Civil rights attorney tells SLO County DA to drop charges against activist Tianna Arata
Prominent civil rights attorney S. Lee Merritt posted a photo of San Luis Obispo activist Tianna Arata accompanied by what he called a “threat” to his Instagram page on Monday afternoon.
The post, which, as of Tuesday has garnered nearly 8,000 likes, calls on San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow to drop the charges against Arata.
“You have a very small window of time to drop these charges before your county, city and home are bombarded by activist from all over the country,” Merritt wrote in the post.
“Find out if this is an idle threat if you want to,” he added.
Arata, 20, recently became a center of national attention after the San Luis Obispo Police Department asked the county District Attorney’s Office to pursue eight charges against the activist: five felonies and four misdemeanors.
Arata was arrested after a July 21 protest in San Luis Obispo.
“#TiannaArata was arrested for being a protest leader in San Luis Obispo — the most recent example of America’s justice system demonstrating its ability to arrest everyone but the men who murdered #BreonnaTaylor in her bed,” Merritt’s post said.
Merritt represents the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was fatally shot while jogging in a South Georgia neighborhood in February. The attorney is also co-counsel for the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two Black people killed by police in May and March, respectively.
In response to Merritt’s post, San Luis Obispo County Assistant Attorney Eric Dobroth said that his agency’s investigation into Arata’s case and decision of whether to pursue charges will not be “changed by outside pressure.”
“The job of prosecutors is neutrally and thoroughly evaluating the facts of a particular circumstance and applying the law and determining whether or not a crime was committed,” Dobroth said.
“And if we believe a crime was committed — how we’re going to proceed in charging that crime, you know, it very well may be in this case that that we do file,” Dobroth added. “There’s a chance that we don’t. We haven’t reviewed the entirety of the file.”
Arata is scheduled to appear in court for her arraignment on Sept. 3.
In a recent news release, the District Attorney’s Office said it is “anticipated that a decision on whether to file criminal charges will have been made prior to that date.”
The Tribune reached out to Merritt’s office, but he was not available for comment.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Civil rights attorney tells SLO County DA to drop charges against activist Tianna Arata."
