Little Rock Police Department officers threatened volunteers with arrest as they attempted to gather signatures Thursday on public property at an event held by the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission.
According to at least one officer involved, the directive to prevent canvassers from collecting signatures came from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The MLK Commission, which is under the aegis of the Arkansas Department of Education, announced last week it would host a food giveaway at the commission’s offices on Ninth Street to combat food insecurity in the community.
Multiple groups are collecting voter signatures this year in an effort to place proposed initiatives on the ballot this November — including measures on education, public transparency, abortion, medical marijuana and more — and events such as this one are a prime opportunity for canvassers to speak to voters.
Volunteers representing several groups arrived around the start time of the MLK Commission event at 11 a.m. A short time later, LRPD officers informed volunteers that signature gathering was “not allowed” at this event, per a directive from the governor.
Volunteer Veronica McClane, who was collecting signatures for a measure to restore abortion rights in Arkansas, posted this video of one interaction with LRPD on Facebook:
The video shows LRPD Officer Christopher Tollette telling McClane, “This is the third set of petitioners that have come, so what I’m telling everybody to do — if you don’t want to believe what the governor says — you’re more than welcome to go to the Martin Luther King Commission.”
When asked what specifically the governor ordered, Tollette said, “The Martin Luther King Commission said you do not have permission to do this” before adding, “I’d be more than happy to arrest you for obstruction” as he walked away.
McClane pressed Tollette for more information, asking under what authority Tollette was telling the canvassers they had to leave public property. His answer was interesting, both for demonstrating how little he understands about the law and because of what he said, again, about the governor:
As an officer of the police department, I’m telling you that Governor Sanders and the Martin Luther King Commission, they don’t want nobody out here with petitions. That’s what I already said. Everybody else was semi-peaceful, they said, “Hey, I don’t necessarily believe you, but I’ll go talk to the head of the commission.” But if we’re gonna do this, what may end up happening is you may get arrested, ok?
Think about that for just a second. A police officer is telling a volunteer who is engaging in constitutionally protected acts on public property that she has to leave because the governor doesn’t want her there, and if she doesn’t she could be arrested.
This should either (A) frighten you, if you assume the officer is clueless about what the Constitution does and does not protect, or (B) enrage you, if you assume he does know better and is just following orders. Neither answer is acceptable.
McClane said other cops on site also specifically mentioned the governor, but none of them were talking by the time I was there.
By the time media arrived, Tollette had moved up the block, closer to the commission offices, while volunteers were speaking to Assistant Chief Andre Dyer. Dyer, apparently armed with more sense than the rest of the officers on the scene, told the volunteers that they could gather signatures but could not impede the flow of traffic. (No one was impeding the flow of traffic when Tollette and other officers first started telling the volunteers they had to leave.)
After he spoke to the canvassers, I asked Dyer what happened to cause the confusion.
“I don’t think it’s confusion,” he said. “I think some people just have a different interpretation of the law than others, and mine is different than the other officers’.”
What “law” was misinterpreted? I asked.
“I’m not here to talk about laws,” Dyer said.
Then who gave the order to prevent signature gathering?
“I’m not going to talk about who gave any orders,” Dyer said.
Kwami Abdul-Bey, a local organizer and candidate for the state Legislature, was among the first groups of volunteers who were told to contact the MLK Commission if they had any questions about not being able to gather signatures.
“I contacted DuShun Scarborough,” Abdul-Bey said. Scarborough is executive director of the MLK Commission. “He said he was told not to let people gather signatures,” Abdul-Bey said. “He said we had to request permission to canvass at least 20 days in advance.”
While Scarborough did not say who told him not to let people gather signatures, as executive director of the commission, he only answers to Sanders and the head of the education department, Secretary Jacob Oliva. So the list of people who might have told him that is pretty short. Scarborough did not return the Arkansas Times’ request for a comment.
Why would Sanders not have wanted people gathering signatures at this particular event? Perhaps because the governor is explicitly opposed to several of the measures being proposed, and the MLK Commission event was well attended. From the corner of Ninth and State streets, well over a hundred cars were visible in a line, which stretched down State, looped back and had cars standing on the off-ramp from I-630.
Even if the Constitution and common sense won out eventually and volunteers could resume gathering signatures, the fact that officers prevented them from getting even some signatures is an outrage. At this point, I don’t expect Sarah Sanders to give a damn about the Constitution or the law. I do — or at least I should be able to — expect police to know an obviously unconstitutional directive when they see one. The LRPD standing ready and willing to arrest law-abiding citizens for exercising their rights isn’t something that anyone should be OK with, regardless of your political bent.
A request for comment from the governor’s office was not returned.