Greater than a month after their arrests, a gaggle of Southern California advocates for avenue distributors are nonetheless being held with out bail whereas awaiting trial on expenses of conspiracy, assault and different violent felonies.
The activists’ protection attorneys argue they’re being singled out by police as a result of they’ve been vocal critics of regulation enforcement. The case illustrates what can occur when zealous protesters take to the streets and their passionate advocacy leads to violence.
Among the many group is 36-year-old Edin Alex Enamorado, who over the previous few years has staged protests outdoors the properties and workplaces of individuals he believes deserve public shaming, both as a result of they have been recorded saying one thing racist or as a result of they have been accused of attacking a avenue vendor.
Enamorado’s model of activism begins with him highlighting a difficulty over Instagram or TikTok, then taking to the streets with a bullhorn to escalate his marketing campaign.
Prosecutors declare the members of the group, known as the Justice 8 by their supporters, are too nice a risk to the neighborhood to be launched on bail. They have been arrested Dec. 14 after a multi-agency police investigation, and all however one have remained in jail since then.
Protection attorneys argue that the San Bernardino County district legal professional’s workplace branded the defendants co-conspirators merely for exercising their 1st Modification rights and organizing their efforts over social media or textual content messages.
The conspiracy cost is “regardless of the prosecution needs it to be,” protection legal professional Dan Chambers mentioned in court docket. He admonished the prosecution for treating the activists as a “roving mob.”
The six folks arrested alongside Enamorado and his accomplice, Wendy Lujan, 40, have been David Chavez, 28; Stephanie Amesquita, 33; Gullit Eder Acevedo, 30; Edwin Pena, 26; Fernando Lopez, 44; and Vanessa Carrasco, 40.
The group is accused of intimidating and attacking folks in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties in three separate incidents in September. In every case, authorities allege, the activists have been staging a protest when the targets of or bystanders to the motion have been threatened or overwhelmed.
American Civil Liberties Union legal professional Emerson Sykes is unfamiliar with the specifics of the case towards the Justice 8, however he mentioned that arrests following a protest are nothing new and usually serve their very own objective.
“Civil disobedience is a time-honored custom whereby folks knowingly and willfully violate legal guidelines, whether or not they imagine they’re unjust or to spotlight different injustices, and willfully endure the results of violating the regulation to make their authorized level, their ethical level and their moral level,” Sykes mentioned.
However generally protests result in arrests for illegal actions that adopted of their wake. And who may be held accountable for these illegal acts is a tough query to untangle, Sykes mentioned.
Following the 2020 homicide of George Floyd in 2020, for instance, there was a large uptick in protests throughout the nation towards police violence that then resulted in an aggressive crackdown by regulation enforcement, Sykes mentioned. Conspiracy, rioting and different expenses have been filed towards protesters although they won’t have been concerned with the violence or property destruction that occurred afterward.
In one other instance, a Louisiana court docket dominated {that a} Baton Rouge police officer hit by a rock throughout a 2016 Black Lives Matter protest march may sue its chief, DeRay Mckesson, a outstanding civil rights activist. The fifth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals upheld a decrease court docket’s ruling, discovering that the officer’s lawsuit doesn’t violate the first Modification and Mckesson could possibly be accountable for damages; the ACLU has appealed the ruling to the Supreme Courtroom.
“We expect this can be a horrible line of argumentation that might have a devastating and chilling impact on protesters,” Sykes mentioned.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Regulation Faculty, shouldn’t be accustomed to the proof towards Enamorado, however he says there is no such thing as a 1st Modification safety “for partaking in assault.”
“That isn’t a 1st Modification subject,” mentioned Chemerinsky, who joined in a authorized temporary to overturn the decrease court docket’s ruling within the Mckesson case.
Advocating for using pressure or violence doesn’t take away somebody’s proper to free speech, however there needs to be some confirmed particular intent, Chemerinsky added.
Like Mckesson, Enamorado would usually subject calls to his lots of of 1000’s of social media followers to affix protests, reaching individuals who won’t in any other case hear about violence towards avenue distributors or extreme makes use of of pressure by police.
