No plea entered in Tianna Arata case as 3 additional protesters appear in court
Black Lives Matter activist Tianna Arata joined her three newly charged co-defendants in their first San Luis Obispo Superior Court appearances Thursday, with each new defendant requesting more time to review charges against them with their attorneys before entering pleas.
After the hearing, the four activists — who face a host of misdemeanor charges stemming from a controversial July 21 protest that blocked traffic on Highway 101 — joined hundreds of supporters outside the courthouse to denounce the District Attorney’s Office’s prosecution in their case and the case against three other protesters charged separately.
Protesters and a series of speakers, including all four of Thursday’s defendants, focused their outrage on elected county District Attorney Dan Dow.
More than a hundred people were already gathered outside the courthouse before it opened at 8 a.m., and the crowd grew steadily to about 300 as the hour progressed.
Arata, who was arrested immediately following the July 21 protest, is facing 13 misdemeanors including false imprisonment, obstructing a public thoroughfare, and resisting arrest. Her co-defendants, Amman Asfaw, Marcus Montgomery and Joshua Powell, are facing between one and three misdemeanors each.
Arata and Powell appeared in court in person, and Steve Rice and Brian Buckley, managing attorneys with the Public Defender’s Office, were appointed to represent Powell. Montgomery and Asfaw appeared via Zoom, and have hired private attorneys Matthew Janowicz and Earl Conaway.
The purpose of the hearing was three-fold: to have a ruling by Superior Court Judge Matthew Guerrero on a defense demurrer that seeks to dismiss the case, to consider a defense request for a gag order against the San Luis Obispo Police Department and CHP, and to accept pleas from each defendant.
Because the three new defendants just acquired counsel, Guerrero postponed making a decision on the demurrer and gag order, so that Asfaw, Montgomery, and Powell — who were charged last Friday, along with three other protesters in a separate case stemming from the same July 21 demonstration — have time to discuss the case and choose whether to join in Arata’s defense’s motions.
A further arraignment hearing and a hearing on those motions were continued to Dec. 3.
Guerrero also told the parties that while he is scheduled to rotate to family court in January, he will continue to preside over the case through its conclusion.
Rally held after driver denies being a ‘victim’ of protest
In late September, Arata’s attorneys filed the motion to dismiss the case based on First Amendment grounds, claiming she was singled out among the hundreds of mostly white protesters. They also filed a request for a gag order to prevent police and CHP from continuing to make allegedly inaccurate and inappropriate statements to the public about the case.
Deputy District Attorney Delaney Henretty, the prosecutor in Arata’s case, filed a response to the defense last week, arguing that Arata can’t claim freedom of speech protections if she violates the safety and liberty of others “because of her animosity and hatred for the police.”
All four co-defendants are facing misdemeanors in the case. Each misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of six months in County Jail and a $1,000 fine.
Many of the charges in the case stem from confrontations between protesters and motorists. Though witnesses said some drivers were the aggressors and at least two actually struck marchers, no motorist faces any charges in connection with the July 21 protest.
Thursday’s events came hours after The Tribune reported that a motorist from the highway who is considered a victim in one charge against Arata and Montgomery sent a letter to Henretty Wednesday saying he disagrees with that designation and that a DA’s Office investigator was inappropriate in his line of questioning during an interview.
The recent news was among several topics discussed during a roughly three-hour-long rally and protest in support of the defendants after the hearing, in which Dow was accused of being a racist, a taxpayer money-spending bureaucrat, and a supporter of hate groups.
Speakers noted Dow previously appeared on a radio program hosted by an anti-LGBTQ organization that’s been labeled a hate group, to discuss his “sanctuary county” policy on singing in church, as well as his speaking at a fundraiser for a fringe California secessionist group that featured far-right Black Lives Matter critic Candace Owens.
At one point in the protest, an unidentified man was seen walking the periphery of the crowd while waving a Knights Templar-style flag, which is widely recognized as a symbol of modern white supremacy.
While past protests over the case have also decried the actions of former San Luis Obispo Police Chief Deanna Cantrell — who made the call to arrest Arata and left the city last month to take a new job in Fairfield — and county Sheriff Ian Parkinson, attendees at Thursday’s event were clearly outraged by Dow personally, as well as the actions of his office.
Speakers such as Rev. Steven Vines of the local NAACP chapter encouraged “the biggest voting block” to participate in the Nov. 3 presidential election and to keep protests peaceful, but others were more strident in their addresses
Curtis Briggs, one of Arata’s attorneys, also spoke and thanked everyone for their attendance, noting that people of color are walking into courthouses every day without any support.
“You’re all the heroes here. When we walked in today, all of you were cheering,” Briggs said. “That means a lot.”
Briggs told the crowd that “we won this battle today,” because “there are hundreds of people here fighting for the cause and we have one person to thank — Dan Dow.”
He said that Dow has given locals in a predominantly white county the energy to “completely derail” his political career.
“There’s a much bigger picture here,” he said. “He’s playing checkers, and we’re playing chess.”
He said the movement’s biggest threat is Dow’s voter base, which he characterized as backward-leaning and overwhelmingly white.
Briggs concluded by saying that Dow “is a felon” — a chant picked up by the crowd — because of one of the motorists’ allegations that an investigator attempted to sway his statements, which Briggs said amounts to perjury.
SLO County Democratic Party Chair Rita Casaverde went a step further, calling Dow a “b—h ass prima dona,” quoting lyrics from a song that played over the loudspeaker earlier.
“Dan Dow is just a reaction like a nasty rash,” Casaverde told the crowd to cheers.
Defendants speak
The four defendants in court Thursday also each addressed the crowd. Powell — who goes by J.P. — discussed what he called the hypocrisy of the District Attorney’s Office charging protesters but not motorists who hit them with cars.
Powell pledged that the case against him would not keep him from taking to the streets to exercise his First Amendment rights.
Montgomery agreed, saying he’s “fully invested” in the movement and is “fighting for something I believe in.”
“I will die figuring this problem out or I will die having helped figure this out,” Montgomery said of the systemic racism he called a driving force in their case.
Asfaw — who is chair of the city’s newly formed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force — said he’s been able to maintain his characteristic upbeat demeanor over recent days through his faith and recited several Bible passages to the crowd.
Arata was among the final speakers and told the crowd that the four are “being persecuted by those who don’t believe in our cause, those who are trying every way possible to silence us, as if we are still in bondage.”
She alleged that the district attorney has not agreed to discuss protesters’ concerns outside of his supporters.
“I’m just speaking for me, but I haven’t lived my whole life being Black — dealing with that socially, systemically, in infrastructure — to just be silent (to) a bunch of people that don’t understand our message, who don’t understand the meaning, and won’t even take the time to meet anybody to discuss what we’re fighting for,” Arata said.
.jpg "FullSizeR(1).jpg")
She said recent weeks have been an “incredibly uncomfortable time” for many of the attendees in the crowd.
“And it’s going to continue to be uncomfortable, but you have to settle into that. Life should never be comfortable.”
The three other protesters charged Friday over vehicle incidents on Highway 101 — Jerad Hill, Sam Grocott and Robert Lastra — are due in court for their initial arraignment hearing Nov. 16.
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 8:59 AM.
