2 dismissals, 1 not guilty in saga of Durham Confederate statue
Defense attorneys for the group of people charged with pulling down a Durham Confederate monument tried to poke holes in the state's case against them Monday, arguing that the statue toppled on Aug. 14 was a symbol of white supremacy and an affront to the Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
Prosecutors stuck to the letter in their claim that eight remaining defendants are guilty of defacing a public building or monument, conspiracy to deface a public building or monument and injury to real property. The charges are misdemeanors.
District Court Judge Frederick S. Battaglia, Jr. dismissed charges against two of the defendants – Dante Emmanuel Strobino, 35, and Peter Hull Gilbert, 39 – saying prosecutors had not proven that they were among those involved in knocking the statue over.
Outside the courtroom, Strobino did not explicitly admit his involvement, but he voiced support for those seeking to remove Confederate statues nationwide.
“We’re going to keep building our movement to fight white supremacy and to take all the statues down,” he said.
“We organized and built a movement because we had to. Sometimes folks have to take risks to challenge unjust laws.”
By the end of the business day, another defendant, Raul Jimenez, was acquitted. Five others have yet to stand trial.
Scott Holmes, in defending Jimenez, called the statue itself a crime.
"This is not about a public monument," Holmes said, "but about government hate speech. It was a crime to erect it and a crime to have it stand there."
A group of protesters took to the streets just moments after the announcement that Jimenez had been found not guilty, demanding the same outcome for the remaining defendants.
"The statue, for these folks, represented racial terrorist and intimidation, you know, like going every day to work, to the county courthouse to register to vote and seeing a symbol of the Confederacy," said activist Eva Panjwani.
The march began at the exact spot where the toppled statue once stood and in the crowd was the mother of Takiyah Thompson, the woman seen climbing the statue in videos that have now gone viral.
"I'm here for my daughter and her comrades, to get all the charges dropped or dismissed," Mikisa Thompson said.
The march continued for several blocks, arriving at the courthouse just as Jimenez exited as a free man.
"This is a reminder that tearing down a monument for white supremacy is not a crime," he said.
In a statement, Sheriff Mike Andrews justified the charges, saying, “While I appreciate the strong emotions surrounding this issue, the Sheriff’s Office has done its job. We applied the law for the removal and damage of public property just as we would in any other case. It’s up to the court system to decide what happens next."
Holmes praised the defendants and compared their actions to those of the young, black men who sat at an all-white lunch counter to spur desegregation.
"It was a public nuisance, it was a threat to public safety," he said of the Confederate statue. "They have not damaged anything. They have improved our city."
Before finding Jimenez not guilty, Battaglia said, "You can't pick and choose which is to stay and which is to not stay.
"Where does one draw the line? ... The issue in this case is whether or not this defendant is guilty of this charge."
In presenting evidence against Stobino, Gilbert and Jimenez, the prosecution relied heavily on video that captured the chants, crowds and actions of that day.
The first witness to take the stand described seeing people massed around the statue in front of the former Durham County Courthouse and telling her son, "This is about to get real."
Video that Stacy Murphy recorded on her cellphone and posted to Facebook was eventually published by The Washington Post in reporting on the event.
Ed Miller, a security manager for Durham County, also referred to "what's written on the memorial" as his basis for describing the statue as a Confederate monument. Miller was on duty at the time of the protest and he, too, videotaped the crowd and the toppling of the statue.
He described the crowd as "at least 100-plus people who appeared to be protesting that monument."
From his vantage point, Miller said he saw people bring a ladder to climb the monument's base and straps with which they pulled the statue down.
Holmes put on no defense for Jimenez, relying instead on his argument against the statue itself.
Five still face trial
Takiyah Fatima Thompson, who climbed the statue, was the first to be arrested.
During an Aug. 14 protest – days after a violent clash in Charlottesville, Va., over a plan to remove a Confederate statue there – demonstrators used a ladder to scale the base of the Confederate statue in front of the former Durham County Courthouse, put a strap around it and pulled it to the ground, where it crumpled in a heap of metal.
Others facing charges of defacing a public building or monument, conspiracy to deface a public building or monument and injury to real property are:
Elena Everett, 36,
Jessica Nicole Jude,
Qasima Wideman,
Joseph Karlik
The remaining defendants are expected to appear in court on April 2.
