Police in Georgia on Thursday night forcibly arrested a Black woman state legislator peacefully and nonviolently protesting the governor signing a new law that increases statewide voting restrictions expected to disproportionately affect Black people.
Video footage showed Democratic Rep. Park Cannon being handcuffed and literally dragged out of the state capitol building because she simply knocked on the office door of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp while he was in the process of signing the controversial legislation. She was charged with two felonies.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Cannon insisted that the signing of the bill not take place in private and instead should allow the public to witness. Instead, the police not only decided that the best move was to handcuff a sitting state legislator but to also pull her down a hallway as bystanders recorded the arrest and demanded Cannon be freed.
The Georgia State Patrol — the law enforcement agency that arrested Cannon — did not express any misgivings for the high-profile arrest and the damning optics that dragging a handcuffed Black elected official would present.
“She was advised that she was disturbing what was going on inside and if she did not stop, she would be placed under arrest,” Georgia State Patrol spokesperson Lt. W. Mark Riley told the Journal-Constitution. “Rep. Cannon refused to stop knocking on the door.”
A Journal-Constitution reporter tweeted two separate warrants for Cannon’s arrest, one of which claimed she was “kicking” an officer with her heels.
While Cannon wasn’t charged with assault, she was charged with “Preventing or Disrupting General Assembly Sessions or Other Meetings or Members” and “Willful Obstruction Of Law Enforcement Officers By Use Of Threats Or Violence. Both are felony charges.
This is a developing story that will be updated as additional information becomes available.
SEE ALSO:
Republicans Propose Several Bills Aimed At Suppressing The Vote In Georgia
Police Forcibly Arrest Black Woman Legislator For Protesting Georgia’s New Voter Suppression Laws was originally published on newsone.com