Woman enters plea in SLO tear-gas protest, 4 others to be back in court in December

One San Luis Obispo woman and four other city residents made their second court appearance Thursday in two misdemeanor cases stemming from a June 1 demonstration where police shot tear gas at Black Lives Matter protesters who allegedly failed to disperse.

All five of the protesters arrested June 1 live in the city and are between the ages of 19 and 26 years old, according to the county District Attorney’s Office complaints filed in San Luis Obispo Superior Court in late September.

In the first case, 26-year-old Gianna Stoddard pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing an officer and another of failure to disperse the scene of a riot.

In the second case, co-defendants Henry Popp, 19; and Abigail Landis, Michael Gates and Alexandra Bahramzadehebrahimi, all 22, entered no plea but instead had their arraignments postponed to Dec. 17.

The four are each facing single misdemeanor counts of failure to disperse.

Misdemeanor counts carry a maximum penalty of six months in County Jail and a $1,000 fine.

Each made their appearances via Zoom conference.

Their cases bring to 13 the number of people facing charges in San Luis Obispo County for participating in anti-racism protests.

Eight people, including Black Lives Matter organizer Tianna Arata, are facing a mix of felony and misdemeanor charges related to a July 21 protest in San Luis Obispo, during which the District Attorney’s Office says protesters held motorists “hostage” on Highway 101 and damaged vehicles.

Arata’s case — in which she’s being charged with 13 misdemeanors — has gained national attention thanks to the involvement of the national Black Lives Matter movement and high-profile civil rights attorneys Curtis Briggs and Lee Merritt.

Neither she or her three co-defendants have yet entered pleas, and a defense legal challenge seeking to dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds is scheduled to be heard by Superior Court Judge Matthew Guerrero on Dec. 3.

Ginger Ortiz, a San Luis Obispo defense attorney representing Gates, said Thursday that she is watching Arata’s case closely.

“I think we’re all in the community paying attention to all these cases,” she said. “Any instance of suppressing someone’s First Amendment rights is suppressing all of our First Amendment rights. It impacts everyone.”

What happened at the June 1 protest

On June 1, demonstrators took to downtown San Luis Obispo streets to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. At one point in the afternoon, demonstrators marched onto Highway 101 and blocked traffic for about an hour before returning to city streets.

At about 8 p.m. that evening, after hundreds of protesters stood in a two-hour standoff with authorities near the police station, police in riot gear dispersed the crowd by firing rounds of tear gas and pepper bullets.

No injuries were reported, but jail logs that night showed seven protesters were arrested.

Former Police Chief Deanna Cantrell defended her officers’ tactics at the time.

“I want you to know — and I feel like you do know this — that we support peaceful protest here in San Luis Obispo,” she said at a news conference. “No police chief, no police officer ... wants what happened yesterday to happen.”

Cantrell’s last day with the city was Sept. 30, after she accepted a job in Fairfield.

This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 1:44 PM.