ACLU, Memphis Police Trial Reveals Public Surveillance

And although the consent decree is 40 years old, Castelli said that the trial would only look at a “snapshot in time”: The spring of 2015 to the spring of 2017. During that time, several notable protests occurred, including when protesters stopped traffic from crossing the Mississippi River on Interstate 40, protests at an oil refinery, the city zoo and at Graceland.

Meanwhile, Buckner Wellford of the firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell and Berkowitz presented the city’s opening arguments. It would contest issues of standing and throughout the case try to explain the motivations of the city’s police department, which, Wellford said, was to enforce the laws of Tennessee and the local ordinances.

But as Wellford attempted to pull up a copy of the city’s permit ordinance which enumerated what the police director’s duties were when it came to public demonstrations, U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla stopped him.

While the judge said he would give the city some leeway in presenting evidence, “We want to stay focused as much as we can on the decree and what the city did,” the judge said.

Wellford said during July 2016 the city experienced some of the most tumultuous times not seen since the shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel a half century ago. At that time, the Pulse Nightclub Shooting happened and Memphis was trying to maintain safety during its own Gay Pride events.

Around the same time on July 10, the city saw a celebration of Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Meanwhile, national events were crystallizing in the city. In 2015, Memphis police shot and killed Darrius Stewart, a 19-year-old black man. Wellford said the city’s police officers grew on edge with the news of police shootings.

During the first day of trial, Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, who worked as a detective in the city’s Office of Homeland Security, took to the stand to explain how the city viewed private Facebook posts and groups through an undercover account. It was primarily operated by Reynolds under the alias “Bob Smith.”

On Oct. 3, 2016, the Bob Smith account indicated that it might attend an event titled “North Memphis Voter Registration.”

Amanda Strickland Floyd, attorney for the ACLU, asked why that event. What was the intent of showing that Bob Smith was interested in a voter registration event?

There was nothing particular about it, Reynolds said, just the intent to seem like the account was active.

The Shelby County Police Department sent out daily joint intelligence briefings. Recipients included people who had email addresses at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the U.S. Navy, a school district and a retired policeman who worked at FedEx.

One briefing noted in a bullet point that Black Lives Matter was holding a community cookout at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church.

Information for the brief, Reynolds said in his testimony, came from news reports, social media, and information gleamed from the fake account.

But even as police officers take the stand to detail the Memphis Police Department’s activities surrounding protests and Black Lives Matter movement in the city that lies on the bank of the Mississippi, there is a kill switch in the trial that could bring it to a halt; A question of standing.

The original complaint lists one of the plaintiffs as “The American Civil Liberties Union in West Tennessee Inc.”

During cross examination of Weinberg, Memphis’ attorney Jennie Silk attempted to show that the plaintiff in the original case of the 1970 is a wholly separate organization than the ACLU of Tennessee of today. If it is, and if it stopped existing at some point, then the ACLU might not have standing to bring the case.

Before and after the court adjourned for lunch, McCalla made what he admitted was an ironic announcement in a case about taping and filming people: Federal rules prevent the broadcasting of court proceedings. Photographing and taping the proceedings in the courtroom has a chilling effect, McCalla said, because it has “an adverse effect on anybody in terms of testimony.”

The trial continues on Tuesday.

Follow @jcksndnl

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit