shouting toward the mansion, “Roy! Roy! Cooper! Wakey wakey!”

One protester held a Krispy-Kreme doughnut and brushed his hand over it, trying to wave the aroma toward the waiting police.

“Oink oink defund the police!” they chanted. “Whose sidewalk? Our sidewalk!”

As the arrests pushed into double digits, one Raleigh officer smiled and asked a protester on the sidewalk, “How are you?”

“I’m pretty (expletive) sad,” she said. “Are you listening to what she (Coleman) is saying? Do you think this is funny? People fighting for their lives?”

“He’s grinning!” said another protester. “Show us your badge.”

With the streets clear, police left the scene, leaving another two dozen on the sidewalk.

The North Carolina legislature passed Senate Bill 168 nearly unanimously in the early hours of Friday morning. The bill was requested by the Department of Health and Human Services and includes technical revisions to DHHS-related laws, in addition to a provision that would further limit public access to death-investigation records.

In 2019, officer Brett Edwards shot Soheil Mojarrad eight times, an autopsy later found, after responding to a reported theft of a cell phone at the Sheetz station on Rogers Lane.

In a report, District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the officer followed Mojarrad to edge of a shopping center, where he spotted him behind a privacy screen at a sports bar and then pursued him to a grassy area behind the mall, repeatedly ordering him to stop without effect. The officer fired when Mojarrad came toward him screaming with a knife, the report said. No charges were filed.

This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 9:47 AM.