“Social media supplies a further type of civic engagement,” mentioned Chris Zepeda-Millán, chair of Labor Research at UCLA. “Some folks won’t be snug in crowds, however now we have to ask ourselves, does that imply they shouldn’t take part in any respect in public dialogue and politics?”
Enamorado’s model of activism manages to bridge the hole between individuals who solely have interaction with activism by means of social media and those that need to bodily be on the streets, mentioned Zepeda-Millán, however it’s unclear if one results in the opposite.
A whole bunch of supporters crammed into the Victorville courthouse, roughly 75 miles east of Los Angeles, in late December to listen to the case towards the eight activists. Many wore T-shirts that learn “Free the Justice 8” and “Stand Up Battle Again.”
“I love Alex as a result of he’s the kind of man who fundraises for the individuals who don’t at all times have a voice. He’s in a position to give them hope,” mentioned Alfonso Grijalva, who drove a number of hours from Stockton and slept on a sofa the night time earlier than to attend one of many hearings. Lots of Enamorado’s supporters confer with him by his center identify.
After a number of hours of argument by protection attorneys and the prosecution, seven of the eight activists have been denied bail.
“That’s not the Alex I do know,” Grijalva mentioned, unmoved by the prosecution’s framing of Enamorado as a risk. “A lot about serving to folks is displaying up. That’s what Alex is about.”
San Bernardino County Superior Courtroom Choose Melissa Rodriguez granted bail to Acevedo, 30, who was current at a protest in Victorville and charged with assault. That cost was later diminished to a misdemeanor.
She ordered him to not contact any of the co-defendants within the case whereas out on bail and barred him from utilizing social media.
Nicholas Rosenberg, Enamorado’s legal professional, mentioned his consumer would comply with related stipulations if the court docket allowed him to submit bail and await trial beneath home arrest.
“Now we have activists sitting in jail with no bail,” Rosenberg mentioned. “It’s frequent for a court docket to subject home arrest, however not a social media block.”
Authorities say the fees towards the eight stem from three incidents that concerned way more than activism:
- After sharing a video of a safety guard attacking a gaggle of avenue distributors, Enamorado and different activists confronted the guard on Sept. 3 as he sat in his automobile after which once more when he approached the group as they protested outdoors a Pomona grocery store the place he labored. Prosecutors allege that the guard was later overwhelmed contained in the market and pepper sprayed by a few of those self same activists.
- On Sept. 24, Enamorado and different protesters blocked the doorway to a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s station in Victorville, prosecutors allege, and no less than one off-duty sheriff’s deputy felt threatened when the group approached his civilian car. The group’s rally targeted on a deputy accused of body-slamming a 16-year-old lady at a highschool soccer sport.
- One other two males who have been merely in shut proximity to the protesters have been additionally attacked, prosecutors allege. One was at a Pomona police station on Sept. 3, and the opposite confronted protesters as they walked in entrance of his spouse’s automobile close to a automobile wash in Victorville on Sept. 24.
- In 2017, Enamorado was recognized by Los Angeles regulation enforcement as the topic in a sexual assault investigation, in line with a redacted doc supplied to The Instances beneath a California Public Information Act request. However the sufferer declined to cooperate or press expenses, so the matter was dropped.
Years earlier than the court docket listening to, Enamorado knocked on doorways to register voters in predominantly Latino neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.
In 2016, Enamorado registered voters for the Latino Voters League beneath the Southwest Voter Registration Training Mission.
Coachella Metropolis Councilman Neftalia Galarza, Enamorado’s former supervisor on the voter registration challenge, recollects that canvassers have been paid hourly and never by the signature. However Enamorado at all times returned with stacks of newly registered voters.
“Anybody who has accomplished this kind of canvassing work is aware of it’s not straightforward. You’re going as much as a stranger’s house and asking for private data,” Galarza mentioned.
Over time, he watched Enamorado’s model of civic engagement develop into activism. Galarza believes that Enamorado is being made an instance of by regulation enforcement who need to maintain him accountable for his years as an activist.
“It needs to be regarding for all of us over what’s occurring to Alex,” Galarza mentioned.
Enamorado and the opposite activists will seem in court docket Friday for an additional bail listening to.
