ALABAMA – A Mobile woman who smashed the window of a police car during a protest has been convicted.
Tia Pugh, 22, was charged after a May 31, 2020 protest in downtown Mobile over the death of George Floyd. Protestors were attempting to make their way onto the I-10 ramp, which was blocked off by Mobile Police Department officials.
Floyd was brought up multiple times during the trial by George Armstrong, one of Pugh’s lawyers. Armstrong said that May 31 ended up being the most important day of her life.
“Pugh admitted to [breaking the window] and doing it on purpose, but this case is more than that,” Armstrong said.
Pugh was charged under the “Civil Obedience Act,” created during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Her case is one of the cases to go to court after former President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr called for a crackdown following last summer’s wave of protests.
Armstrong argued earlier this year that the law “was born out of a racist backlash to the civil rights movement and gives prosecutors too much discretion to charge almost anyone engaged in a heated confrontation with police during a public demonstration,” according to Politico.
Pugh’s actions, Armstrong said, did not meet the criteria for being a federal crime because Pugh was acting alone when she smashed the window.
Another point that was argued about during the trial besides whether or not the protest was considered peaceful or otherwise was if Pugh’s actions disrupted interstate traffic.
The prosecution brought up an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Paul Roche about the impacts the May protest had on downtown traffic. In the affidavit, Roche said that the protesters’ presence on the Water Street on-ramp forced the MPD to close both the on-ramp to Westbound I-10 from Water Street and Exit 26B Eastbound for safety reasons.
Due to the closure, commercial vehicles transporting hazardous materials to take a 19.5 mile detour. The prosecution also brought up how one protestor who was laying down in the middle of the road forced a Family Dollar 18-wheeler truck to stop in the middle of the road.
The issue of whether or not somebody was in the police vehicle at the time of the window smashing was also a point of contention.
Armstrong pointed out how the police report said that only the owner of the police cruiser was near it at the time and nobody was in it, but when witnesses were questioned about whether or not somebody was inside of it, nobody could give a definitive answer.
“If somebody else was in the car, it would’ve been in the report,” Armstrong said. “The FBI didn’t bother to ask.”
Opening statements in Pugh’s trial began around 2 p.m. Monday, after a failed attempt to get her trial moved to September. Armstrong attempted to argue that the statute used in her case “was born out of a racist backlash to the civil rights movement”.
