Folks protested the SWAT killing of Duncan Lemp this morning at Montgomery County Police Headquarters. Lemp family members showed up regardless of the county prosecutor’s threat that they might be arrested for violating Gov. Hogan’s ban on “non-essential” activities during the pandemic. Roughly 25 to 30 folks showed up; to their credit, the police did not seek to disperse the protest because it exceeded the “ten people or fewer” Hogan guideline. Police gave a couple warnings to attendees not to block the entrance road to police headquarters and not to openly carry knives; police were civil and I did not see any clashes during the time I was there.
I have written three stories on the Lemp killing thus far, including Duncan Lemp’s Parents Threatened with Jail for Protesting his Killing, The Mystery Deepens Over the Pre-Dawn Police Killing of Duncan Lemp, and Did Maryland Police Shoot and Kill a Sleeping Man? More to follow.
UPDATE: Three of the atteendees were arrested after the event finished. Posted below is the comment from “Allegheny Rescue,” one of the protest organizers, on the arrests – which he said were not linked to the protest. I have not seen other comments on the arrests yet.
UPDATE #2: Looking at the Montgomery County Daily Arrest docket, it appears that one person was arrested at the protest for “Possession of firearm at public demonstration.” A second arrest is probably also one of the demonstrators, ‘rifle/shotgun possession disqualification.” At least one of the organizers had encouraged people to bring firearms to the event, despite Maryland law prohibiting firearms at protests. So almost 10% of attendees were arrested. (Initial reports were that three people were arrested who had attended the protest.) There were roughly a thousand times as many people who showed up to protest for gun rights in Richmond in January with zero arrests.
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